You teach us that our conscience must be clear when we make choices about eating and drinking and that if our heart convicts us concerning such things, we should refrain. You also tell us that if we do not feel right about what we are doing and we go on doing it, we are sinning.
Is there any upside to being tested? I prefer no difficult moments!
Father, not every day seems to “go right” but we know that you allow us to be tested. Help us not to resist the testing as something negative, but to see it as a chance to depend upon You. We know that during the testing we are tempted to lose faith, to get discouraged and to doubt Your presence in the situation. That is what the tempter does, Father. Satan wants us to waiver in our faith.
My anguish is such that I actually cry out…who cares?
Father, we too live in a time of many false gods and many are simply without any faith in any god. O’God, help us this day to show men who You are by our faith and obedience to You. We know You care. Give Your strength to Your servant…
When is the last time you truly felt joyful?
When we enter into the joy of the Lord, we do so twice, once now and once again for eternity, in heaven. You teach us to have joy now, even in turmoil, not because we enjoy trouble, but because it is temporary and our joy in Your grace prevails before, during and after difficulty.
God’s thoughts toward you exceed number!
Father, as we cry out to You, we sometimes feel there is no way that we are able to be heard. You have just told us that Your thoughts toward us are more than can be numbered. Father, we are heard and You are miraculously present.
Pretty simple; just two commandments!
Jesus, we know that knowing the truth, such as the two greatest commandments, which summarize the 10 commandments, is not the entire issue. Help us today to be filled with the Holy Spirit so that the truth can become a pivot point for a daily commitment to love You with our whole heart and to love our neighbor as ourselves.
I proclaim to know God. Does He truly know me, “intimately”?
Again we are taught that to “profess” to know You but to have impure thoughts and impure behaviors is not o.k. Help us, today, not to simply profess our faith, but to live our faith in complete obedience to Your word. Help us not to disqualify ourselves by misbehaving or worse yet, professing but not believing. We hear of dysfunctional families but You Father remove our stony hearts, replacing them with a new heart that is able to keep pace with Your perfect will, if we but seek You.
Too focused on heaven…Not likely!
Jesus, escaping to Your side is our hope and our aim. We know that when You appear, we will then appear with You, safely comforted and shielded from all sin, all suffering and every weakness that troubled us here. Help us today to set our minds on You, knowing that the present suffering can not be compared to the glory that awaits.
No foreign languages in heaven?
Father, where we now speak many different languages we see that when we are with You in heaven we will all speak one pure language. It will be a heavenly language, perhaps unlike any language we now understand. That fact, in itself, gives us additional understanding that heaven will be something much different than we have ever experienced.
Bent but not broken. It pleases my God to lift me up.
Father, at times we feel embattled, pressured by our daily circumstances and needs. We have learned to flee from sinful reactions to pressure because You are pleased to deliver us, to lift us up in that moment, if we but turn to You. We know that our willingness to be in a relationship with You transports us from helplessness to dependence on You.