{"id":7935,"date":"2013-03-29T12:01:54","date_gmt":"2013-03-29T12:01:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/?p=7935"},"modified":"2013-03-29T12:09:21","modified_gmt":"2013-03-29T12:09:21","slug":"good-friday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/?p=7935","title":{"rendered":"Good Friday"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Today’s In Touch Devotional is my best chance of sharing the importance of this day in the Christians Life, allow me to share it;<\/span><\/p>\n

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Romans 6:8-11<\/span><\/h3>\n

New Living Translation (NLT)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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8\u00a0<\/sup>And since we died with Christ, we know we will also live with him. 9\u00a0<\/sup>We are sure of this because Christ was raised from the dead, and he will never die again. Death no longer has any power over him. 10\u00a0<\/sup>When he died, he died once to break the power of sin. But now that he lives, he lives for the glory of God. 11\u00a0<\/sup>So you also should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Christ Jesus.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Destined for the Cross<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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When you saw the title for today\u2019s devotion, I imagine that you thought it was about Jesus. If so, you\u2019re half right. The cross is always about Jesus, but believers are also destined for sacrifice and death.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cDeath to self\u201d happens at the moment of salvation, when we are crucified with Christ<\/span> (Rom. 6:6<\/span><\/a>).<\/span> The old self dies, and we are given a new nature as the Holy Spirit comes to live within us<\/span> (John 14:17<\/span><\/a>).<\/span> At times it takes a bit longer to get to the sacrifice\u2014the moment when we hand over to God everything we love and value.<\/span><\/p>\n

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God doesn\u2019t stop at salvation; His purpose is to conform believers to the likeness of His Son<\/span> (Rom. 8:29<\/span><\/a>)<\/span>. So He gives us a new nature<\/span>\u2014then we can experience freedom because Jesus has triumphed over sin. But in order to live as God intends, we must be willing to give Christ the centermost position in our lives. As a result, the Lord calls us to the cross on a daily basis to lay down the things that might distract us from our purpose to serve and follow Him.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Don\u2019t misunderstand what it means to be destined for the cross. God isn\u2019t going to take away everything and leave us as lonely paupers. Putting our valuables on the cross\u2014whether they are possessions, people, or dreams\u2014frees us from the attachments of this world.<\/span><\/p>\n

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When we lay down worldly attachments, our self-esteem isn\u2019t tied to \u201cstuff\u201d and our sense of acceptance doesn\u2019t come from people. We are complete in the Lord. Or as Paul said, we are \u201calive to God in Christ Jesus\u201d (Rom. 6:11<\/span><\/a>)<\/span>. Enjoying a new life in Christ is worth a daily trip to the cross.<\/span><\/p>\n

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May you and your family be blessed this Easter Weekend, and may God \u00a0hold you in the palm of His mighty, loving, and nail scarred hands,<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

the pilgrim<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Today’s In Touch Devotional is my best chance of sharing the importance of this day in the Christians Life, allow me to share it;   Romans 6:8-11 New Living Translation (NLT) 8\u00a0And since we died with Christ, we know we will also live with him. 9\u00a0We are sure of this because Christ was raised […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chronicles"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7935"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7945,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7935\/revisions\/7945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}