Devotional Song: … GO TO THIS LINK … Please take the time to take in a You Tube video of images from the Bill Gaither band singing a Gaither classic … He Touched Me, poignantly declaring the reality of the newness of Christ in me, or in any Christian, who has submitted to the reshaping work of God’s Spirit through His saving and sanctifying grace.
Highlight Passage: Ephesians 2:10 [NKJV] …
10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
… His workmanship … reshaped for His glory.
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Highlight Context … Ephesians 2:1-10 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK …
… God’s grace is reshaping us into His image … for His glory.
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Reference Passage #1 … Psalms 138:7-8, 139:13-15 [NKJV] …USE THIS LINK ...
… It is the masterwork of God’s hands which reshapes us into His image
Reference Passage #2 … Romans 8:28-29 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK ...
… Just letting God’s Spirit do His work since we are predestined to be reshaped into Christ’s image.
Reference Passage #3 …Philippians 1:6 [NKJV] …
6 being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ; …
... God, thru the work of His Holy Spirit, will complete His work in reshaping us into our Savior’s image.
My Journal for Today: … Our Daily Bread author, David Roper, used a personal, but artistic, word picture to describe how our Lord is reshaping us into His own image. He wrote: My wife, Carolyn, and I met Phipps Festus Bourne in 1995 in his shop in Mabry Hill, Virginia. Bourne, who died in 2002, was a master wood carver whose carvings are almost exact replicas of real objects. “Carving a duck is simple,” he said. “You just look at a piece of wood, get in your head what a duck looks like, and then cut off everything that doesn’t look like it.”
So it is with God. He looks at you and me—blocks of rough wood—envisions the Christlike woman or man hidden beneath the bark, knots, and twigs and then begins to carve away everything that does not fit that image. We would be amazed if we could see how beautiful we are as finished “ducks.”
The question for genuine, born-again Christians, i.e. those who’re being reshaped by the Hands of God’s Spirit, as the Gaither Band sings in the song linked above, is … Are we surrendered to let God’s reshaping Spirit do His Master work in us?
And as the Scriptures above reveal, in truth, God, the Master reshaper/carver, will complete His predestined workmanship in us … but only if/when we submit to His reshaping hands. Personally, I’m praying for Him to do His work in reshaping me today!
My Prayer Today: O, Heavenly Father, … I’m Yours! … Do anything and everything You must to re-carve me into Your image. 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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