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This Week’s Devotional Topic
BACK TO THE BASICS OF OUR FAITH
As I ask God to guide me to a topic that I can share with you in a 5-minute devotional each week, it is sometimes overwhelming. How to choose one specific topic from the sixty-six books with over 700,000 words and practically infinite concepts, subjects and applications. I faced a similar challenge when my five children were young and I wanted to create a Bible study for them. My goal was to teach some basic concepts that they needed to know about God and their relationship to Him. So I simplified it, divided it into just a few chapters. Of course, it was filled with scripture to read and verses to memorize. And each one had opportunities for them to draw or color pictures describing some story that communicated the subject. Rather than overwhelm their young minds, I kept it simple, basic, easy for them to grasp.
It can be very helpful and valuable for us adults sometimes to do just that, keep it simple. If I had to sum up the basics of my faith into three points that could be presented in just a few minutes, it would be something like this.
First point: There is a God. Just looking around at creation screams there was an almighty power at work.
Romans 1:18-20 But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness. They know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them. For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.
Colossians 1:15-17 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
Second Point: He (God) loves us. As anyone would love his creation.
Genesis 1:26,27 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
Knowing that we are born with a sin nature and as a Holy God, we cannot have a relationship with Him, let alone live with Him in eternity, He created a way – The plan of salvation.
John 3:16,17 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
I Corinthians 15:1-4 Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.
I John 5:13 These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.
Third Point: We choose to respond to His love, even by doing nothing, we make a choice.
John 3:18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
We all have heaven to gain and hell to avoid.
I Thessalonians 4:16-18 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.
I Thessalonians 5:9-11 For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him. Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do.
I encourage you to consider this as a project. Consider summing up what you believe about God and your relationship with him in three or four points. I believe that process will edify you.
This week’s Scripture:
Romans 1:18-20; Colossians 1:15-17; Genesis 1:26,27; John 3:16-18; I John 5:13; I Corinthians 15:1-4 and I Thessalonians 4:16-18; 5:9-11
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