January 7, 2022 … Real Deal Hope …

Berry Patch Devotions in 2021 - Day 7 

Devotional Song: ... GO TO THIS LINK ...    Please take the time to take in a song and lyrics from David Crowder and Tauren Wells singing … All My Hope … poignantly singing of how we, as disciples of Christ, must put ALL our hope in Him … ALWAYS!

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Highlight Passage: …  1Peter 1:3 [NLT] …   

3 All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is by his great mercy that we have been born again, because God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Now we live with great expectation …   

… Peter. giving persecuted Christians the everlasting hope we have by holding on in faith to our relationship with Christ and the reality of His resurrection to save all who have faith in His finished work on the cross.      

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Highlight Passage [Context]: … 1Peter 1:3-9 [NLT] …  USE THIS LINK … 

… Peter, writing to God’s oppressed people in Asia-Minor, giving them the hope we have in our Lord, and Savior, … King Jesus!                       

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Reference Passage: … Proverbs 3:5-6  [NLT] … USE THIS LINK … 

… Solomon shows that we must trust in our Lord with ALL OUR HEART to be able to follow Him.

Reference Passage: … Isaiah 26:3 [NLT] … 

3   You (LORD) will keep in perfect peace all who trust in You, … ALL whose thoughts are fixed on You.  

… God, thru Isaiah, promises to give hope and peace to any/all who focus our faith on our faithful God. 

Reference Passage: … John 16:33  [NLT] … 

33 I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”  

… Jesus promised His disciples, … as they learned He was about to die, … that they would always have troubles and trials in their (our) lives, but for His disciples [that’s us too!!], He, King Jesus, had overcome the world.  

Reference Passage: … 1Peter 5:6-7  [NLT] …

6 So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time He will lift you up in honor. 7 Give all your worries and cares to God, for He cares about you.   

… Peter once again gives persecuted and oppressed Christians the hope they (we) have when they (we) can humble ourselves and rely on the One Who cared enough for us to die for them (us). 

        

My Devotional Journal: Today's Our Daily Bread author, Bill Crowder, AT THIS LINK …  relates how the hopefulness of the early 60s, with a new, young President, proclaiming that the USA would go to the moon, was replaced by despair and hopelessness when Kennedy was assassinated and the economy went negative in the later 60s.     

So often our attitudes and expectations are clouded by our feelings of pessimism when bad stuff happens.  And that’s what God’s people faced after the resurrection; and it’s what we’re facing now, going thru the Covid pandemic and all the violence and disharmony we see in our world.  

But, as Peter wrote to persecuted Christians in his day (see Peter’s Scriptures above), … no matter what our circumstances, … as Jesus also promised His disciples (see John 16:33), following our Lord and focusing our faith in Him gives us the ultimate in peace, as God Himself promised us thru Isaiah (see Isaiah 26:3).     

Oh how I pray today, for all reading with me here, that we keep focusing our hope EXCLUSIVELY on our relationship with Jesus, as Crowder/Wells sing in the linked song.  Because then, and ONLY THEN, will our God be able to give us the empowering grace of His peace                             

My THANKFULNESS: ... Oh, Abba Father, thank You, King Jesus, … for the peace I have in knowing You saved me to be with You forever.       

My Prayer Today: Oh Abba Father, ... King Jesus, ... . I pray that all reading here will join me, …  to keep our focus on our relationship with King Jesus as we move into these unsettling times in 2022.    … 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.