Just For Dads: Be A Positive Christian Role Model – Day 7

I found a devotional that was a bit longer and that sounded powerful as a message so that it could help us learn and become the dads God created and purposed for us to be. So I chose “Just For Dads: Be A Positive Christian Role Model” because, over 21 days, we will get to read and learn about how to be a positive Christian role model for our family! Over 21 days, we will get to learn about topics like: “self-discipline, love, patience, and much more“! This devotional will not only help us be the dads but it will also help us “in our day-to-day life to show our children what it truly means to be a role model and follower of Christ in every sense“.

Let’s check out our scriptures for today’s devotional:

• Obadiah 1:1-4

‘The vision of Obadiah. This is what the Sovereign Lord says about Edom— We have heard a message from the Lord: An envoy was sent to the nations to say, “Rise, let us go against her for battle”— “See, I will make you small among the nations; you will be utterly despised. The pride of your heart has deceived you, you who live in the clefts of the rocks and make your home on the heights, you who say to yourself, ‘Who can bring me down to the ground?’ Though you soar like the eagle and make your nest among the stars, from there I will bring you down,” declares the Lord. ‘

Obadiah 1:1-4

‘All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.’ (2 Timothy 3:16-17) So let’s be the dads who study God’s Word! Let’s be the dads who spend time in God’s Word! Let’s be the dads who receive teaching from God’s Word! Let’s be the dads who receive rebuking from God’s Word! Let’s be the dads who receive correcting from God’s Word! Let’s be the dads who receive training in righteousness from God’s Word! Let’s be the dads who are thoroughly equipped for every good work!

Let’s be the dads who walk our lives humbly for we know that when we humble ourselves, under God’s mighty hand, He will lift us up in due time! Let’s be the dads who choose to live humbly because we know that pride comes before the fall! Let’s be the dads who choose to live humbly because we know that a prideful heart brings deception! Let’s be the dads who choose to live humbly because we know that walking in pride and arrogance opens the door to being humbled and brought down!

Today’s devotional has been provided by Zondervan!

Reading through today’s devotional, here are some takeaways for me:
(check out the devotional on your own too to see if you pick up other nuggets, and please share your findings in the comments)

For more information, please visit Just For Dads: Be A Positive Christian Role Model | Devotional Reading Plan | YouVersion Bible for more details.

Takeaways from Today’s Devotional:

“I’m going to bring you down“

• Let’s be the dads who walk humbly because we know “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18)!
• Let’s be the dads who walk and live humbly because we know “Pride brings a person low, but the lowly in spirit gain honor.” (29:23)!
• Let’s be the dads who choose humility and to live meekly because we know “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth,” Jesus would tell his followers centuries later (Matthew 5:5).
• Today’s devotional demonstrates an example through Muhammad Ali when it says:
  • “In his prime, Muhammad Ali was, according to many experts, the best boxer ever to step into the ring. He was also very good for the sport, assuming that lots of publicity for such a brutal sport could be called “good.”
    
    As a teenager I can recall watching this brash young fighter, wagging his finger at an opponent. His verbal taunts were as relentless as his left jab. “I’m going to bring you down,” He told Floyd Patterson, the reigning heavyweight champion of the world, in 1965. And Ali took him down. In the years to follow Muhammad Ali directed his pointed finger and audacious claims in the faces of the likes of the behemoth Sonny Liston and the mighty Joe Frazier. In those days, there wasn’t a boxer alive who didn’t fear the great Ali. No boxer could stand under his pitiless attack.
    
    One of the most often repeated themes in the Bible is this: When our hearts become proud, God will, in his own way, level us out. “Though you soar like an eagle and make your nest among the stars, from there I will bring you down,” God told his contemptuous people through the prophet Obadiah.
    
    In time, even the stupendous Muhammad Ali went down . . . his age and his own poor health became the supreme victors.“
• Let’s be the dads who grab a hold of what humility means and choose to live with “a servant’s heart and a gentle tongue — is the natural consequence of a grateful spirit“!
• Let’s be the dads who remember to live humbly because we know that “humility is one of those elusive goals that you must forget in order to achieve“!
• Let’s be the dads who live to serve others!
• Let’s be the dads who put others above ourselves!
• Let’s be the dads who remember that “Humility is the by-product of“, “the result of understanding one’s own sinfulness and God’s holiness“, and “the consequence of one’s daily commitment to pursue his righteousness“!
• Let’s be the dads who discover and have discovered and continue to discover who we are in Christ Jesus, accepting our place before Him, and putting pursuing Him as our top priority!
• Today’s devotional closes with this truth and question:
  • “Our God is a mighty God. He has called us to be His followers. He is the One who deserves all the glory. Kind of makes you proud just thinking about it, doesn’t it?“