Then Joseph, being aroued from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord commanded him and took to him his wife Mary. Matthew 1:24
Recommended Reading: I CORINTHIANS 13:4-7 “4 Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,5 Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;6 Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;7 Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.”
COMMENTS: As we reflect on I Corinthians 13, which is called the “love chapter”, we discover a condensed but rich passage devoted to loving each other as Christ intends and even designed for us to love. To love as He loves us and exampled during His human life and crucifixion. Paul gave great detail identifying many ways true love is demonstrated and expectation of how we are called to love. But one thing is clear especially from this passage. Love is a choice of our will instead of a feeling most think. Love includes warm feelings toward those loved, but not always because they aren’t very loveable or don’t respond in kind. Truth is we aren’t very lovable and only infrequently respond to Christ’s love in kind. BUT THAT DOES NOT HINDER OR DIMINISH HIS LOVE FOR US!! Granted we must accept His sacrifice and repent of our sins in order to enjoy the redemption and blessings He offers and is preparing for those who do. But that doesn’t mean He loves those who do more or those who don’t less. It doesn’t mean He will sustain His wonderful offer of redemption as long as He can so those who don’t accept it can have a much time to reconsider as possible.
Joseph gets a little short changed in scripture. Mary shares much with us after her angelic visit and when visiting her cousin Elizebeth. But Joseph shares volumes of his character and love for God and for Mary simply by protecting her, not putting her away but marrying her after learninga she was with child. To believe the story told her may have been more believable after his dream instructing him to take Mary for his wife and that her story was true. But the pressure to do different because of judgment of family and community had to have weighed on him as well. BUT HE CHOSE TO LOVE AND FOLLOW A PATH WORTHY OF A SPECIAL PLACE IN HISTORY AND IN SCRIPTURE AND IN ETERNITY.
Well, if loving is a choice, then we can choose to love as He demonstrated and as Paul describes, which will bring us joy and love and also bring such to those we impact. The other choice is to hold bitterness and anger against those who hurt or offend us, which brings death and sadness. Our motivation to love is because it brings life, but even more because of His great sacrifice for us and because He commands us to.
First, we need to focus on and love Him. He so deserves our love and devotion and fellowship. Then loving others become a whole lot easier and possible. We may still not want to but that will change as we draw closer to Christ. So, bottom line is love because He loves us and let our trust in Him give us confidence and assurance until evidence is seen. Until then, it will be will over fillings and faith over circumstances. He gives us countless examples of those who loved and those who didn’t along with their struggles but the final outcome, so we should not be surprised. Good may take much longer than we would like but good is His promise to those who are faithful to Him.
I’m sure many or most of you are thinking that is easy for me to say. Well I struggle with loving too often too. Indifference and half hearting demonstrating Christ’s love is my norm too. But I am working on improving by seeking a deeper walk and surrender to His Holy Spirit. I encourage you to do the same. We all have an infinitely long way to go to be Christ-like. We can improve very significantly and will as we grow closer, but we all will remain short of His mark while on earth. That means we all are unworthy and saved only by His Grace and not by our merits or good deeds. That is way it must be. We are all at one level at the foot of the cross and only He has bragging rights. No one else dare boast of their goodness because it still falls infinitely short of Christ’s example and God’s requirement. Even Billy Graham. But with Christ’s blood redeeming us, God sees us through His righteousness instead of our own. Such good news. So, showing love to others is a small sacrifice, right? Right!!
So, remember that the next time a spouse neglects or a child disobeys or worse or a co-worker or boss hurts or causes injustice to you. Remember who you follow and what He has done for you and be glad for being trusted to example His love as uneasy as the task is. A kind work while being first and keeping others accountable may indeed be the balance and path God will use to change others but also to change us.
Love “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Corinthians 13:7).
“We are called upon to reflect the love of God as much in trial as in tranquility.” John Blanchard
If you wish, you can access my blog at “https://donsdevotions.wordpress.com“. There you will find 218 blog posts I have made plus a link to my devotional journal material archives from 2013 to present.
You may also access my facebook page and request to be my friend and automatically receive my daily journal publications daily. My facebook page is: https://www.facebook.com/Dondevotionals/
My hope and prayer is, they will become a source of encouragement and tools in ministry for you.
Published by donsdevotions
Don McDaniel - Who am I?
Hello everyone and welcome to my devotional journal blog. In order to get acquainted and help you get to know me a bit better before considering following my blog, let me give you some background. I am a 74-year-old male and a retired engineer. I worked for a major supplier of underground mining equipment for nearly 40 years before retiring in 2012. Arlene and I have been happily married since April 1978 and have two grown – married children, one granddaughter and 2 step grandsons. I joined the local United Methodist church at age 12 after accepting Christ as my Savior at age 10 during revival services in that same church in 1961, so I have been a “Born Again” Christian all my teen years and adult life. Christ has helped and guided me all that time. He guided me in choosing my wife and life’s career. My life journey has included regrets and failures, but God has picked me up and protected and spared me from life threatening consequences and dangers more times than I can recall or count. But many I do recall and encourage and motivate me to trust and follow Christ with more passion than ever.
