Friday, March 04, 2022

March 4, 2022 … Slave to ?

Berry Patch Devotions in 2021 - Day 63 


Devotional Song: ... GO TO THIS LINK ...    Please take the time to take in song and lyrics from Paul Baloche singing … My Offering …  poignantly singing of how we who serve King Jesus, worship our Lord with an offering of our lives.  


Whom do we serve? ... 

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Highlight Passage: … Matthew 6:24 [NLT] …  

“No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and be enslaved to money.   

… Jonathan is willing to risk his life to encourage and help David, showing remarkable faith in God’s choice to anoint David as the new king, … giving up his inherited rights as the son of King Saul.             

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Highlight Passage [Context]: … Matthew 6:19-24 [NLT] …  USE THIS LINK … 

… Jesus teaches truth about being a slave to God or to worldly things.                                          

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Highlight Passage [Context]: … Ecclesiastes 5:10  [NLT] …   

10 Those who love money will never have enough. How meaningless to think that wealth brings true happiness! 

… God, thru Solomon, warns of the enslaving lure of money.    


Highlight Passage [Context]: … Luke 12:15  [NLT] …   

15 Then He said, “Beware! Guard against every kind of greed. Life is not measured by how much you own.”  

… Again Jesus warns against greed and becoming a slave to our possessions.


Highlight Passage [Context]: … 1Timothy 6:10  [NLT] …   

10 For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.  And some people, craving money, have wandered from the true faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows. </i> 

… Paul warns Timothy that loving money - rather than our Lord - can become enslaving to the world.  


Highlight Passage [Context]: … Hebrews 13:5  [NLT] …   

Don’t love money; be satisfied with what you have. For God has said, “I will never fail you. I will never abandon you.”  

… God’s Spirit teaches, thru the Author of Hebrews, quoting from the OT (Deut 31:6), to assure believers that we don’t need to rely on earthly gains because our God will never abandon us.          


My Devotional JournalToday's Our Daily Bread author, Anne Cetas, … AT THIS LINK  writes of a man named Keven, who collected his father’s belongings from a nursing care facility where he had passed away, … discovering there were only two small boxes.  Yet,Kevin knew that his dad had lived a very happy life his last years, joyfully sharing his faith and positive words with others where he lived out the end of his life.             


The ODB story, of course, illustrates all the truths expressed in the Scriptures above and especially in the highlight teaching of Jesus (see Matt 6:19-24) that we cannot serve God and be a slave to money and worldly things at the same time.  And the ODB entry today calls me, (perhaps you too) to ask whom we pursue to serve with our lives today.  And I pray that we can answer that question with a confident declaration that our lives are like Paul Baloche sings in the linked song … that we are an offering of worship to our Lord.          


My THANKFULNESS: ... Oh, Abba Father, thank You, King Jesus, … for calling me to be Your slave.     

My Prayer Today: Oh Abba Father, ... King Jesus, ... . I pray that all reading here will join me, …  to surrender our affections today solely to serve our Lord.     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.

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