Devotional Song: ... Go to this link … Please take the time to take in a video of Phillips, Craig, and Dean singing their song … He’ll Do Whatever It Takes, expressing the truth that God will, when we surrender to the truth found in His mirror of Truth, His Word, He’ll do whatever it takes to reveal where we need to change to become more like our King, Jesus.
Highlight Passage James 1: 25 [NKJV] …
25 But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.
… James revealing tells us what we must do to become more like his brother, Jesus
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Highlight Context - James 1: 19-27 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK …
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Reference Passage #1 - Isaiah 55: 11 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK …
… God, through Isaiah, describes the revealing and regenerating power of God’s word, … His revealing source of truth …
Reference Passage #2 - Philippians 1: 3-6 [NKJV] …
3 I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, 4 always in every prayer of mine making request for you all with joy, 5 for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now, 6 that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ; …
… Especially note the completed work Jesus, through His Spirit, is working to complete in us as we look into God’s mirror of truth …
My Journal for Today: Today’s Our Daily Bread devotional entry, authored by David C McCasland, uses a very effective word picture to discuss his main point - that we must do more than just know God’s word, … we must obey it!! Actually McCasland also points out that there are many word pictures used in Scripture to describe God’s word: a mirror (James 1:23); fire and a hammer (Jer. 23:29), a lamp (Ps. 119:105), water (Eph. 5:26), a two-edged sword (Heb. 4:12), a seed (1 Peter 1:23), food (Job 23:12), and milk (1 Peter 2:2).
And of these word pictures, I think I like “the mirror” analogy the best! Why, … because it is so, so descriptive of how God’s word reveals our real self when we really look deeply into it. And actually, though social research seems to show that mankind looks into mirrors often each day, I maintain that we Christians, revealed as sinners by nature, don’t like to look into mirrors because they are so self-revealing.
And I often teach that there are three basic ego reactions when we look into a mirror. The first one is a DENIAL reaction; because what we see in God’s word may make us so angry at self that we’d like to break the mirror; and we often may try to do so by getting angry at anyone trying to help us be more like Christ. … The second response is a DEFENSIVE reaction, which causes us to turn away, not wanting to see the reality in front of us being revealed by God’s truth. And we often do so by turning away from God’s word. … But the final word picture is the most healthy response, and that is to become DETERMINED to do something to change what we see as God’s word reveals us. I could go into depth on each of these; but for brevity I think the ODB today was pointing me to keep coming back here day-by-day to look deeply into God’s word so that His Spirit can reveal to me where I need to change and to show me what I must do to let God do his Philippians 1: 6 business of refinement in my life.
I simply must realize and recognize, as pictured in the attached photo, that, as Isaiah wrote in Isaiah 55: 11, God’s word is all about reshaping me into the image of my King, Jesus; and to do that I must know, from His word, see clearly what Jesus looks like and let Him reveal where I need to change to be more like Him tomorrow than today and more like Him today than yesterday.
So, I will be back here tomorrow again, looking into God’s mirror of truth to let the living truth show me where/how I must change.
My Prayer for Today … O Lord, … I look into Your mirror of reality, Your word, to see where I am not like You and to do what it takes to be reshaped, precious Spirit, into the image of My King. … 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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