MEDITATION MONDAY
Our theme song this week encourages all of us to "lay down the burden of your heart". Many people are not even aware of the burdens that they are carrying. If they knew and really began to look at those burdens, it would be easy to become overwhelmed.
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It is when a person comes face to face with her sinful condition and her Savior that the enormity of her burdens becomes real. She must be convinced that there is no greater burden that she carries than the burden of her sin!
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Scripture tells us that sin separates us from God. How dreadful! Separated from God?!!??!!!! Separated from perfect love? Separated from unfathomable goodness? Separated from complete forgiveness? How can that be? We weep. We mourn. We don't want separation! Then, comes comfort! Mourning... sorrow... comfort... hope... mourning... sorrow... comfort... hope...
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Here are jthe verses that I'll be meditating on today from Romans, 2 Corinthians, and Galatians. Won't you join me for conviction... comfort... hope.... .
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Romans 3
- 23 "...for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
- 24 and are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. "
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Romans 7
- 13 - "Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! But in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.
- 14 - We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.
- 15 - I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.
- 22 - For in my inner being I delight in God's law;
- 23 - but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members.
- 24 - What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?
- 25 - Thanks be to God-through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin."
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Romans 8
- 1 - 'Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,
- 2 - because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. "
2 Corinthians 1
- 3 "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort,
- 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God."
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2 Corinthians 5
- 14 - "For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that One died for all, and therefore all died.
- 15 - And He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for Him who died for them and was raised again.
- 16 - So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.
- 17 - Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, He is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!
- 18 - All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:
- 19 - that God was reconciling the world to Himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And He has committed to us the message of reconciliation.
- 20 - We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God.
- 21 - God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God."
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Galatians 3
- 22 - But the Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe.
- 26 - You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus,
- 27 - for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.
- 28 - There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
- 29 - If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise."
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Galatians 5
- 16 - "So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.
- 17 - For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want.
- 18 - But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.
- 19 - The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery;
- 20 - idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions
- 21 - and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
- 22 - But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
- 23 - gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
- 24 - Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires.
- 25 - Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.
- 26 - Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other."
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Galatians 6
- 1 - "Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted.
- 2 - Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.
- 7 - Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.
- 8 - The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. "
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"BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO MOURN,
FOR THEY WILL BE COMFORTED."
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~BLESSED~
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