Devotional Song: … GO TO THIS LINK … Please take the time to take in a YouTube video of images and lyrics from Michael English singing … He Didn’t Throw the Clay Away … poignantly of how we are the unfinished clay in the Potter’s hands, molding us into the image of Jesus.
=============
Highlight Verse[s]: Romans 7:24-25 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK …
24 Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? 25 Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin.
… We’re all “miserable” selves (see also Romans 3:23); but Paul helps us realize that we have victory over self and freedom from sin in the Savior.
==============
Highlight Passage [context]: Romans 7:14-20 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK …
… Paul shows Christians that he, like all of us, struggles to break free from our sin nature.
=============
Reference Passage #1 [NKJV] : … 2nd Corinthians 4:7 [NLT] …
7 We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves.
… The light of God’s Spirit in our hearts is molding us into the image of the Savior.
Reference Passage #2 [NKJV] : … Philippians 1:6, 3:14-15 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK …
… Paul learned and shared that his (and our) sanctification would reshape us into Christ’s image; and we can look forward to that completion in Christ.
My Devotional Journal: Today's ODB author, Amy Peterson, used a word picture from the sculpturing of Michelangelo to illustrate that God’s Spirit is reshaping Christians into the image of Christ, setting us free from the image of sin. The ODB author wrote: At his death, the great artist Michelangelo left many unfinished projects. But four of his sculptures were never meant to be completed. The Bearded Slave, the Atlas Slave, the Awakening Slave, and the Young Slave [see photo], though they appear unfinished, are just as Michelangelo intended them to be. The artist wanted to show what it might feel like to be forever enslaved.
Rather than sculpting figures in chains, Michelangelo made figures stuck in the very marble out of which they are carved. Bodies emerge from the stone, but not completely. Muscles flex, but the figures are never able to free themselves.
If any reader has taken the time to take in the OBD author’s word-picture image and heard the linked song by Michael English, I really don’t need to write much here in further explanation, do I?
But we do see that even the Apostle Paul, when he was a mature Christian, had struggles with His own sin nature [see Romans 7]. However, he came to KNOW that He didn’t have to look back at being mired in sin as with the Michelangelo image of the “Young Slave [in the photo]. No, he could (as we can) look forward to being reshaped and completed into the image of our Savior (see the Philippians passages above).
God, the Master Sculpture, will, if we surrender to His hands, mold us into the image of King Jesus, … freed from being mired in hard marble of our sin nature.
My Prayer Today: Abba Father, … Lord, … Your hands are making me over into my Savior’s image. ... HALLELUJAH!!! … 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