Devotional Song: … GO TO THIS LINK … Please take the time to take in a You Tube video of images from Frank Sinatra singing the anthem of the selfish… My Way, powerfully declaring the goal of every non-Christian or anti-Christian in the world … to live life only for self and do life MY WAY … but then ON TO THIS LINK to hear the opposite philosophy of life as Brian Littrell sings, I Surrender ALL declaring the goal of every Christ in discipleship to Christ … to do life HIS WAY.
Highlight Passage: Deuteronomy 5:32-22 [NKJV] …
32 “Therefore you shall be careful to do as the Lord your God has commanded you; you shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left. 33 You shall walk in all the ways which the Lord your God has commanded you, that you may live and that it may be well with you, and that you may prolong your days in the land which you shall possess.
… Following Christ becomes an example for others.
===========
Highlight Context … Deuteronomy 5:28-33 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK …
… God is clear … follow Him in life and we will be blessed.
===========
Reference Passage #1 … Luke 9:23 [NKJV] …
23 Then He said to them all, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. …”
… Jesus’ clear call for all His “disciples” to follow Him.
Reference Passage #2 … John 14:21 [NKJV] …
21 He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.”
… Jesus also made it very clear in whom He will live … in ONLY those who keep His commands.
My Journal for Today: … Our Daily Bread author, Lawrence Darmani, used a personal story to illustrate how we, as Christ’s disciples, should do all we can to do life God’s way. He wrote: I needed an underground water tank and knew precisely how I wanted it constructed, so I gave clear instructions to the builder. The next day when I inspected the project, I was annoyed when I realized that he had failed to carry out my instructions. He had changed the plan and therefore the effect. The excuse he gave was as irritating as his failure to follow my directives.
As I watched him redo the concrete work, and as my frustration diminished, a guilty conviction swept over me: How many times have I needed to redo things in my life in obedience to the Lord?
Can I get a witness from any readers here who’ve worn that T-shirt of selfishness, ignoring what we know is God’s way and doing life our own way? Okay, I sense quite a few “Amens” from my readers.
Today, I’ve posted two songs for readers to hear … one is a glorious anthem for the selfish, My Way, which became the theme song for Frank Sinatra; and the second is Brian Littrell singing I Surrender All which expresses a life philosophy exactly opposite than that of the Frank Sinatra classic.
And the question we’re left with from my devotional time today and from those songs linked above is with which of the two songs we identify and choose to follow in life. Personally, I’m going as far as way from Frank’s way as I can and doing all I can to surrender to my Lord … today and all days.
My Prayer Today: O, Heavenly Father, … Help me, Lord, to do life YOUR WAY and only Your way!! 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.
No comments:
Post a Comment