Devotional Song: … GO TO THIS LINK … Please take the time to take in a YouTube version with song and lyrics from John Waller singing … As For Me and My House … poignantly singing of how we, as believers in the Living Lord must serve Him in the worship of living sacrifice.
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Highlight Verse[s]: Romans 12:1 [NLT] … 1 And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind He will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him.
… Our greatest form of worship is to become - and be - living sacrifices in His Name.
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Highlight Passage [context]: Romans 12:1-8 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK …
… God, thru Paul, urges all Christians to become - and to be - living sacrifices just as Jesus was/is for us.
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Reference Passage : … Joshua 24:15 [NLT] … 15 But if you refuse to serve the Lord, then choose today whom you will serve. Would you prefer the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates? Or will it be the gods of the Amorites in whose land you now live? But as for me and my family, we will serve the Lord.”
… We must CHOOSE, as did Joshua, to serve the small “g” gods of this world or the one and only Lord, … the Messiah, … Who became our King Jesus.
Reference Passage : … Galatians 6:9-10 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK …
… Paul exhorts Christians to serve others the way Christ served us, humbling giving of ourselves in His Name.
Reference Passage : … Philippians 2:3-8 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK …
… Paul exhorts Christians to live like Christ lived, humbling ourselves to serve others.
My Devotional Journal: Today's ODB author, Amy Boucher Pye, uses a personal reflection to illustrate how we, as Christians, are called to live lives of service and sacrifice to others. The ODB author writes … My great aunt had an exciting job in advertising and traveled between Chicago and New York City. But she chose to give up that career out of love for her parents. They lived in Minnesota and needed to be cared for. Both of her brothers had died young in tragic circumstances and she was her mom and dad’s only remaining child. For her, serving her parents was an expression of her faith.
In my mother’s later years, she had congestive heart failure and my dad had to do things for her as she weakened over time. This made him very angry since she had always been the one to serve him. But at age 72 my dad became a Christian; and I noticed a radical change in his attitude. He told me that he felt that God had given him the opportunity to serve her and show her how Christ has died to give him life.
That - for me - became a living picture of what Paul exhorted Christians to become in the highlight passage as well as other letters to Christians (see also the Gal. 6 and Phil. 2 passages). It was what God, thru Joshua, urged in the Old Testament … that believers choose to serve our God as living sacrifices in His Name and for his glory (see Joshua 24:15 and hear the linked song).
Today, we will likely interact with others in some way. How could we be a living sacrifice - as Christ was (and is) for us - to serve them in some way? I pray we do, … living out our worship in the way we serve others.
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My THANKFULNESS: … Oh Abba Father, … thank You, Lord, … for showing us what “living sacrifice” is all about.
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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 do all we can TODAY to serve others … as our way to worship You. … 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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