Scripture Reading for the day: John 15:18-27
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Scripture Quote: “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.” John 17:16-17 (NASB)
Sometimes we can feel as if we’ve lost touch with a relative or friend that we haven’t spoken to in a long time. They become stranger and stranger to us as our separate lives evolve indifferent to the other, until we wonder if we’d have anything in common to talk about should one or the other try to reconnect. Allowing our hectic schedules to separate us from the Word can produce the same kind of foreign feelings and disconnectedness. God speaks to us through his Word and so we must be available to listen if we are to have an intimate relationship with Him.
In Jesus’ prayer for His disciples He shows us that the secret to sanctification is the importance of God’s Word having residency in our hearts. It is fundamental to our growth process to be entrenched, giving high priority, to the point of being passionate about learning God’s Word. We can only experience the power of God in our lives when we fill ourselves with the truth contained in the Bible. And it’s not just reading the Word, but applying it, taking it with us out into the world in which we reside that makes us separate and different from nonbelievers.
Today’s meditation: “The closer you live to God, the smaller everything else appears.” Rick Warren
Memory Verse: “I have made Your name known to them, and will make it known so that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.” John 17:26 (NASB)