I’m not sure we often think about what happens when the righteous die for the unrighteous. Perhaps it’s because we all know deep within ourselves that we never truly get what we deserve.  All of our little hidden sins, both those we knowingly commit that never come to light are only known by us and perhaps the person we offended.  Those sins we commit by omission are known only to God.  And to that extent, we know we have not lived up to our responsibility as God’s children.  So, if the punishment of sin is death, we deserve to die.  But Jesus Christ (the righteous) died for us (the unrighteous), a perfect sacrifice for our sins.

• When you think about the sacrifice of the righteous for the unrighteous, do you ever justify yourself by telling yourself you’re a good person?
• How, then, does a “good person” accept and reconcile Christ as a perfect sacrifice for sin?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, enable me to face the truth about my broken relationship with You and trust in your perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ for my sins.

       A perfect sacrifice does more than give the illusion that things are in order.  It sets them in order in invisible ways so that we may lead lives that are visible representations of our redeemed souls.  And perhaps, therein lies the proof.  There is something that happens within us that frees us from guilt caused by the repeated commission of our sins because we can rely on the One who became the perfect sacrifice for our sins.  That doesn’t give us permission or freedom to live out of relationship with God because of our actions.  But experiencing God’s forgiveness through the perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ has freed us once and for all, and once for all is a tremendous liberation.  It is in every possible way, the perfect sacrifice for sin offered to us by God.

• How meaningful is it to You that God has provided a perfect sacrifice for your sins in Jesus Christ?
• How does accepting this sacrifice translate into a life of service to God for you?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, keep me mindful of all that You have done in offering me the perfect sacrifice for my sin. Enable me to always live trusting in Your perfect sacrificial gift of grace in Jesus Christ.

       The idea of giving up something in order to gain something else isn’t a new concept.  It’s actually built into the fabric of who we are.  We have to make up our minds what we are willing to sacrifice in order to get something that’s important to us.  That’s why people work, and why we do it day after day.  We sacrifice our time and energy in order to get those financial rewards that then allow us to find the basic necessities of life.  The fact that no “single” sacrifice of time and energy suffices to bring all our necessities to us all the time means that our sacrifice is not only imperfect, but it also means that what we’ve given in just one day is, in some ways, unacceptable.  Working one day will never be enough to satisfy for all time.  The perfect sacrifice, whether of time or energy — or any other commodity — would meet all of our needs for all time.  Once would be enough.  God, however, has managed to secure the perfect sacrifice in order for us to have that perfect, reconciled relationship with God, (and with each other if we’re willing to follow Jesus’ example.)  God did it by providing the perfect and acceptable sacrifice of love once and for all through Jesus Christ.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, I give thanks to You that (through Jesus) You have provided the perfect and acceptable sacrifice for my sins. Enable and empower me to become a living sacrifice always seeking to do Your will.

       The world is full of peculiar people who constantly look for proof of God's reality, and yet, the proof of God is all around us.  They see people whose lives have been changed yet fail to see that their change has anything to do with the reality or the presence of God.  The same could be said for people claiming to be believers who constantly search for proof of God.  They’ve hardened their hearts, locking out faith in all the things that God has done before, yet searching instead and asking for proof of what God has done for them lately.  God is not a “fast-food” delivery God who responds as soon as we place our prayers on the prayer list.  There are times when the lesson to be learned can only be realized after we’ve faced life’s challenges and come out on the side of faith and trust that God is with us.

• What makes us so insecure in our faith that we constantly ask for proof that God is with us?
• How can we become more confident, knowing that God is with us always?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious God, enable me to recall and remember Your faithfulness throughout the ages so that my heart is not hardened and l will not continually test You, but trust You.

       It is perhaps our nature to look beyond our behavior as an answer to why we find ourselves in a certain position in life.  It seems that we have found ourselves incapable of living totally obedient lives to honor God.  Yet, when we do it habitually, it is then that we ask the question, “Why is this happening to me?”  While the answer is sometimes not simple, the greater question is, “Why do we persist in blaming God for our discomforted lives?” Why do we resent God for not rescuing us from our predicament when our resistance to God put us there?  Perhaps the answer lies in making decisions that limit our culpability and allow us to trust God in all circumstances of life?

• What is it about us that seeks to blame God when our lives don’t turn out the way we’d like them to?
• How would a deeper understanding that God is not out to do us harm change your faith life?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, enable me to have a change of heart from blaming You for the life predicaments I find myself in, and to own my part in it all.

       A part of life reminds us that we are not in control.  That realization compels us to seek someone to take responsibility for what happens to us.  And yet, we often forget that our control occurs as we realize we are in a relationship with God.  We can choose to live in a constant relationship with God and  hear God’s voice or ignore it.  It’s not a part-time relationship where we walk in and out, but a relationship which is constant.  Instead of questioning why we left God, we often question why God has left us.  And yet the answer is simply to have a change of heart about the distractions and to return to God.  It’s simple, but it’s not easy.

