January 5, 2022 … Back To Basics …

Berry Patch Devotions in 2021 - Day 5 

Devotional Song: ... GO TO THIS LINK ...   Please take the time to take in a song and lyrics from Matthew West singing … Do Something … powerfully singing of how we, as Christians, have the responsibility to do what we can to follow God’s way in our lives.  

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Highlight Passage: …  Ezekiel 45:9 [NLT] …   

9 “For this is what the Sovereign Lord says: Enough, you princes of Israel! Stop your violence and oppression and do what is just and right. Quit robbing and cheating my people out of their land. Stop expelling them from their homes, says the Sovereign Lord.  

… God, thru Ezekiel, charges God’s people (and us today) to return the basics of the faith as found in God’s word (in this case, the Old Testament)      

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Highlight Passage [Context]: … Ezekiel 45:9-10, 17-20 [NLT] …  USE THIS LINK … 

… From God’s prophesy, Ezekiel exhorts and charges God’s exiled people to repent and return to the ways of God, following God’s commands from the Old Testament.  And that works for us today … to return to the basics of the faith.                             

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Reference Passage: … Isaiah 55:11  [NLT] … 

11  It is the same with my word. I send it out, and it always produces fruit.  It will accomplish all I want it to, and it will prosper everywhere I send it.

… God promises that His word will ALWAYS accomplish what He intended … when - and ONLY WHEN - we choose to follow His truth.   

Reference Passage: … Luke 9:23  [NLT] … 

23 Then He said to the crowd, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross daily, and follow me..  

… Jesus gives simple - but direct - commands to those would choose to follow Him as Lord and Messiah. 

Reference Passage: … Ephesians 4:1-4 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK ...  

… God, thru Paul’s exhortation to fellow Christians (and to us!), calling us to live lives worthy of our calling as Christians.

Reference Passage: … Galatians 6:9  [NLT] … 

9 So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up.   

… God, thru Paul, calls His Church to never get tired of doing what is right in following our Lord.            

My Devotional Journal:Today's Our Daily Bread author, Tim Gustafson, AT THIS LINK …   … Mocks selfishly generated New Year’s resolutions, which often don’t work because we’re seeking to follow self rather than the Savior.  

And the ODB author refers to God’s commands, thru Ezekiel, for God’s people [that’s us too!] to return to the basics of the faith once they had been consumed in exile to Babylon.  Sometimes it takes a radical challenge in our lives to get God’s message (as in the Scriptures above) that we must do what Jesus commanded of us in Luke 9:23 …. to deny our selfish ways and to simply follow Jesus. 

Perhaps that needs to be our simple - but very pertinent - resolution into 2022 … and that is …to take the truth of Isaiah 55:11 and Galatians 6:9,  from the Old and New Testaments, and seek out God’s will and follow His ways by heeding His word.  

Back to the basics, my fellow Christian!!                                

My THANKFULNES:: ... Oh, Abba Father, thank You, King Jesus, … for showing me Your way … Your only way … to follow You today.     

My Prayer Today: Oh Abba Father, ... King Jesus, ... . I pray that all reading here will join me, …  to get back to the basics of the faith today.   … 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.