Devotional Song: ... GO TO THIS LINK ... Please take the time to take in song and lyrics from Crowder and Tauren Wells singing All My Hope … poignantly singing of the hope and rest we have in cleansing blood and eternal love our our Savior.
"The Wait" - by Sculptor, Liz Shepherd
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Highlight Verse[s]: Psalm 116:15 [ESV] ... 15 Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.
… As God welcomes His precious saints home, He sees it as a priceless moment of eternal reunion.
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Highlight Passage [context]: Psalm 116:12-19 [ESV] ... USE THIS LINK ...
… God sees the passing of His own - His children - very differently that we so often do.
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Reference Passage : … John 11:25-26 [ESV] … USE THIS LINK …
… Jesus, to Martha, after the death of Lazarus, to give her (and us) the eternal hope of eternal life we have thru our belief in Him.
Reference Passage : … Romans 8:38-39 [ESV] … USE THIS LINK …
… God, thru Paul, shows that even death cannot separate us from God’s love.
Reference Passage : … 2Corinthians 4:17-18 [ESV] … USE THIS LINK …
… The temporary afflictions of this life are simply preparation for the eternal rewards of heaven.
Reference Passage : … 2 Corinthians 5:6-8 [ESV] … 6 So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, 7 for we walk by faith, not by sight. 8 Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.
… We hold out for the eternal hope God has promised us for when we leave this body in death, we will be at home with the Lord … FOREVER.
My Devotional Journal: Today's ODB author, Winn Collier, uses a sculptures depiction of waiting on the death of her father to illustrate how God views the death of His beloved “saints” so differently that we often do. … The ODB author wrote: Sculptor Liz Shepherd’s 2018 exhibition The Wait was described by a Boston Globe correspondent as “evok[ing] the precious, exposed, and transcendent in life.” [see photo] Inspired by the time Shepherd spent at her dying father’s bedside, the exhibition attempts to convey yearning, the emptiness of loss, and the fragile sense that loved ones are just out of reach.
The idea that death is precious might seem counterintuitive; however, the psalmist declares, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his [saints]” (Psalm 116:15). God treasures the death of His people, for in their passing He welcomes them home.
When my earthly father was ailing, … with many painful maladies in his final days, he used to revel when I read for him about what God promised for us (in 1st and 2nd Corinthians) about the new body we would have in heaven and how, when we leave this earth, in our corrupted bodies, we would be with the Lord with a new - perfect and painless - eternal body. It gave my dad great relief to hear those promises from God’s word.
And that’s what I pray we all can hold onto in these days … where the fear of a virus, and potential suffering/death, are so pervasive. We need to be sitting in that sculpture’s chair (see photo), waiting patiently for God’s promised - and true - eternal hope, … the hope we have in our relationship with our Lord (as sung by Crowder in the linked song).
Be patient, my dear fellow Christians, … nothing can - or will - ever separate us from God’s love [Rom. 8:38-39].
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My THANKFULNESS: ... Oh Abba Father, ... thank You, Lord, … for the eternal and heavenly hope we have in You!
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My Prayer Today: Oh Abba Father, ... King Jesus, ... I pray, Lord, that all reading here will join me to patiently wait for the promised hope we have in our eternal relationship with Him. 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.</ span>
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