{"id":2913,"date":"2021-10-31T08:31:33","date_gmt":"2021-10-31T16:31:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/?p=2913"},"modified":"2021-10-31T08:31:33","modified_gmt":"2021-10-31T16:31:33","slug":"devotion-john-834-the-slow-creep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/?p=2913","title":{"rendered":"Devotion John 8:34 The Slow Creep"},"content":{"rendered":"

John 8:34\u00a0<\/b>–\u00a0Jesus answered them,\u00a0\u201cTruly, truly I say to you,\u00a0everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

The man walked into the bar and said to himself \u201cRemember that we\u2019re only here to see if some of the old friends still come here.\u00a0\u00a0Just here to see them and have some laughs.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0Deep down he knew he was sliding and couldn\u2019t help himself.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The woman felt her anger toward that person of a different descent.\u00a0\u00a0She doesn\u2019t know where the anger comes from but every time she sees \u201cone of them\u201d a simmering flame flares into a wild fire.\u00a0\u00a0She should love that person.\u00a0\u00a0Never has \u201cone of them\u201d hurt her but she just doesn\u2019t like them.\u00a0\u00a0She should not start a confrontation but she just can\u2019t help herself.\u00a0\u00a0Coming up beside that person she knew she was sliding and couldn\u2019t help herself.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Sin, of any kind, once embraced and repeated will move from the one-time mistake to a controlling master.<\/p>\n

A long time ago a wonderful sister had a flannel graph ministry to kids.\u00a0\u00a0She was going to be at the adult service and the kids would sit up front next to her.\u00a0\u00a0I wondered whether we should stay as we didn\u2019t have children at the time and I thought the ministry was only for the kids.\u00a0\u00a0One of the older saints, whose kids had long ago left their home to raise their own families, encouraged us to stay.\u00a0\u00a0She was sure it would bless us.\u00a0\u00a0Though skeptical, I didn\u2019t insist that we leave.<\/p>\n

The visiting nice elderly woman (probably about my current age) set up her flannel board and then began to speak to the kids and congregants in her Children Sunday School teacher voice.\u00a0\u00a0Actually, she was so sweet she immediately pulled me in, and all the rest of the adults.<\/p>\n

Using her flannel graph she related the story of a nomad named Ahab the Arab.\u00a0\u00a0He was a single nomadic (travelled and lived in a tent) man.\u00a0\u00a0He arrived at a new location and quickly set up his tent.\u00a0\u00a0It was already very cold and he knew it would get much colder during the night.\u00a0\u00a0After the tent was up Ahab quickly built a fire in his tent to keep him warm during the night.\u00a0\u00a0After a good dinner Arab settled into his toasty bed by the fire and fell asleep.<\/div>\n

After a short period of time Ahab felt a coldness come upon him.\u00a0\u00a0He opened his eyes and saw the reason for the cold, it was his camel who had poked his nose into the tent and let the cold in.\u00a0\u00a0Ahab scolded his camel that he was not allowed into the small tent.\u00a0\u00a0But the camel pleaded with Ahab to please let him have only his head inside to stay out of the frigid cold outside the tent.\u00a0\u00a0Ahab felt bad for his friend the camel and said \u201cokay, but only your head.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0The camel agreed only his head would come inside and Ahab went back to sleep.<\/p>\n

Again, a short time later, Ahab was awakened by coldness.\u00a0\u00a0He looked over to his camel and saw that the camel had crowded further in and was now in the tent up to his shoulders.\u00a0\u00a0The big camel was letting in more of the outside cold.\u00a0\u00a0Ahab was again about the throw the camel out but the camel pleaded that the night had become more bitterly cold and so he only came in far enough to keep himself from freezing.\u00a0\u00a0Ahab softened for his friend\u2019s condition and relented that he could stay with his shoulders inside, but not any further.\u00a0\u00a0The camel promised to obey Ahab\u2019s direction.<\/p>\n

During the coldest part of the night Ahab was again wakened by cold air.\u00a0\u00a0Also by the smell of his camel and its breath.\u00a0\u00a0He opened his eyes and was startled to see the camel was now fully in the tent an almost laying on top of him!\u00a0\u00a0Ahab became very upset because now the small tent was so crowded that there was almost no room for him.\u00a0\u00a0The camel began to plea again about the cold.\u00a0\u00a0Abraham wondered how to handle the situation now.<\/p>\n

By the way, the camel\u2019s name was Sin.\u00a0\u00a0And this a good story about how we should never let sin sneak into our lives.\u00a0\u00a0If we do, like the camel took over Ahab\u2019s tent, sin will take over more and more of our life.\u00a0\u00a0And if you need to ask Ahab, he will tell you that it is easier to never let a camel in then to get him out once he comes fully in.\u00a0\u00a0That is true about sin in our lives.<\/p>\n

Now, some forty years later, I\u2019m glad that we stayed.\u00a0\u00a0I learned a good lesson.\u00a0\u00a0Praise God!<\/p>\n

Psalm 150:6<\/b>\u00a0–\u00a0Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.\u00a0 Praise the Lord!<\/i><\/p>\n

Micah 7:7<\/b>\u00a0–\u00a0But as for me, I watch\u00a0in hope\u00a0for the\u00a0Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will Hear\u00a0me.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

Micah 6:8<\/b>\u00a0–\u00a0He has\u00a0shown you, Oh man, what\u00a0is\u00a0good; and what does the\u00a0Lord\u00a0require of you, but\u00a0to do justly, to love\u00a0mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.<\/i><\/p>\n

Numbers 6:24-26<\/b>\u00a0–\u00a0The\u00a0Lord\u00a0bless you and keep you; 25\u00a0The\u00a0Lord\u00a0make His face shine on you and be gracious to you; 26\u00a0The\u00a0Lord\u00a0turn His face\u00a0toward you and give you peace.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John 8:34\u00a0–\u00a0Jesus answered them,\u00a0\u201cTruly, truly I say to you,\u00a0everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin.\u00a0 The man walked into the bar and said to himself \u201cRemember that we\u2019re only here to see if some of the old friends still come here.\u00a0\u00a0Just here to see them and have some laughs.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0Deep down he knew he…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192],"tags":[100,94,1874,17],"class_list":["post-2913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-devotion","tag-john","tag-micah","tag-numbers","tag-psalm"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2913"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2913\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2914,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2913\/revisions\/2914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.Bob4God.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}