December 27, 2014 … Protected in God’s Will

Daily Berry Patch Devotions in 2014 - Day 361

Devotional Song: Go to this link  … Please take the time to take in video of Josh Groban singing his poignant arrangement of the Christmas carol, What Child Is This, … reminding all who call Jesus, The Christ, our Savior that He is the King of kings and even as a babe was The Messiah.

Highlight Passage #1 Matthew 2: 13 [NKJV] … 
13 Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, “Arise, take the young Child and His mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I bring you word; for Herod will seek the young Child to destroy Him.” 
============
Highlight Context - Matthew, Chapter 2 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK …   The true tale of God sending His angel to reroute Joseph and his family to Egypt to escape the horrible edict of King Herod to kill all the male children in Bethlehem and surrounding regions.
============

Reference Passage #1 - Isaiah 9: 6 [NKJV] … 
6 For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. 

Reference Passage #2 - Hosea 11: 1 [NKJV] … … The prophesy fulfilled, and written of by Matthew in Chapter 2, verse 15, that God Son would come out of Egypt …
  1 “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called My Son. … “ 

My Journal for Today: Today’s Our Daily Bread devotional entry, authored by Dave Branon, reminded me of a personal story which illustrated the point of today’s ODB entry, which was that God can/will direct and protect our lives to complete or fulfill His plans and purposes for our lives. 

My story happened years ago when my uncle and aunt were driving into their driveway on Palm Sunday in 1965 in Indiana when a tornado came through their farm. As my uncle pulled into his driveway, he saw their house explode; and his truck was picked up by the raging cyclone, dropping the truck back on the highway next to their farm headed directly away from the farm and the storm and toward the town. My uncle accelerated the truck and escaped the storm and their deaths from the tornado. Many people died in that tornado that night; but my aunt and uncle lived well into their nineties to raise their kids and grandkids, knowing that God very likely saved them that night. 

Matthew relates a fascinating and complicated true story about how God’s intervention in the lives of Mary, Joseph, and their newborn son saved them from imminent peril. Please take the time to refresh your memory of these events by using the link above to read and meditate on Chapter 2 of Matthew’s Gospel account, when God sent an angel to Joseph to take his young family from Bethlehem to Egypt. And when they ultimately returned to Nazareth after Herod’s death, we read how that historical event fulfilled God’s plan, prophesied by Hosea (see Hosea 11: 1 copied above) that God would bring His Son out of Egypt to fulfill God’s redemptive plan in Jerusalem.

 The point of the ODB entry today is straight forward. If we are in the will of God, and pursue that will and the Lord’s ways, God will guide us, protect us, and ultimately take us where He has destined us to go. When we are in God’s will, we’re in the safest place we can be.

My Prayer for Today … Lord, … guide me, direct me, protect me for Your purposes and Your glory. 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.