Father, Your love and grace amazes me, yet I’ve only touched the hem of it. I can’t wait for the face to face. Thank You for loving us Jesus-much. We are indeed blessed.
Father, I cry out for those yet to reach Your hem. Shine Your light and draw their reach to You. We need You to do that now, before it is too late. Bring about a great spiritual awakening as never before, and bring Your people into a life altering revival before love grows cold in these days when evil abounds.
I especially pray for children and grandchildren to the thousandth generation. By Your grace, as You have given utterance, I have made Your name known to them, and will make it known, so that the love with which You loved me may be in them, so they may know, receive, and possess Jesus for themselves. This I ask of You, Father, let not one of them perish. This is Your heart, too, according to Your Word. Thus I ask with trusting faith for You to have Your desire in these we so greatly love. In Jesus, amen.
I trust You to direct my path for Life, Father. You are my supply along the way and will walk me through to my destiny. You are faithful.
I look to You and You help me. You’re my Sunrise, my guiding Light, my help in need, my Shelter from the storm, my hope and song. You take my hand and lead me on, giving strength to all my need as we go. You are gracious.
By Your stripes, I am healed. In Your Presence, I stand. There is nothing too difficult for You, nothing beyond Your reach. You are able.
Because of You, I am safe, secure, amply supplied, and fully equipped for all You bring me to. Thank You, Father. Be glorified and magnified in and through me. In Jesus, amen.
Father, thank You that You, knowing our frame, are mindful that we are but dust. We are Your creation, given breath, life, strength, and purpose by You. We can do nothing of eternal worth and true goodness apart from You. Only with You as our true supply of wisdom, direction, and power sourcing can we accomplish the work You prepared for us to do and succeed at fulfilling Your divine purpose and plan. You know how difficult it is for mere dust to maintain focus and not be blown off course by every wind.
Thank You for making The Way of redemption through The Truth of Christ, giving us The Life You desire we possess. He is our anchor that holds us, the wind of Your Spirit directing us on paths of righteousness, uprightness, and right standing with You, for Your Name’s sake, as pleases You. Thank You that our past is behind us, covered by Christ, and You use the lessons from it to bring us to a good end. May we not be stuck in the mud of dead dust. In Christ, we are free indeed.
Father God, thank You that You are with me and for me, You never leave nor forsake me. You are in my midst to make me stand as Your servant and not be moved from my position in Christ. You are The rock upon which I stand secure. Because Your mercies are new every morning and Your compassions fail not, You are faithful to help me when morning dawns and walk me through my days. I trust You who give me strength. Be strength for my weary bones this day and increase power to me for this day. Direct my path in righteousness for Your name’s sake, just as Your Word says You will. This is my hope, and You are my song. In Christ I pray, amen.
Father, some people say Jesus was in agony in the garden that night because of us. That is truth, but it’s way more than that. Jesus’ agony, from my understanding, is the knowledge that, for the first time ever, when all our sin came to His shoulders, His Father would turn His back to Him in utter rejection. He agonized the load of sin without the Father’s smile. Then He warned His disciples against falling to temptation. Why? Perhaps to spare us the experience of life with the Father’s smiling face taken from us as His back turns to us. Father, perish the thought! Protect me from temptation by causing Your smile to be my greatest desire. In Jesus, amen.
Father, thank You for helping me learn how to better grow tomatoes and prune them with a focus on fruit bearing. A lot of limbs produce no fruit. They just grow, and their growth hinders and limits fruit production. I also learned that the plant’s purpose in fruit production is to make seed so it can make more plants that can produce fruit. Apparently, pruning causes the plant to think it is dying, so it must ramp up fruit production to be sure it has viable seed ready to go. Your creation is awesome. Thank You for understanding of how Your creation works so we can make wise use of all You give us. And Lord, thank You for pruning me so I can bear more good fruit with seed that You can use for Your glory. Please remove and cleanse me of anything that hinders and limits my fruit bearing, growth, and seed spreading. In Jesus…oh yeah. And thanks for the laugh at the look on hubby’s face when I snipped a bigger non-fruit bearing branch so a smaller one with fruit on could have supply for growth. It was priceless. Amen.
Father, thank You that You are a warrior, caring for us watchfully and caring about us affectionately. Draw near to us as we draw near to You in humbled submission, seeking Your face. We need You to show Yourself strong on our behalf, leading us and these we love on Your paths of righteousness for Your Name’s sake. Avenge Yourself on every foe that stands between us, our beloveds, and You. The days are evil, Lord. We watch with earnest expectation and hope of Your soon return, praying nothing and no one of value is left behind. No. Not one. For it is Your desire that none perish, but all come to repentance, enter right relationship with You, and fulfill Your purpose in them. In Jesus, make it so. Amen.
