Devotional Song: … GO TO THIS LINK … Please take the time to take in a YouTube video of images and song of Ray Stevens singing his hit song … Everything Is Beautiful … poignantly singing of how God sees all who are part of His faithful family.
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Highlight Verse[s]: Psalm 8:4-5 [NLT] … 4 … what are mere mortals that you should think about them, human beings that you should care for them? 5 Yet you made them only a little lower than God and crowned them with glory and honor.
… God created mankind in His own image … and crowned them with His glory.
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Highlight Passage [context]: Psalm 8 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK …
… King David sings of God’s glory being reflected in mankind - His crowning glory.
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Reference Passage : … Genesis 1:27 [NLT] … 27 So God created human beings in His own image. In the image of God He created them; male and female He created them.
… We were created in God’s images for His glory.
Reference Passage : … Psalms 139:13-14 [NLT] … 13 You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous— how well I know it.
… David sings of how God made us to be wonderful images of Himself. And that’s how we should see ourselves.
Reference Passage : … Luke 16:15 [NLT] … 15 Then He said to them [the Pharisees], “You like to appear righteous in public, but God knows your hearts. What this world honors is detestable in the sight of God.
… Jesus called the Pharisees out with their false attitudes about beauty and righteousness.
Reference Passage : … Romans 12:2 [NLT] … 2 Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.
… Paul recognized and taught that we should not let the world dictate what is God’s will for our lives.
My Devotional Journal: Today's ODB author, Leslie Koh, uses a story about a friend view of her own image and how it became so influenced by the was the world sees beauty. The ODB author wrote: When Denise began dating her boyfriend, she attempted to maintain a slim figure and dress stylishly, believing she would be more attractive to him in that way. [see photo] After all, it was what all the women’s magazines advised. It was only much later that she discovered what he really thought: “I liked you just as much when you were heavier and didn’t worry about what you wore.”
Denise realized then how subjective “beauty” was. Our view of beauty is so easily influenced by others. It’s often focused on the external, forgetting the value of inner beauty. But God sees us in only one way—as His beautiful, beloved children.
It’s true, isn’t it; … that we are way too influenced by the world when it comes to the image of ourselves and others? But what is God’s image of the crowning glory of His creation … mankind? Well, it’s simply that He created us in His own image (see Gen. 1:27). And yes, we are fallen creatures; but we are still created by God as His crowning masterpiece [see Ps. 139:13-14] … to be reflections of His image in the world.
And as long as we don’t let the world dictate our image (see Luke 16:15 and Rom. 12:2), we can revel in the reality of what Ray Stevens sings in the linked song … that “everyone is beautiful in God’s eyes” … at least those who are part of His family of faithful.
So, I pray my readers join me to realize how we are seen in God’s eyes and we reflect that light and image into an ever-darkening and distorted world.
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My THANKFULNESS: … Oh Abba Father, … thank You, Lord, … for creating me (us) in Your images … for Your glory.
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My Prayer Today: Oh Abba Father, … King Jesus, … I pray, Lord, that all reading here can, and will, join me to be the image of Christlikeness in this world today. … 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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