Devotional Song: … GO TO THIS LINK … Please take the time to take in a YouTube video of song and lyrics from Zach Williams singing his song … Chain Breaker … poignantly singing of how our God is our chain breaker just like Paul and Silas experienced in the Philippians prison.
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Highlight Verse[s]: Acts 16:25-16 [NLT] … [see photo] ... 25 Around midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening. 26 Suddenly, there was a massive earthquake, and the prison was shaken to its foundations. All the doors immediately flew open, and the chains of every prisoner fell off!
… Even in the midst of imprisonment and a life-threatening earthquake, Paul/Silas could sing out to the Lord in faith.
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Highlight Passage [context]: Acts 16:16-40 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK …
… Paul and Silas were imprisoned for their faith in Pillippi; but they sang out for God’s glory, even in the midst of an earthquake; and God delivered them to help even their jailer be saved.
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Reference Passage : … Proverbs 3:5-6 [NIV] … 5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. 6 Seek his will in all you do, and He will show you which path to take.
… Following the ways of the Lord, thru His word, is the only path to free us from the prisons life imposes.
Reference Passage : … Matthew 11:28-30 [NIV] … 28 Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”
… Jesus, declaring that He is our freedom from the prison of our own self-imposed shackles of worry and anxiety
Reference Passage : … 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 [NIV] … USE THIS LINK …
… Paul shares the truth that God’s empowering grace is ALWAYS there to give us His strength to cover us in times of weakness.
Reference Passage : … 1 John 4:4 [NIV] … 4 But you belong to God, my dear children. You have already won a victory over those people, because the Spirit who lives in you is greater than the spirit who lives in the world.
… God’s truth - thru John - about the reality that the Holy Spirit, living in us, is far more powerful than any Satan-imposed prison or self-imagined chains of worry.
My Devotional Journal: Today's ODB author, Arthur Jackson, used a historical reference to illustrate how Christians should be able to proclaim the strength we get from God when we’re being persecuted. And the ODB author wrote: In the summer of 1963, after an all-night bus ride, US civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer and six other black passengers stopped to eat at a diner in Winona, Mississippi. After law enforcement officers forced them to leave, they were arrested and jailed. But the humiliation wouldn’t end with unlawful arrest. All received severe beatings, but Fannie’s was the worst. After a brutal attack that left her near death she burst out in song: “Paul and Silas was bound in jail, let my people go.” And she didn’t sing alone. Other prisoners, restrained in body but not in soul, joined her in worship.
Are any of us imprisoned by our circumstances today? I can just imagine some, reading here, might be saying a loud “AMEN!” Well, if so, I think it wise to go back and read [see highlight passage] of what happened when Paul and Silas were imprisoned and shackled in a Philippian prison. Read and meditate on how they sang out their faith and were delivered by their “Chain-Breaker,” as Zach Williams sings in the linked song.
And our Lord is our “Chain-Breaker” as well, my friends? The question is … are we able to sing that song of deliverance when we find our selves shackled by our doubts or imprisoned by the world’s challenges? But, like Paul and Silas … we need to recognize and believe that God can/will provide us with his chain-breaking grace to see us thru those self-imposed prisons of doubt.
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My THANKFULNESS: … Oh Abba Father, … thank You, Lord, … for Your grace which is our chain breaker.
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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 reject the fears which shackle us in self-imposed prisons of doubt. … 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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