Devotional Song: … GO TO THIS LINK … Please take the time to take in YouTube images and lyrics from Laura Story singing her song … Grace Abounds … poignantly singing of how we can bring our sin before the merciful love of our Lord for His cleansing grace.
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Highlight Verse[s]: Genesis 3:8 [NLT] … 8 When the cool evening breezes were blowing, the man and his wife heard the Lord God walking about in the garden.
… Adam and Eve hides from God after they had sinned.
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Highlight Passage [context]: Genesis 3:1-10 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK …
… After Adam and Eve had sinned, their newly formed sin nature led them to cover up their sin.
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Reference Passage : … Lamentations 3:22-23 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK …
… God’s mercy will always see His children thru the eyes of mercy and love.
Reference Passage : … 2 Corinthians 12:9 [NLT] … 9 Each time He said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me.
… God’s grace is always there and sufficient to help us deal with the weakness of our sin nature
Reference Passage : … 1 John 1:9 [NLT] … 9 But if we confess our sins to Him, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.
… Rather than try to hide our sin, God’s mercy/grace will cleanse us if we will but humbly confess and repent.
My Devotional Journal: Today's ODB author, Kirsten Holmberg, uses a personal reflection to illustrate how our base nature so often leads us to try to cover up our sin rather than confess it to receive God’s mercy/grace. The ODB author writes … He knew he shouldn’t have done it. I could clearly see he knew it was wrong: it was written all over his face! As I sat down to discuss his wrongdoing with him, my nephew quickly squeezed his eyes shut. There he sat, thinking—with three-year-old logic—that if he couldn’t see me, then I must not be able to see him. And if he was invisible to me, then he could avoid the conversation (and consequences) he anticipated.
I’m so glad I could see him in that moment. While I couldn’t condone his actions, and we needed to talk about it, I really didn’t want anything to come between us. I wanted him to look fully into my face and see how much I love him and was eager to forgive him! In that moment, I caught a glimmer of how God might have felt when Adam and Eve broke His trust in the garden of Eden. Realizing their guilt, they tried to hide from God [see highlight passage], who could “see” them as plainly as I could see my nephew.
We’re all not that different from that little boy in the picture when we know we’ve wronged someone we love, are we? Our natural reflex is to cover up, isn’t it, … just like Adam and Eve did in the garden? God, of course, could see them and knew their sin; but they hid. And then God showed His perfect balance of mercy and justice as He sent them from the garden to carry out God’s ultimate plan of forgiveness as they became parents of God’s human race, ultimately leading to God’s Son saving us all from our sins.
Oh to have us realize that God’s nature is to let His mercy and grace prevail over our sin nature; … but only if we’re willing to confess and repent and allow God’s grace to give us the strength to go from cleansed to completion. And that’s what any reader here - including yours truly - has to realize when we take in the linked song and the reference scriptures above.
And I pray that any/all reading here - and again that’s me too! - will recognize God’s abounding grace and to open our eyes to His love as we’re willing to confess any sin and allow Him to cleanse us so that we can honor Him with our lives moving forward.
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My THANKFULNESS: … Oh Abba Father, … thank You, Lord, … for Your faithfulness and willingness to let Your grace cleanse us from our sin when we come humbly to confess and repent.
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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 out of hiding and openly and humbly confess any sin to our loving God, Whose mercy will ALWAYS forgive and cleanse us. … 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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