Devotional Song: … GO TO THIS LINK … Please take the time to take in YouTube images and lyrics from Vicki Yohe singing … He Knows My Heart … poignantly singing of the reality that God knows our heart in all situations and will be there to lift us up.
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Highlight Verse[s]: 1 Samuel 16:7 [NLT] … 7 But the Lord said to Samuel, “Don’t judge by his [Eliab, David’s brother] appearance or height, for I have rejected him. The Lord doesn’t see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
… God’s purposes involve those whom He chooses by the character of their hearts.
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Highlight Passage [context]: 1 Samuel 16:1-13 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK …
… God chooses David to be King by seeing/knowing his heart.
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Reference Passage : … Judges 6:11-16 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK …
… God sees a warrior in Gideon, tho Gideon only could see his own weakness.
Reference Passage : … 1 Corinthians 1:26-29 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK …
… God, thru Paul, teaches that it is His plan to use the ordinary to demonstrate His power and His purposes.
Reference Passage : … 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK …
… God, thru Paul, teaches that it is His plan to use the ordinary to demonstrate His power and His purposes.
Reference Passage : … 2 Timothy 1:7 [NLT] … 7 For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.
… God’s Spirit, residing in our hearts, gives us the strength to serve God in all circumstances.
My Devotional Journal: Today's ODB author, Estera Pirosca Escobar, uses a story of a silly, somewhat weak missionary, who ignored his own weakness and responded to God’s call to India and was used mightily by God to spread His word. The ODB author writes … William Carey was a sickly boy, born to a humble family near Northampton, England. His future didn’t look too bright. But God had plans for him. Against all odds, he moved to India, where he brought incredible social reforms and translated the Bible into several Indian languages. He loved God and people, and accomplished many things for God.
Do you, like me, ever feel too weak or too inadequate to the task God seems to be calling us to do? Well, that was likely the case when God, thru the Prophet Samuel, called and anointed young David, the shepherd boy, to become the second King of Israel [see highlight passage]. And what about when an Angel of God came to young Gideon, fearfully hiding from the Midianites, and labeled Gideon as His “mighty warrior” [see Judges 6].
As God, thru the Apostle Paul, teaches [see 1Cor. 1:26-29\, … we often see our Lord using the simple to confound the wise or the weak to waylay the strong. Paul also encouraged a rather weakly Timothy (see 2 Tim. 1:7) to use the strength of the Holy Spirit in the young preacher’s life to overcome the fears he might have in his calling to become a Pastor in Ephesus.
So, no matter what weaknesses we see in ourselves; … what God sees my be very different that what we can see. And as He has done with so many very ordinary people thru time, He will give us His empowering grace to cover our weaknesses [2Cor. 12:9-10].
And we can bank on it, trusting God, my friend, … our God can - and will - use us very ordinary servants in a most extraordinary way to serve His glory. So, let’’s just go follow His way as we pray thru the Psalm in the photo.
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My THANKFULNESS: … Oh Abba Father, … thank You, Lord, … for Your enabling and empowering grace to overcome my [our] weaknesses.
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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 believe that You can use any of us for Your glory today. … 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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