Saturday, February 10, 2018

February 10, 2018 … Always There!

Berry Patch Devotions in 2017 - Day 41 

Devotional Song: … GO TO THIS LINK …   Please take the time to take in a YouTube video with song and lyrics with Twila Paris singing … God Is All Around Us … poignantly singing of the reality that there is nowhere we can go to be separated, as Christians, from the love of our God.


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Highlight Verse[s]: Psalm 139:7-8 [NKJV] … 7  Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? 8  If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there. 
… Nowhere to go to be away from our God!
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Highlight Passage [context]: Psalm 139:7-12 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK
… David knew there was nowhere he could go to get away from the presence/power of the Lord. 
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Reference Passage : … Romans 8:38-39 [NKJV] … 8 We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord. 
 … God’s assurance is that those in Christ will be with Him in glory.

Reference Passage : … 2 Corinthians 5:8 [NKJV] … 38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, 39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. 
 … NOTHING can separate a born-again believer from the love of God … not even death!

Reference Passage : … Hebrews 13:5 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK … 5 Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” 
… God will always be with us … even when we cannot sense His presence

My Devotional Journal: Today's ODB author, Dave Branon, used a very personal reference to a lost loved one to illustrate God’s omnipresence and the presence of his loved one with God. The ODB author wrote: A family friend who, like us, lost a teenager in a car accident wrote a tribute to her daughter, Lindsay, in the local paper. One of the most powerful images in her essay was this: After mentioning the many pictures and remembrances of Lindsay she had put around their house, she wrote, “She is everywhere, but nowhere.” 
Although our daughters still smile back at us from their photos, the spirited personalities that lit up those smiles are nowhere to be found. They are everywhere—in our hearts, in our thoughts, in all those photos—but nowhere. 

When we, who are in Christ, lose a loved one, perhaps a child as with the ODB author, we certainly sense deep loss. However, our faith in the reality of the truth of God’s omnipresence and HIs promises to take all who are in Christ to be with Him in glory, softens the loss with the realization that we have not really LOST our loved ones.

I pray that any reading here hold on the reality that there is nowhere we can go to be separate from the love of God (see Ps. 139 and Rom. 8 passages; and that when we or any Christian loved one is lost to us in the living, that one is forever in the presence of King Jesus, where we will join them in glory.

Do I sense a resounding HALLELUJAH!! 

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My THANKFULNESS: … Oh Lord, Jesus, thank You for Your constant presence. 
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My Prayer Today: Abba Father, … King Jesus, … Precious Spirit … I’m so thankful for the knowledge and faith that you are ALWAYS with me. . … Amen

Blogger Note:  Everyday during this year, my daily devotional blogs are influenced by the reading and study of the online devotional blog entitled “Our Daily Bread,” distributed online via email by RBC Ministries.  If you GO TO THIS LINK on the date of my blog, you can read/study the ODB blogs; or you can subscribe to the blog via email at that site.

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