Christmas 2011 our daughter gave Arlene and I each a devotional journal. Journals were books with devotion for each day and space to give personal impressions and thoughts related to each devotion. Her desire was to have a lasting legacy she could refer back to and share with her children and grandchildren especially after we are gone. I was touched by that gesture. My parents and Arlene’s were devout Christians, so we would have greatly treasured having that from them, so we felt a sense of urgency to honor her request. I finished my journal first and returned it to our daughter the following Christmas. I’m glad I did it then because Parkinson’s has caused my hand writing to deteriorate since then. The exercise was such a blessing for me. Discipline of keeping journal helped me gain a deeper walk with Christ and greater discipline in honoring my time of prayer and devotion with Him each day. So, I decided to continue the practice but since I could not find a paper journal I liked, I decided to create my own. I had already been receiving electronic devotions by email every day from several sources, my favorite being “Turning Point” from Dr. David Jeremiah. What I decided to do was to include devotional scripture but add my own thoughts and comments only so there would be no issue of copyright infringement. Creating and maintaining journal by computer also addressed my deteriorating handwriting ability. I started an electronic devotion journal January 1, 2013 and have been faithful to that practice every day since. I prayed about method and level of distribution. My initial intent was to only share it with my two children by email, but quickly discovered others in my family, my church, and friends from work (both retired and still working) who knew me and wanted to be included in distribution when they learned what I was doing. I now distribute by email my daily journal at the beginning of each month to over 150 friends and relatives. God has richly blessed and encouraged me.
I am concerned with the state of our church and nation, and world for that matter, believing we are living in the end times the prophets of old and Christ have talked about in scripture, so time is short. I desire to be true to my Savior and a witness to help others come to a saving knowledge of Him and equipped to share His Good News too. If my journal can encourage and help others, I believe God wants me to share it. I struggled, for a time at first, because I know many others keep similar journals but only for their own edification and do not want to share them because they are private.
However, Christ has stirred my heart to share it as a witness tool.
Our son and daughter have a long-time friend who grew up with them who we also befriended nearly 25 years ago. He had a lot of family problems, so would gravitate to our family as a refuge and eventually thought of us as his adopted parents and he as our adopted son. We lost contact with him for some time when he grew up and left home. He traveled around the U.S. and eventually ended up in Ukraine where he resided for next 10 years. He had to return to the US to renew his visa and took opportunity to recommend I begin a blog of my devotions and helped me set it up. He is also an active blogger and has been an email subscriber to my journal for several months, so he has been suggesting I expand my distribution by starting a blog to get broader exposure. After reflection and prayer, I concluded God was in this, so he is helping me set up my blog site. This brief autobiography is my first entry.
He returned to Ukraine, then resided there until circumstanced made him decide to move back to US with his young son. This biography was my first post February 29, 2016 .
I have published 600 posts from 2016-2023 automatically sent to all my Facebook friends, published on WordPress to be accessible to anyone curious or seeking a deeper walk with God. I decided to take a sebatical to prepare for a new chapter. In 2014 I was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease which affects patient ability to walk, drive, do physical work, and eventually talk. By mid 2023 it became evident our home for last 42 years (previously owned by my parents for previous 44 years and by my mother's grandparents for 39 years before that) would eventually not meet my needs so we decided to sell it and move into 1st floor of a duplex we also owned that was the town school from 1855-1913. Likewise, the property was requiring more maintenance that I was no longer able to keep up with. 2023 involved selling our home and moving into apartment next door and then in early 2025 an opportunity to move closer to our daughter and granddaughter in Kentucky which was completed in May 2025. For a number of months I have been seeking direction seeking God's direction and timing to return to blogging as my journey with Parkinson's continues to unfold with God's guiding hand in mine.
I hope and pray my devotions will continue to be a blessing for you. God certainly has become closer and more real to me since started this blog in 2016. I have spent time with Him studying scripture and praying and listening and writing this journal. I will continue seeking God’s help and will welcome your input to make this site as meaningful as I can and true to God, who is motivating me to create and maintain it. I will also welcome input in order to make format more meaningful going forward.
Don & Arlene McDaniel
In His Service,
Email: mcdanieldonald769@gmail.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Don1951
If you wish, you can access my blog at “https://donsdevotions.wordpress.com“. There you will find 600+ blog posts I have made plus a link to my devotional journal material archives from 2013 to present (https://donsdevotions.wordpress.com/2016/03/02/link-to-dons-devotional-journal-entries-2013/ )
You may also access my Facebook page and request to be my friend and automatically receive my daily journal publications daily. My Facebook page is: https://www.facebook.com/Dondevotionals/ Many thanks to a pastor and dear brother in Christ in Nepal who set up the above Facebook page to help and encourage and give opportunity for more to explore and use my devotional blog materials. View all posts by donsdevotions
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