April 27, 2023 … Weed Watering?

Berry Patch Devotions in 2023 - Day 117 

Devotional Song: ... GO TO THIS LINK ...  Please take the time to take in song and lyrics  from Francesca Battistelli singing … Holy Spirit … poignantly and powerfully singing of welcoming in the Holy Spirit to lead us thru life.      

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Highlight Passage: … Galatians 5:16 [NLT] … 

16 So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves 

… Paul charges fellow Christians follow the guide of God’s Spirit to avoid follow the ways of the flesh.              

Highlight Passage (Context): … Galatians 5:13-26 [NLT] …  USE THIS LINK …  

… Paul exhorts fellow Christians to walk in the Spirit, … not feeding the flesh.                              

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

… God, thru Solomon, calls on believers to trust in and follow God’s ways and avoid following our own ways.  

Reference Passage: … John 8:31-32 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK … 

… Jesus calls on His disciples to follow Him as the truth which will set us free from our sin nature.       

Reference Passage: … John 15:1-8 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK … 

… Jesus teaches that we can only be fruitful of we abide in Christ to follow His ways.    

Reference Passage: … Galatians 2:20 [NLT] … 

20 My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 

… Paull teaches that when born-again Christians live to trust and follow Christ, we die to self and live for the Lord. 

Reference Passage: … Galatians 5:19-23 [NLT] … USE THIS LINK … 

… Paul shows fellow Christians the results of living for the flesh rather that our life if we surrender to live by following God’s Spirit. 

                                                                                                                         

My Devotional Journal: Today's Our Daily Bread author, Adam Holz … AT THIS LINK … tells of one spring as the author and his daughter worked in their garden,  … the weeds beginning to grow unusually strongly that spring, prompting the author’s daughter to water the weeds, jokingly saying that she wanted to see how big the weeds could get.

And that instance - tho a joke - caused the ODB author to see the reality of the Apostle Paul’s and Jesus’ teaching in the Scriptures above and the reality of avoiding to water the weeds in our life - i.e., the desires of the flesh - rather than surrendering to follow God’s Spirit by watering God’s flowers rather than the weeds of our flesh.  

And if my readers take in God truth above, especially as God’s word (see above) charges us to follow God’s Spirit rather than choose to water the weeds of our flesh. And taking to heart what the Apostle Paul taught fellow Christians (and us) in His letter to the churches in Asia Minor  (see keystone passages in the book of Galatians),  let’s all be watering God’s fruit of the Spirit today and avoid watering our fleshly weeds.  

My THANKFULNESS: ... Oh, Abba Father, thank You, King Jesus, … for pouring the life giving waters of Your love/grace on the fruit of Your Spirit in my life. 

My Prayer Today: Oh Abba Father, ... King Jesus, ... . I pray that all reading here will join me, … to pour the waters of Your Spirit, Lord, on the fruit You are growing in our lives..  …  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.