Are you willing to put it ALL on the line?
Devotion 19: Need Prayer? Click the forum by the home tab & let us know so we can pray for you! 🤍
Brethren,
Here's a story about a certain believer who was involved in a horrible car accident. Thinking he was dying, he wrote a message with his own blood to his wife and kids, saying: "I LOVE my wife, and kids!"
Heart warming, yet heartbreaking, wouldn't you say? A LOVE letter, written in blood!
Well, normally, we use the words written in blood in a less literal way. It usually conveys a willingness to stand behind our words with our LIFE.
Does that statement describe you, Beloved? Are you willing to give your very LIFE, for what you believe in?
What about, for whom you believe in?
Consider this,
As Paul ended his letter to the Galatians, he was, in a figurative sense, writing his story in blood. He wrote a message of LOVE and GRACE that would arouse the anger of the religious leaders, because he assured them that on the Cross, JESUS CHRIST had taken the place of guilty law breakers. Paul knew he would be hated for honoring the death of JESUS CHRIST above the ritual and moral law of Israel. He knew that he would be punished for teaching that the LORD JESUS CHRIST’s death, burial, and RESURRECTION, are more important than the law of circumcision that represented the whole Mosaic way of LIFE.
But Paul wasn’t willing to play it safe. 2 Corinthians 11:23-33 assures us, that Paul’s suffering for our LORD JESUS CHRIST would literally include shedding his own blood. And he was willing to go both to prison and to death, for the GLORY of our Beloved LORD, JESUS CHRIST.
Let me share the SCRIPTURE with you and get your thoughts on Paul, the Minister of CHRIST. It reads like this: “Are they Ministers of CHRIST?- I speak as a fool - I am more: in labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequently, in deaths often from the jews I received five stripes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeys often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness - besides other things, what comes upon me daily: my deep concern for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to stumble, and I do not burn with indignation? If I must boast, I will boast in the things which concern my infirmity. The GOD and FATHER of our LORD JESUS CHRIST, who is blessed forever, knows that I am not lying. In Damascus the governor, under Aretas the king, was guarding the city of the Damascenes with a garrison, desiring to arrest me; but I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall, and escaped from his hands.”
Brethren,
Paul wasn’t willing to play it safe, but to give his very LIFE if needed for HIM who on the Cross had given HIS LIFE to pay for the sin of the world.
Paul knew that the crucifixion of the LORD JESUS CHRIST is the center page of history. So Putting his own LIFE on the line, Paul proclaimed the inexpressible “Heart of GOD" who gave HIS Son to express the ultimate WORD of LOVE, written in "BLOOD" at the Cross.
What about you, Beloved?
Are you willing to place it all on the line for HIM, who placed it all on the line to SAVE us from the consequence of our sins?
I pray that every member of the BODY of CHRIST would.
For 2 Timothy 4:7-8 assure us that we've each been called to "fight the good fight," and to "finish the race" Yet, those who are not willing to do so ought to closely consider GOD'S WORD from Malachi 2:2. And consider closely how it reads: “And now, O priest's, this commandment is for you. If you will not hear and if you will not take it to heart to give GLORY to MY NAME, says the LORD of hosts, "I will send a curse upon you and I will curse your blessings. Yes, I have cursed them already because you do not take it to heart.”
And if that WORD is not enough to get us to open up and speak to one another consider what the LORD says to us who fear HIM calling us "wicked servants," as HE did to him who is spoken of in the parable of the talents from Mathew 25:14-31.
Although, I pray that passage speaks to none of us, consider Malachi 3:16-18 and how GOD speaks to us who fear saying: “Then those who feared the LORD spoke to one another, and the LORD listened and heard them; so a book of rememberance was written before HIM for those who fear the LORD and who meditate on HIS NAME.
Specifically, on how to GLORIFY HIS NAME.
What NAME?
The NAME above All NAME'S!
For at the NAME of JESUS every knee will bow.
To those of us, Malachi 3:17-18 has these WORDS to say: “They shall be MINE says the LORD of hosts,"On that day that I make them MY jewels. And I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him." Then you shall again discern between the RIGHTEOUS and the wicked, between one who serves GOD, and one who does not serve HIM.”
Does that passage speak of you, Beloved?
I pray that the passage that speaks of the one who serves the LORD, our GOD is the one that applies to you.
JESUS ✞
OK
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