Devotional Song: Go to this link … Please take the time to take in the lyrics with a Mennonite Chorus singing the old hymnI Know Him Whom I Have Believed. … declaring our commitment to God’s promises and His purposes - no matter how long they may take to unfold.
Highlight Passage - NKJV Romans 4: 20-22 … Paul describes the “Father of their Faith” to Christians …
20 He [Abraham] did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, 21 and being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform. 22 And therefore “it was accounted to him for righteousness.”
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Highlight Context #1 - Romans 4: 16-22 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK … Abraham’s imperfect, but long-suffering faith in God’s promises … accounted to him as righteousness
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Reference Passage #1 … Romans 8: 28 [NKJV] … Truth; but do we have the patience and faith to believe it in our lives!! …
6 … All things work together for the good of those who love the Lord and are the called according to His purposes.
Reference Passage #2 … 2nd Corinthians 5: 17 [NKJV] … God’s promise for all true, born-again Christians …
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
Reference Passage #3 - 2nd Timothy 1: 3-14 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK … Paul saw so much more in Timothy that the young preacher could see in himself … and a testimony to Paul’s own faith
Reference Passage #4 … 2nd Timothy 1: 12 [NKJV] … Paul’s witness of faith in God and in Timothy … the words of the title hymn, linked above …
12 For this reason I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day.
My Journal for Today: Today’s Our Daily Bread devotional entry, authored by Marion Stroud, by using the life of Abraham as an exemplar of faith [see the Highlight passage from Romans, Chapter 4] and the reference to the mentoring of Paul to Timothy [from 2nd Timothy, Chapter 1], I was taken back many years in my own life to a time when I was a babe in Christ, a relatively new Christian, growing in my discipleship.
And in those days, I came under the mentoring of a Godly retired physician, an Elder in our church, and a man who met with me for over a dozen years, weekly at first and then later biweekly. And early in this relationship, I didn’t know what to do or how to grow in Christ; and much like Timothy must’ve felt under the mentoring of the Apostle Paul, I just let this man of God lead me. And my mentor must’ve seen much more in me than I could see in myself; because he took me, a former sex addict before my conversion, a broken man, finally surrendered to God, to become an Ordained Minister of the Gospel and an Elder in our church. … Now that’s patience in the promises of God to transform a surrendered Christian as Paul had preached in 2nd Cor. 5 17 [see above].
But PTL that my mentor had the kind of faith in God’s transformational grace as Paul had in mentoring the young, sickly Timothy. … Somehow my mentor had patience enough to let God remake me into a man who could serve our Lord and His purposes. Because this is the kind of patience which all Christians should have in the God of Romans 8: 28 and 2nd Tim. 1: 12.
And as you take in the linked hymn for today and these scriptures above, I pray that you have faith that God can/will transform you so that you can be used of God, as was my mentor and Paul to Timothy, to help bring along others into the promise God has for their lives.
My Prayer for Today … Lord, … use me to be a shepherd in Your Name and for Your purposes … for others. 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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