{"id":20653,"date":"2017-10-03T00:10:00","date_gmt":"2017-10-03T07:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lccredding.com\/lcc\/?p=11707"},"modified":"2017-10-03T00:10:00","modified_gmt":"2017-10-03T07:10:00","slug":"october-3-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/2017\/10\/03\/october-3-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"October 3, 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u00a0Our apologies, ladies. Yesterday’s devotional was contributed by Sally McClung of “All Nations” (ministry).<\/span>
\n \u00a0~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the Israelites cried out for help to the LORD, He raised up a deliverer for the Israelites who rescued them. His name was Othniel, son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother. The LORD’s Spirit empowered him and he led Israel. When he went to do battle, the LORD handed over to him King Cushan-Rishathaim of Aram and he overpowered him.\u201d<\/em> Judges 3:9-10<\/span><\/p>\n

Overpowered and Broken<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

When I think of overpowered<\/em>, I think of being defeated or overcome by superior strength\u2014of being handed over as the above verse says. In the world of gaming, however, being overpowered (OP) means to be very powerful or to have superior strength.<\/span><\/p>\n

The other day my daughter told me that in one of her games, a certain character is being updated to make OP (very powerful), and then she proceeded to tell me the same character was also broken. I assumed she meant something was wrong with her, like there was a glitch in updating the game and, as a result, the character wasn\u2019t functioning right. It turns out that, in gaming language, \u201cbroken\u201d is another way of saying the character will be OP.<\/span><\/p>\n

I asked her how something could be broken and OP at the same time\u2014it didn\u2019t make any sense to me. Then I had an a-ha moment.<\/span><\/p>\n

When we are broken (have given up hope, despairing, damaged, defeated, shattered, etc.) and come to Jesus, don\u2019t we then become OP? You can\u2019t be much more powerful than to have the Spirit who literally raised Jesus from the dead living in you (Romans 8:11). The above verse says the LORD raised up a deliverer for the Israelites. Othniel was empowered by the Holy Spirit, which is how he overpowered the King of Aram.<\/span><\/p>\n

Acts 10:38 tells us that God anointed Jesus with the Holy Spirit and with power, and He then went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him. God is with us, too. It is God who does the healing and the good, but He lets us participate.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Interestingly enough, this game character\u2019s name is Mercy. Doesn\u2019t God, in His great mercy toward us, give us His immeasurable strength? \u201cTo You, O my strength, I will sing praises; for God is my defense, My God of mercy\u201d<\/em> (Psalm 59:17).<\/span><\/p>\n

On my own, I\u2019m the older version of overpowered and broken: weak and defeated. But with God, through Christ, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, I\u2019m the game version, where overpowered and broken = strong and victorious.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDear Lord, thank You for living in us and making us the \u201cgame version\u201d of overpowered and broken, by Your great grace and mercy, and all for Your glory. Amen.\u201d<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0Our apologies, ladies. Yesterday’s devotional was contributed by Sally McClung of “All Nations” (ministry). \u00a0~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ \u201cWhen the Israelites cried out […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-women"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p92wjD-5n7","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20653\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lccredding.org\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}