Running on Faith Weekday Devotions (Thursday 12/22/22):
Have you ever received a valuable gift & seemed excited about it when opening it, yet later re-gifted, thrown away, placed in a corner or on a shelf to never, or rarely, use?
How are you responding to the original Christmas gift, the Lord Jesus Christ?
Do you know Him only intellectually, sticking that familiar name in a proverbial corner except for Christmas & Easter?
Do you believe in Jesus Christ as Savior, yet look at Him as only your eternal retirement plan? It’s beyond human comprehension!
Do you submit your life: your thoughts, words, & actions to Him, seeking His influence (Eph 5:18) in everything, & define success as “pleasing Jesus Christ”?
“Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him.” (2 Cor 5:9)
Do you share His love, light, hope, mercy, forgiveness, & encouragement with those whom He places in your life’s path?
This Christmas, will you politely worship Christ like an undesired gift or passionately worship Him as Lord of all & Savior for all who believe!?
Additionally:
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)
“For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him.
He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.
He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything.
For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven.
And although you were formerly alienated and hostile in mind, engaged in evil deeds, yet He has now reconciled you in His fleshly body through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach—if indeed you continue in the faith firmly established and steadfast, and not moved away from the hope of the gospel that you have heard, which was proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, was made a minister.” (Colossians 1:13–23)