Devotional Song: … GO TO THIS LINK … Please take the time to take in YouTube images and lyrics from Brian Doerksen singing … Just As I Am … poignantly singing of how God wants us to come to Him for salvation and sanctification … “Just As I Am!”
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Highlight Verse[s]: Matthew 15:19 … 20 [NLT] … 19 For from the heart come evil thoughts,… 20 These are what defile you. … ”
… Who, who’ve repented of sin and have received God’s Spirit are children of King Jesus.
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Highlight Passage [context]: Matthew 15:1-11, 16-20 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK …
… Jesus illustrates how He desired to see realness of heart rather than the show of traditions or external deceiving words.
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Reference Passage : … Isaiah 29:13 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK …
… Quoted by Jesus [see highlight passage] to unmask the Pharisees, who were trying to con God’s people with their traditions, many of which were really a sham of pretense.
Reference Passage : … Proverbs 23:7 [NKJV] … 7 For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.
… Reality … we become what we think … So we must think Godly thoughts.
Reference Passage : … John 14:21 [NKJV] … 21 Those who accept My commandments and obey them are the ones who love Me. And because they love Me, my Father will love them. And I will love them and reveal Myself to each of them.”
… Jesus showing His disciples what is really important to Him in the way we think or act.
Reference Passage : … Philippians 4:8-9 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK …
… God, thru Paul’s teaching, admonishes us to think Godly thoughts so that we can become Godly in our choices and behaviors (the outcome of Prov. 23:7).
My Devotional Journal: Today's ODB author, Tim Gustafson, uses a very human word picture to describe how we often try to hide who we really are to impress others. The ODB author writes … When a college class went on a cultural field trip, the instructor almost didn’t recognize one of his star pupils. In the classroom she had concealed six-inch heels beneath her pant legs [see photo]. But in her walking boots she was less than five feet tall. “My heels are how I want to be,” she laughed. “But my boots are how I really am.”
Our physical appearance doesn’t define who we are; it’s our heart that matters. Jesus had strong words for those masters of appearances—the super-religious “Pharisees and teachers of the law.”
How often do we - DO I - act like the Pharisees in Jesus’ day, … putting on airs of pretense to impress others and then misrepresenting God with what is in our hearts or the way we live? Trying to wear heels (see photo) to hide our shortness and sin nature may be a stretch in the teaching here. But for sure, … I am guilty of saying things or doing things at times to impress others instead of doing just what Brian Doerksen sings in the old song which Billy Graham used for years to speak to the hearts of the lost who were called by God to come to Him for salvation.
Don’t you agree that it’s what is in our hearts that God really cares about, not the masks - or the heels - we wear? And so I pray that we do all we can to just be real and come to Him today just as we are. And when we do, Gods’ Spirit will help us think the way our Lord does (see Prov. 23:7 and Phil. 4:8-9) and then live the way He desires for us to live [John 14:21].
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My THANKFULNESS: … Oh Abba Father, … thank You, Lord, … for receiving me just as I am and help me to think more like You do.
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My Prayer Today: Oh Abba Father, … King Jesus, … I pray, Lord, that all reading here can, and will, join me to come today and open the doors of our hearts … just as we are! … 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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