The Devotional

Papa “J” says

All marriages need two funerals, the couple need to die unto themselves and come alive again as one! Oh, I should be slapped for such a statement! Wait a minute, I did not say that! Genesis 2:24 and Ephesians 5:31. This is where nearly perfect marriages begin.

So if you think about this, some of you submarine sailors will know such a person, but the likes of him run in every walk of life. He is the guy that has a career but does not carry his share of the load. The other sailors call him a “lifer”. He spends his time eating the meals, breathing the manufactured air, sleeping in the environmentally controlled surroundings and allowing others to carry his weight and theirs too. A submarine can handle just one of these people, two of them can cause major problems, especially if they were on duty at the same time. It is not that they do not know what to do, they do know, but they will not respond properly to a danger. So not only do these people take up vital space in the already tight quarters, but when the critical moment happens, they are often in the way. People called lifers are not ignorant of their ways and have no excuse, it is a title of guilt when one is called a lifer. Israel had two such people in the tribe of Levites, their names were Hophni and Phinehas, the sons of Eli; both died when the Philistines captured the ark of God. 1 Samuel 4:1-22

Psalm 19

Psalm 19:12-14 Truly we cannot understand in total the error of our ways, no doubt this is a good thing, for if God should ever decide to show us what we really look like from the soul point of view that God sees, it would no doubt be our day of death. Jeremiah 17:9-10 and Matthew 15:19. But, let us not ask God to stop the world so we can get off, but realize that God provides grace and gives to us what we do not deserve. He gives us mercy.

Assuming that we understand salvation by grace (a different subject) we still need to acknowledge that our heart is full of faults that can be secret to us. Also, there are conditions in our sinful bent of the past that cause us to have presumptuous moments that harbor sin. In order to help us overcome these two conditions we must be willing to ask God to help us overcome in order to be blameless and innocent children of God, we cannot maintain alone.

So the words of our mouth and the moment by moment meditation of our heart are necessary. This operation and communication between God and the person will deliver them from the great transgression and restore sweet fellowship with the Creator. Being acceptable in His sight is also abiding in His strength and knowing that you have been redeemed. My hope is we would fully and truly let God redeem our soul. 1 Peter 1:18-19 It is all his work, we can only accept it by faith.