Devotional Song: ... GO TO THIS LINK ... Please take the time to take in a YouTube video of Jeremy Hope singing Love Found A Way ... poignantly singing of how God created a way to free His children from our sin nature thru His ultimate sacrifice of love and our willingness to accept His saving grace.
Jesse Owens - Gold Medalist - 1936 Olympics
==============Highlight Verse[s]: Romans 9:9, … 21 [NLT] ... 9 Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good. …
21 Don’t let evil conquer you, but conquer evil by doing good.
... This was Christ’s way of witnessing the love of His Father for His children; and we should copy it in the way we live as well.
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Highlight Passage [context]: Romans 12:9-21 [NLT] ... USE THIS LINK ... .
.. God, thru Paul, exhorts fellow Christians to show love for one another as our witness to the love that saved us.
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Reference Passage : ... John 13:34-35 [NLT] ... 34 So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. 35 Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”
... Jesus, commands His disciples - that’s us too! - to love one another as evidence of His love.
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.”
... We are charged (i.e., commissioned) to be witnesses of Christ’s love in the way we live our lives for Him.
My Devotional Journal: Today's ODB author, Xochitl Dixon, uses a historical reference to the Christian witness of the famous athlete, Jesse Owens, to illustrate how living lives of love and Christlike witness can impact others for Christ. ... The ODB author wrote: Influenced by parents who were strong believers in Jesus, track star Jesse Owens lived as a courageous man of faith. During the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, Owens, one of the few African Americans on the US team, received four gold medals in the presence of hate-filled Nazis and their leader, Hitler. [see photo] He also befriended fellow athlete Luz Long, a German. Surrounded by Nazi propaganda, Owens’s simple act of living out his faith impacted Luz’s life. Later, Long wrote to Owens: “That hour in Berlin when I first spoke to you, when you had your knee upon the ground, I knew you were in prayer . . . . I think I might believe in God.”
The message in the ODB story about Jesse Owens is crystal clear, isn’t it? Or at least it should be. And the linked song sings it as well. God showed us His way to witness His love to the world, … by Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. And He demands us, ...His disciples, … His witnesses (see Acts 1:8), to love others to show Christlike love to the world (see John 13:34-35).
And God, thru the Apostle Paul (in the highlight passage) exhorts fellow Christians to do just that. So, I pray we all run the race of life, as did Jesse Owens in the 1936 Olympics - in a very hostile world - to show off the love of God in Christ.
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My THANKFULNESS: ... Oh Abba Father, ... thank You, Lord, ... for charging us to carry the torch of Your love in the race of life.
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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 carry that torch of God’s love to others 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.</ span>
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