Devotional Song: ... GO TO THIS LINK ... Please take the time to take in a YouTube video of images and lyrics from the group 4Him singing The Basics of Life ... powerfully singing of the need for Christians to return to the faith grounded in Christ … God’s basics of life.
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Highlight Verse[s]: Leviticus 19:18 [NLT] ... 18 “Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against a fellow Israelite, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.
... The Lord commands us to love our neighbor as we would expect others to love us.
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Highlight Passage [context]: Leviticus 19:9-18 [NLT] ... USE THIS LINK ... .
.. God commands His chosen people to treat others as neighbors, treating them as we would have others treat us.
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Reference Passage : ... Matthew 7:12 [NLT] ... 12 “Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you. This is the essence of all that is taught in the law and the prophets.
... Jesus just reiterated what the Old Testament declared is the way we should live, … treating others as we would want to be treated.
Reference Passage : ... Matthew 22:37-39 [NLT] ... 37 Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
... Jesus repeats, to the Jewish leaders, the commands from the OT … to love others as a neighbor, treating them as we would expect others to treat ourselves.
Reference Passage : ... 1John 4:19 [NLT] … 19 We love each other because He loved us first.
... In loving others, we are only returning the love God has shown for us.
My Devotional Journal: Today's ODB author, Anne Cetas, uses a story of helping strangers to illustrate how God commanded His people (that’s us!) to treat others. … The ODB author wrote: Shirley settled into her recliner after a long day. She looked out the window and noticed an older couple struggling to move a section of old fence left in a yard and labeled “free.” [see photo] Shirley grabbed her husband, and they headed out the door to help. The four of them wrestled the fence onto a dolly and pushed it up the city street and around the corner to the couple’s home—laughing all the way at the spectacle they must be. As they returned to get a second section of fence, the woman asked Shirley, “You be my friend?” “Yes, I will,” she replied. Shirley later learned that her new Vietnamese friend knew little English and was lonely because her grown children had moved hours away.
Really the ODB story only illustrates how God has commanded us to live, … loving others as ourselves and treating them as we would desire to be treated. Jesus often quoted from the Old Testament, God’s “Golden Rule,” and it’s what the group 4Him sings about in the linked song. And, dear friends, … it’s what is so needed in our world today, … that we return to those basics of life to which God commanded His people in the Old Testament (see highlight passages) and what Jesus reiterated in the New Testament (see Scriptures from Matthew above).
So, as we see others in need today [as in the ODB story], will we rise to the need and share the love of God which He has shared so abundantly with us (see 1John 4:19)? I pray so.
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My THANKFULNESS: ... Oh Abba Father, ... thank You, Lord, ... for opportunities to love others as You have loved us.
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My Prayer Today: Oh Abba Father, ... King Jesus, ... I pray, Lord, that all reading here will join me to do all we can to share the love of God with 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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