Self-Possession

Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God.

✙ Psalm 146:5

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Alexander Maclaren wrote:

By persevering persistence in the Christian path, we gain ourselves. Self-surrender is self-possession. We never own ourselves till we have given up owning ourselves, and yielded ourselves to that Lord who gives us back to ourselves. Self-control is self-possession. We do not own ourselves as long as it is possible for any weakness in flesh, sense, or spirit to gain dominion over us and hinder us from doing what we know to be right. We are not our own masters then.

As much as we might think we want it to be, self-help is not the true goal of the disciple. Christ himself was our example. In self-giving, he rose again to eternal life. So let us hold fast to what he taught us, and to the story that is told to us in his life, death, and resurrection. That is our hope of self-possession.
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By holding fast, you will gain your lives.

✙ Luke 21:19 (CEB)

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Prayer after thinking about today's devotion:

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O Love that will not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee.
I give thee back the life I owe,
that in thine ocean depths its flow
may richer, fuller be.

O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from thee.
I lay in dust, life’s glory dead,
and from the ground there blossoms red,
life that shall endless be.

✙ George Matheson (1882)

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After your own thanksgivings & petitions, close with the Lord's Prayer.

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