• What is it that distracts you, causing you to temporarily disconnect from God?•
• What would cause you to have a change of heart without testing God?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, enable and empower me to have a change of heart that compels me to stay with You and avoid the distractions that cause me to stray.

       There appears to be a theme which runs throughout the Bible that suggests that God, more than anything else, wants to be chosen by us.  That God has chosen us is irrelevant at this point.  God’s wants us to make a conscious decision to hear God’s voice over all the others.  There is a sense that if we’re told the same thing over and over again and refuse to change, that we’ve hardened our hearts.  It’s clear that we can’t change our minds about choosing God until we’ve had a change of heart about choosing God.

• Today, reflect on times when you may have heard God’s voice calling to you, yet you hardened your heart, choosing to ignore God’s request.
• How do you feel after you realize you’ve hardened your heart against God?
• What can you do in the future to lead you to have a change of heart?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious God, forgive me in those times when I’ve chosen other gods and not listened to You. Change my heart that I might hear and come to You.

       There is an old saying not heard much anymore, but just as valid: “You’ve made your bed; now you have to lie in it.”  In some ways that explains many of the predicaments we find ourselves in, especially when we knowingly and willingly defy God.  Hardening of the heart with respect to God can occur instantly or over a period of time when we feel that God is being inattentive to our circumstances.  Like spoiled and brooding children, we cry out for the immediate and instant attention of God.  What brings us out of those situations is when we have a change of heart and remember that God is faithful and has been true to His Word that he would never leave us nor forsake us. Coming to that reality can be a real heart shift for us.

• Can you remember times when you’ve had to lie in the bed of your own making and then resented God for not helping you?
• What lessons do we learn after we’ve hardened our hearts and failed to listen to God or remember God’s faithfulness?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Merciful God, enable me to know those times when my heart hardens against You. Lead me to have a change of heart to be obedient to you and remember Your faithfulness.

       We are a forgetful people.  Too often, we develop periodic amnesia and forget what God has done for us.  Blind to the presence of God’s activity in our lives, we too often fail to see what God is doing.  Often, we don’t trust that God will be with us in the future because we’re uncertain of God’s “now” presence with us.  This forgetfulness leads us to places where our hearts are hardened.  It’s then that we begin focusing on our circumstances while forgetting to worship God for the awesome deeds that God has already done.  It’s a natural tendency, born out of our human relationship with God.  It is, however, in our best interest to not harden our hearts, but to make a joyful noise to God, celebrating before others what our God has done, and trusting that God will again come through for us.

• Have you ever become disappointed or angry with God and hardened your heart in a way that prevented you from giving true praise and worship to God?
• What are some ways as God’s people to move beyond the hardness of our hearts to true praise of God?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving Christ, keep me mindful of all that God has done, is doing, and will do so that I may praise God with a joyful heart, not a hardened one.

       It is the nature of the human family (at least those who believe in God) to question the circumstances of our life’s challenges.  The proverbial word question “Why?” seems to leak from our mouths when we don’t have an answer or understanding of life’s challenges.  And out of that word/question ‘why’, we seem to gravitate toward a belief system that says, “We don’t deserve what we’re getting.”  That thought is typically accompanied by feelings of hurt and resentment because we’ve had to endure some situation that has challenged our faith and our memory of God’s presence in our lives.  The tendency — at least for some and not all — is to become so frustrated with God because we haven’t been able to experience life as comfortably as we thought we should.  Those feelings typically cause us to suffer from a fairly common disease called “hardening of the heart.”  Symptoms of this disease are that we become resistant to what God is doing in us and through us.  Protesting takes the place of praise.  Worry takes the place of worship, and we begin looking and asking God for proof that we haven’t been left alone.  It’s perhaps a better idea to search for places where we’ve hardened our hearts, remembering what God has done in the past, praising God for God’s faithfulness instead of living in fear and frustration.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, strengthen and empower me to search within myself to find those places where I have hardened my heart against You. Enable me to make a change of heart to fully embrace all You do for me and worship You.

       There is no doubt that we all depend on something, especially as it relates to our relationship with God.  Many people are dependent upon the notion that they are good people who do good things such that God will reward them for the good works they do.  And while there might be a connection to the works’ we do in the name of God, those works will never earn us the right to be in that relationship.  The plausibility and possibility of any relationship with God comes by virtue of an unearned guarantee from God and no one else.

• What are some of the frustrations we face when we try to do enough good works to win God’s favor?
• How can we become less reliant on doing good works and more reliant on the unearned guarantee of God’s precious grace for salvation?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious God, lead me to that place in my relationship with You, where living by faith I may come to rely Your unearned guarantee of grace.

