June 18, 2023 – Our Daily Bread Devotional: Fixing Go-Karts

June 18, 2023 – Our Daily Bread Devotional, Sunday ODB Message

Read June 18, 2023 – Our Daily Bread Devotional, ODB Devotional Message for Sunday By Sheridan Voysey

TOPIC: Fixing Go-Karts

BIBLE IN A YEAR: Nehemiah 10–11; Acts 4:1–22

KEY VERSE: I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. Ephesians 3:14–15

TODAY’S SCRIPTURE
Ephesians 3:12–19

INSIGHT FOR OUR DAILY BREAD 18TH JUNE 2023 BY K.T SIM
At the end of his second missionary journey, Paul made a brief visit to Ephesus (Acts 18:19–22) and returned there at the start of his third missionary journey (19:1–21; 20:31). When he was imprisoned (see Ephesians 3:1), probably in Rome, he wrote the letter of Ephesians to encourage the believers to remain strong, telling them that he had persistently prayed for their growth and maturity (1:15–18).

The book of Ephesians contains two prayers. In the first one, which emphasizes knowledge (1:15–23), Paul prays that the church would have “the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that [they] may know [God] better,” and “know the hope” to which God had called them (vv. 17–18). In the second prayer, which focuses on love, he prays that “being rooted and established in love” (3:17), they might “grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ” (v. 18).

OUR DAILY BREAD DEVOTIONAL 18TH JUNE 2023 MESSAGE:

The garage of my childhood home holds many memories. On Saturday mornings, my dad would roll our car down the driveway so we had room to work—with my favorite project being a broken go-kart we’d found. On that garage floor, we gave it new wheels, attached a sporty, plastic windshield, and—with Dad on the street looking out for traffic—I would race down the driveway with such excitement! Looking back, I see more was going on in that garage than simply fixing go-karts. Instead, a young boy was being shaped by his dad—and getting a glimpse of God in the process.

Human beings have been patterned on God’s own nature (Genesis 1:27–28). Human parenting has its origin in Him too, for He’s “the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name” (Ephesians 3:14–15). Just as parents imitate God’s life-giving abilities by bringing children into the world, when they nurture and protect their kids, they express qualities not sourced in themselves but in Father God. He’s the model all parenting is based on.

My father wasn’t perfect. Like every father and mother, his parenting sometimes failed to imitate heaven’s. But when it so often did imitate God, it gave me a glimpse of His own nurture and protection—right there, as we fixed go-karts on the garage floor.

REFLECT: How do you see good parenting reflecting God’s nature? How can you reflect His nurture and protection to others today?

PRAY: Father God, help me nurture and protect our children and others today, revealing Your good qualities to them.

Our Daily Bread Devotional 18 June 2023 || ODB for Sunday Message . Our Daily Bread Ministries (ODB) is a Christian organization founded by Dr. Martin De Haan in 1938. It is based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, with over 600 employees. It produces several devotional publications, including Our Daily Bread. our daily bread devotional for today audio our daily bread booklet.

READ MORE TOPICS: OPEN HEAVENS, OUR DAILY BREAD, IN TOUCH, SEEDS OF DESTINY, STREAMS OF JOY, JOEL OSTEEN, MOUNTAIN TOP LIFE, DCLM DAILY MANNA, UCB WORD FOR TODAY