Devotional Song: ... GO TO THIS LINK ... Please take the time to take in a YouTube video of images from the group Casting Crowns singing Broken Together ... poignantly singing of God’s desire that we mend our human relationships by intertwining our cords of life in our eternal mutual relationship with God’s Spirit giving us His strength.
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Highlight Verse[s]: Ecclesiastes 4:12 [NKJV] ... 12 Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him. And a threefold cord is not quickly broken.
… We will be so much stronger in life with our lives around together by our relationship with God’s Spirit.
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Highlight Passage [context]:Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 [NKJV] ... USE THIS LINK ...
… God, thru Solomon, shows us how we can be so much stronger in our relationships when we bind ourselves together with His Spirit.
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Reference Passage : … John 15:5-8[ NKJV] … USE THIS LINK …
… Jesus invites us to join our lives with Him for His empowering grace and strength.
Reference Passage : …Romans 3:21-23 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK …
… God shows us that, by nature, we’re all broken creatures.
Reference Passage : …Ephesians 5:30-33 [NKJV] … USE THIS LINK … … When we, in marriage or human relationships, come together in a joined relationship with God’s Spirit, we become so much stronger to stand with Christ in our embattled world.
My Devotional Journal: Today's ODB author,Jennifer Benson Schulldt, uses a botanical illustration to show how God desires that our human relationships be intertwined with His Spirit so that we can be strong when we’re united with Him. … The ODB author wrote: A friend gave me a houseplant she’d owned for more than forty years. The plant was equal to my height, and it produced large leaves from three separate spindly trunks. Over time, the weight of the leaves had caused all three of the stalks to curve down toward the floor. To straighten them, I put a wedge under the plant’s pot and placed it near a window so the sunlight could draw the leaves upward and help cure its bad posture.
Shortly after receiving the plant, I saw one just like it in a waiting room at a local business. [see photo] It also grew from three long skinny stalks, but they’d been braided together to form a larger, more solid core. This plant stood upright without any help.
We’re all broken, aren’t we (see Rom 3:23)? So, in our mutual brokenness, we need to come together, as Solomon described in the highlight passage, and bind ourselves together with God’s Spirit, which, when accomplished, gives us the strength to grow strong, as illustrated by the plant in the photo.
And this is likely best illustrated in the linked song where two, in their human brokenness, join with God’s Spirit to live and grow together, … just as Christ invited us to do in John 15:5-8. And that is my prayer for all who read with me today.
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My THANKFULNESS: ... Oh Abba Father, ... thank You, Lord, ... for Your invitation to join with Your Spirit and grow together, even in our own brokenness.
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My Prayer Today: Oh Abba Father, ... King Jesus, ... I pray, Lord, that all reading here will bind ourselves with Your Spirit to grow strong TOGETHER. … 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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