May 3, 2023 … Weak and Worn Out

Berry Patch Devotions in 2023 - Day 123 

Devotional Song: ... GO TO THIS LINK ...   Please take the time to take in song and lyrics from Steven Curtis Chapman singing … His Strength Is Perfect … poignantly and powerfully singing of how God provides us with His strength to cover our weakness and wanting.   

Worn Out - by Vincent Van Gogh

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Highlight Passage: … 2Corinthians 5:4 [NLT] … 

4 While we live in these earthly bodies, we groan and sigh, but it’s not that we want to die and get rid of these bodies that clothe us. Rather, we want to put on our new bodies so that these dying bodies will be swallowed up by life.  

… Paul encourages fellow Christians that God provides us with His strength to deal with the weakness of our human frailty.                  

Highlight Passage (Context): … 2Corinthians 4:16-:5:5 [NLT] …  USE THIS LINK …  

… Paul exhorts fellow Christians to seek after the strength offered by God’s Spirit when we feel weak in our humanness.                                        .                     

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Reference Passage: … Proverbs 3:5-6 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK … 

… God thru Solomon shows believers that we can trust in God to lead us when we feel lost or discouraged.         

Reference Passage: … Isaiah 41:10 [NLT] … 

10  Don’t be afraid, for I am with you.  Don’t be discouraged, for I am your God.  I will strengthen you and help you..I will hold you up with my victorious right hand.    

… God, thru the Prophet Isaiah, promises His strength to lift up His chosen when we feel weak in our human conditions.     

Reference Passage: … Matthew 11:28-30 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK … 

… Jesus promises His born-again followers His strength, giving our weary souls rest in His strength.           

Reference Passage: … 2Corinthians 5:17 [NLT] … 

17 This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!   

… Paul truthfully promises that new life comes to those who believe in the finished work of Jesus to save those who surrender in faith to follow The Lord.  

Reference Passage: … 2Corinthians 12:9-10 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK … 

… Paul shows how Jesus promises His grace is enough to provide us with His strength to cover our human weakness and suffering.  

                                                                                                                         

My Devotional Journal: Today's Our Daily Bread author, Arthur Jackson … AT THIS LINK … wrote a Pastor Paul who, back in 2015, wrote of his congregation worshipping in a leaky tent-like structure, … writing, …“Our tent is worn out and it is leaking when it rains.”

I know another Kenyan Pastor, also named Paul, who has led thousands in Kenya to the Lord and built many churches in his land to worship Christ.  This Pastor Paul even baptized me in the Jordan River many years ago; and I know that this man of God would encourage all his fellow Christians, as the Apostle Paul did to those he wrote to in Corinth and elsewhere, … that our God promises His Spirit to cover our human frailties, as the Pauline Scriptures declare above.  

And I’m sure some reading with me may feel like the weary soul in the sketch by Van Gogh copied above (see photo), but I pray we recognize and accept the strength sung by Steven Curtis Chapman  in the linked song and be lifted up by God’s Spirit, promised by God’s word in the Scriptures above.  My fellow Christians, as Paul wrote in several of His letters to embattled Christians (some copied above), our God will provide His strength and empowering grace when we feel too weak to deal with our lives.   So, we move on in His Name and for His glory.     

My THANKFULNESS: ... Oh, Abba Father, thank You, King Jesus, … for giving me Your empowering grace to lift me up today.     

My Prayer Today: Oh Abba Father, ... King Jesus, ... . I pray that all reading here will join me, … to receive Your empowering grace today, Lord, to move onward when we feel weakened and wanting.   …  Amen               . 

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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.