Devotional Song: … GO TO THIS LINK … Please take the time to take in YouTube from Joy Williams singing … Do They See Jesus In Me … poignantly singing of how we, as Christians, must seek to have others see our Lord being manifest in the way we live our lives.
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Highlight Verse[s]: John 3:30 [NLT] … 30 He [Jesus] must become greater and greater, and I must become less and less.
… John, the Baptist, knew that his ministry must be surrendered to the ministry of Messiah.
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Highlight Passage [context]: John 3:22-35 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK …
… John, the Baptist, reckons who he must be in the face of The Messiah, … Jesus …, coming to be present among the people.
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Reference Passage : … Psalms 63:1-4 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK …
… My prayer everyday to do all I can to seek the ways of my Lord and to follow Him.
Reference Passage : … Luke 9:23 [NLT] … 23 Then He said to the crowd, “If any of you wants to be My follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross daily, and follow Me. …”
… Jesus’ simple, but difficult, charge to any who would be His disciples.
Reference Passage : … Acts 1:8 [NLT] … 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be My witnesses, telling people about Me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
… As His witnesses in this world, we must do all we can to let others see Jesus in the way we live.
Reference Passage : … Ephesians 4:1 [NLT] … 1 Therefore I, a prisoner for serving the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of your calling, for you have been called by God.
… Paul so desired that he and fellow Christians live lives worthy of our calling as His disciples.
My Devotional Journal: Today's ODB author, Anne Cetas, uses a personal story about a friend realizing she had take the wrong picture of what she was trying to capture in photo. The ODB author writes … Krista stood in the freezing cold on a winter day, looking at the beautiful snow-encased lighthouse along the lake. As she pulled out her phone to take pictures [see photo], … She couldn’t see a thing so she decided to point her camera toward the lighthouse and snapped three pictures at different angles.
Looking at them later, she realized the camera had been set to take “selfies.” She laughed as she said, “My focus was me, me, and me. All I saw was me.” Krista’s photos got me thinking of a similar mistake: We can become so self-focused we lose sight of the bigger picture of God’s plan.
The ODB entry today is a good story to illustrate that we, as disciples of Christ, must get our focus off of ourselves so that we can be Christ’s witnesses in this world as He has commanded us in Acts 1:8. And the question Joy Williams asks in the linked song is the pertinent one for all of us who desire to be worthy as Christ’s witnesses (Eph. 4:1) … “Do They See Jesus in Me?”
And that was basically the driving desire of John the Baptist, who, in today’s highlight passage, spoke to his desire that the ministry of Jesus, The Messiah, would increase as his would decrease (see John 3:30). And we all should be doing all we can to let others see Jesus in the way we live our lives.
Can I get a witness?!!
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My THANKFULNESS: … Oh Abba Father, … thank You, Lord, … for showing us the way to go forth as Your witnesses.
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My Prayer Today: Oh Abba Father, … King Jesus, … I pray, Lord, that all reading here can, and will, join me today to do all we can to let others see Jesus in our living witness. … 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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