Devotional Song: … GO TO THIS LINK … Please take the time to take in a YouTube video of images from the group Phillips, Craig, and Dean singing the song … He’ll Do Whatever It Takes … poignantly expressing the truth that God often allows us to go through a slow-cooker or pressure-cooker life; … but for those who are in Christ He is preparing us to be perfectly seasoned and tenderized into His image.
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Highlight Verse[s]: Romans 8: 28 [NKJV] …
28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.
… During the slow cooker of life, this truth may be one of God’s toughest to believe and live.
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Highlight Passage [context]: Romans 8:28-30 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK …
… Paul teaching on how God is relentless in His desire to put us through whatever it takes to reshape us into His image.
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Reference Passage #1 [NKJV] : … 2nd Corinthians 12:9 [NKJV] …
9 And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. … “
… Paul realized that He needed the “thorn” to allow Him to receive God’s grace.
Reference Passage #2 [NKJV] : … Galatians 5:14 [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 will never give up on His relentless desire to remake us into His image.
Reference Passage #3 [NKJV] : … 1st Peter 5:10 [NKJV] …
10 But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you.
… That’s God’s goal for all of His children.
My Devotional Journal: Today's ODB author, Marvin Williams, used a very “tasty” and personal word picture to describe God’s process of sanctification. The OBD author wrote: My wife makes an amazing pot roast dinner. She takes raw meat, along with raw sliced white and sweet potatoes, celery, mushrooms, carrots, and onions and throws them into the slow cooker. Six or seven hours later the aroma fills the house, and the first taste is a delight. It is always to my advantage to wait until the ingredients in the slow cooker work together to achieve something they could not achieve individually.
I’ve always liked the slow-cooker - or the pressure-cooker - analogy to describe our lives. It’s pertinent because it often takes the heat of pressures or life’s circumstances over a designated - God controlled - time period for God to allow us to be reshaped into His image. Yes, thru the cooking process we call “life,” we are well-seasoned and tenderized into a consistency and tastiness that gives God glory.
And often … I think we have trouble realizing the truth of what the scriptures above teach; and while we’re going thru the slow-cooker or pressure-cooker experiences of life, we have trouble seeing and believing the reality of God’s sanctification process. I’m praying today, prayerfully with a thankful heart, that God does whatever it takes (hear the song linked above) to bring me thru life, reshaped into His image.
My Prayer Today: Heavenly Father, … tenderize me and season me, Lord, to give You 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.
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