Nov 16, 2020 … Christlike Sharing

Berry Patch Devotions in 2020 - Day 321 

Devotional Song: ... GO TO THIS LINK ...     …   Please take the time to take in song and lyrics from Alisa Turner singing … As In Heaven … poignantly singing of our desire, as Christians, to live now as it is in Heaven. 

Sharing our running shoes ... 

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Highlight Passage:  Galatians 5:13  [ESV] ... 

13 For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.  

…   God, thru Paul, calls all fellow Christians to break free from the selfish desires to serve our own flesh and to serve one another instead.   

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Highlight Passage [Context]: …  Galatians 5:13-26 [ESV] …  USE THIS LINK … 

… Paul exhorts fellow Christians to live, in the Spirit, as did Jesus, exhaling the fruit of the Spirit, not of the flesh. 

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Reference Passage: …  Mark 10:43-45 [ESV] … USE THIS LINK … 

…  Jesus teaches His disciples (and us) that we are to take the attitude of a slave, just as He was a slave to His Heavenly father and therefore to serve others as He had come, as the Son of Man, to serve others.  

Reference Passage: …  John 13:12-15 [ESV] … USE THIS LINK … 

…  Jesus’ charge to His disciples after He had washed their feet in the upper room … to do likewise in serving others just as He had come to serve us.  

Reference Passage: …  Philippians 2:3-5 [ESV] … USE THIS LINK … 

…  Paul calls us - as Christ’s disciples - to have a Christlike attitude of serving others before ourselves.

Reference Passage: …  Hebrews 10:24, …  [ESV] … 

<i>  24 And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, … </i> 

…  God calls on His Church (that’s us!) to come together to stir up Christlike good works … 

      

My Devotional Journal: Today's Our Daily Bread author, Kirsten Holmberg, AT THIS LINK  relates a story of a young cross-country runner whose earthly possessions were burned up in a wildfire and was given the opportunity to qualify for the state meet.  However, he had no running shoes, … only the street shoes he had after the fire.  And when he arrived to qualify for the state meet, his competitors had come to run with him and share running shoes with him.     

That ODB story touches the hearts of Christians because it teaches what Christ emulated and called from in His disciples [see John 13 passage].  And we read of that call in the reference scriptures above, where Jesus and Paul call for us to rise above our fleshly selfishness and to serve others as Christ did as the Messiah.  And it is the call of Alisa Turner in the linked song, … for us to live on earth as it is … and will be … in heaven.  

I pray we can all do our utmost TODAY to do what those running competitors did in the ODB story; … and that is to rise above our selfish desires and do all we can to serve our fellow man today … AND TOMORROW TOO !!! 

My THANKFULNESS: ... Oh Abba Father, ... thank You, Lord, … for showing us how to humbly rise above self and to serve others just as You have served us. 

My Prayer Today: Oh Abba Father, ... King Jesus, ... I pray that all reading here will join me to seek out ways today to set aside self and serve others with Christlike grace.  … Amen

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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.