Devotional Song: ... GO TO THIS LINK ... Please take the time to take in song and lyrics from Matthew West singing Grace Wins … powerfully singing of how God’s grace always wins the battle for the life and love of the Christian in our battle with our sin nature and our trek to be with our Lord in glory.
"The Knife Angel" Sculpture
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Highlight Verse[s]: Isaiah 2:4 [NLT] ... 4 The Lord will mediate between nations and will settle international disputes. They will hammer their swords into plowshare, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will no longer fight against nation, nor train for war anymore.
… Isaiah prophesies what it will be like when God’s grace, thru His Messiah, wins in the end.
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Highlight Passage [context]: Isaiah 2:1-4 [NLT] ... USE THIS LINK ...
… God, thru Isaiah, gives the vision of what it will be like when the Lamb of God, the Messiah, comes to rule in glory.
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Reference Passage : … Matthew 7:21-29 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK …
… In His sermon on the mount, Jesus preached what it would take for mankind to reap the bounty of eternal life.
Reference Passage : … Ephesian 2:1-10 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK …
… Paul shows the reality of Christians choosing God’s saving/sanctifying grace over living in bondage to our sin nature.
Reference Passage : … Revelation 4 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK …
… God gives John a vision of what it will be like to be in the presence of the Lamb of God in heaven.
My Devotional Journal: Today's ODB author, Sheridan Voysey, shares about an artistic image in Britain designed to reduce knife violence in England. … The ODB author wrote: When knife crime rose across the United Kingdom, the British Ironwork Centre came up with an idea. Working with local police forces, the Centre built and placed two hundred deposit boxes around the country and ran an amnesty campaign. One hundred thousand knives were anonymously surrendered, some still with blood on their blades. These were then shipped to artist Alfie Bradley, who blunted them, inscribed some with the names of young knife-crime victims, plus messages of regret from ex-offenders. All 100,000 weapons were then welded together to create the Knife Angel—a twenty-seven-foot-high angelic sculpture with shimmering steel wings. [see photo]
An artistic image like “The Knife Angel” might call attention to the violence mankind can do to one another; but we Christians know that the only real answer to all the violence mankind brings down upon each other is for us to surrender to Christ as our Lord and Messiah and let His grace and love prevail. And that only happens when mankind yields to the Messiah that Isaiah wrote about 700+ years before He came into the world to give us His grace and allow us to enter, with Him, into His glory [see Isaiah 2].
And that’s why, this morning, taking in the linked song and the Scriptures above, I’m uplifted and gratified to realize that the image and grace of the Lamb of God is going to win out and make the crafted image of the Knife Angel unnecessary. Do I sense a resounding ”Hallelujah” from my fellow grace-led Christians reading here?
So, I pray that we all look forward to the day Isaiah prophesied about (see Is. 2), and Jesus preached about (see Matt. 7), and the Apostle Paul encouraged Christians to pursue (see Eph. 2). Because when we do, … as Matthew West powerfully sings, … Grace Wins!
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My THANKFULNESS: ... Oh Abba Father, ... thank You, Lord, … for leading those of us who’ve surrendered to Your grace to be with You, The Lamb of God, in glory.
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My Prayer Today: Oh Abba Father, ... King Jesus, ... I pray, Lord, that all reading here will join me, to PTL for His grace, … which will win over all our knives in the end. 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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