We are called to make disciples: followers of Christ. As we faithfully do that, evangelism happens by accretion.
It is vital that we learn God and live Christ. As we live Christ, we become a light that draws others in from the dark.
Evangelism without discipleship is like making tons of babies and walking off, leaving them squalling to fend for themselves and be overtaken by the wolves of life. Evangelize, yes. But we, the church, must make sure to disciple the evangelized.
To try to disciple others without being a disciple is a façade that hurts the cause of Christ. We must continually draw near to God and learn of Him so God’s light in us is real and bright.
We never outgrow the need to be an actively growing disciple of Christ. And when we do that well, others will draw near to learn what we know, be evangelized, and become disciples that make disciples.
I look around at the trouble and turmoil in all the earth today, and I cry out, “Lord, come quickly! Surely Jesus is coming now, for it cannot possibly get worse on the earth. Surely evil has completed it’s appointed course.” But looking back at 200ish years ago, the time of the plagues and warring crusades; or a hundred years ago, with WWI, the Spanish flu, and WWII, we find the same cry of the heart that cannot fathom evil could possibly get worse.
Here’s the facts: evil has brought its trouble to the earth since Adam and Eve fell to it’s influence and were sent out of that glorious garden of God. Evil remained through the days of Christ, even as Jesus paid a price none of us could even begin to pay. Evil will remain and grow ever stronger until Jesus returns and ushers His own back into that garden of God. Each age watches for Him, calls for His “soon” return, and expects Him in our today, unable to fathom that evil will possibly get worse.
But only The Father knows the day or hour when He will say, “enough” to evil’s trouble, and send Christ to usher in the eternal Kingdom. Ours is not to know the day or the hour, but to live in such a way as to be ready, should His coming be our now. If, in a hundred years, some child of God looks back from their own trouble with thought of, “Surely today, Lord,” may they see faith and faithfulness in our life story to help them stand firm in the wait.
“Therefore be on the alert, for you do not know which day your Lord is coming. But be sure of this, that if the head of the house had known at what time of the night the thief was coming, he would have been on the alert and would not have allowed his house to be broken into. For this reason you also must be ready; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not think He will.” Matthew 24:42-44
“…heal instead of becoming bitter so you can act from your heart, not your pain.”
From experience I have learned that, my being prone to feelings of rejection or a sense of being judged by others because of past hurts, if I am not careful, I will choose to be offended where no offense was intended. Then I become the one who is passing judgment based on my sense of offense rather than seeking God’s truth regarding the other person and their opinion. Doing so closes my ears and causes me to refuse to seek God’s opinion about the insights and concerns of others, and then to deal improperly with a person who may be His messenger to my need. When that happens, I too easily become the offender. The hurting heart tends to hurt hearts.
God continues to teach me to choose love (1 Corinthians 13) and trust God to reveal truth. I am learning that sometimes others see something I am missing or refusing to realize. I need to allow God to help me evaluate their concerns and show me if it is wisdom and instruction from Him. My course has been rightly corrected many times as I refuse offense and seek God’s evaluation.
And there have been times when God showed me the misjudgment of another’s opinion, firming up my resolve. In these times, God always leads me to forgive the other person any offense I may feel, to keep loving and praying for them, remaining in right relationship with them.
The devil uses our tendency to offense to divide and conquer. God directs through wise discernment and love to unite and strengthen. Always choose love and grace over hate and offense. Let God deal with offense (Romans 12:14-21).
PS: I speak my concerns to people I feel love and care for. When I speak, it is out of a sense of God’s leading to do so. Offense is never my intent. Loving and encouraging others in wisdom and righteousness is my intent. I do so with prayer, trusting that I am speaking His truth, not my opinion, and with faith that God will lead the other person to His truth and His way for their situation. And I do so knowing that words from Him will prove true. God’s truth is all that matters.
God has taught me, if I am speaking His truth out of His leading with a right heart attitude and motive, a person refusing my words is truly a rejection of Him, not me. So, if my words are rejected, I have no need to be offended. God will prove whether the words are mine or His.
The thing that hurts more than the rejection of a person is when God tells me to stop speaking His truth to them. When God says to knock the dust off our feet and stop casting the pearls of His truths before those who trample them under foot, that is heart breaking.
We must be careful about choosing offense. Our offense may offend God.
Darlene's Ponderings 