       Have you ever really thought about what it is to receive a gift?  A gift is special in that it isn’t earned. If we earn something, it means that we had it coming to us or that we deserved whatever the gift might be.  On the other hand, when we receive gift, it comes to us because the giver wants us to have it.  It’s not earned, but it comes to us (typically) as an expression of love from the other person.  That’s how it is with God’s love.  God gives us the gift of grace.  It is an unearned reward of a relationship built on faith.

• What is it about the gift of God’s grace that keeps you aware that you have not earned it?
• How does accepting God’s unearned guarantee of salvation change your life?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving Christ, please help me to live my life by faith, yet, keep me open to receive Your unearned guarantee, the greatest expression Your love.

       Uncertainty is a plague of fear.  When we live in uncertainty, we find that we can’t trust much of anything.  We can’t trust or depend on things being where we want them to be or rely on events happening as we would like or expect.  The beauty of God’s promises is that they come with an irreversible, non-revocable guarantee that nails down with certainty all of the things that God promises.  That they are promises from God, not based on the law, but on grace is our assurance and only point of comfort.

• What is it about the uncertainty of salvation that goes away when you/we trust in the unearned guarantee of God’s grace?
• How can we come to believe that God’s unearned grace is enough?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
All-knowing God, enable and empower me to accept the free gift of salvation through faith, teaching me that I never earned the gift I received.

       One of the ways we can dishonor a person’s gift to us is to not use it.  In some ways it’s an insult.  In other ways it’s simply accepting the gift in vain — taking it without any idea of its importance or desecrating the gift as if the lifetime guarantee was of no value.  It may be, in some ways, very much like using the gift as if we earned it, as opposed to using it as if it was not only important, but that we understood its significance and value as a gift. When a gift is unearned, it may cause someone to revalue the gift for their own wellbeing.

• Today, reflect on times when you’ve desecrated a gift, or at least believed that the gift had no value to you and you accepted the gift in vain.
• How does giving value to something you haven’t earned benefit you?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, teach me as one who can know and learn the value of a gift. Enable me to honor the unearned guarantee as it is the gift.

       We are forever separated from God because of our stubbornness.  We at times know the right thing to do and don’t do it.  We also know the wrong things not to do and do them anywa9 (read Romans 7:18-23).  We know what to say, and refuse to say it.  Our inability to do right and act right prevents us from establishing a relationship with God in which God is honored.  So, if we can’t earn God’s love and acceptance by our lifestyle, our only choice is to accept God’s guarantee as an unearned gift.  It is through the acceptance of the unearned guarantee that we find salvation and security.

• Have there ever been times when you’ve taken the unearned guarantee of God’s grace for granted?
• How does accepting God’s unearned guarantee ease our stubbornness?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Merciful God, enable and empower me to see myself for who I truly am — a person in need of the unearned guarantee of Your grace.

       There is no more descriptive and satisfying scripture of truth and freedom than to know we have been saved by some other means than the works we do.  Thinking or believing that what we do somehow earns God’s love dismisses God’s role in holding us accountable for the things we do wrong.  That’s especially good news since we are all differently abled.  Since no one could demand that God justify the situation of our sin and his righteousness, God took it upon God’s self and did it anyway.  God gave us an unearned, guaranteed promise of eternal life through faith and grace for no other reason than God’s unmerited love for us all.

• How does being able to accept God’s unearned guarantee put you in a right relationship with God?
• How does accepting this guarantee affirm who you are in relationship to God?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Merciful God, enable and empower me to see myself for who I truly am — a person in need of the unearned guarantee of Your grace.

       We live in a world where guarantees are an expectation of the culture.  This is especially true when we purchase something.  We expect that there will be a guarantee of the product we purchase, lease, rent, or own that will certifies that the product will be good for a specified time of ownership.  If we’re fortunate, we might be offered a warranty good for the life of the item.  But even then, the guarantee is earned depending on how well we care for the item.  But all of those guarantees (even with their implied and expressed warranties) only cover items that we have purchased or earned.  There is another system in place when we think about entering into a relationship with God and receiving a guarantee of that relationship.  Much to our benefit, a guarantee from God can’t be purchased or earned.  Our ability to be obedient never has the power to make God beholden to us.  God’s guarantee of grace comes to us because God chooses to give it.  We can’t afford to rely on our own merit to be acceptable with God.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious God, humble me so that, in faith, I will only trust in the unearned guarantee of Your grace to live in relationship with You and never rely on what I believe are my own good works to please You.

       Knowing who we are requires a certain action on our part.  It requires that we function according to the persons we claim to be.  To be certain, there will be challenges to our identity.  There will always be the opportunity to live contrary to who we truly are — as a lamp under a bushel basket.  Knowing who we are is integral to living our lives with clarity and integrity.  It’s by knowing who we are that we can serve our true function in the world.

• What are some of the challenges we face as children of God that invite us to live as if we don’t know who we are?
• What are some ways we can grow in our understanding of who we really are so that we might make a difference in our world?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Almighty God, enable me to see that knowing who I am empowers me to live my life with clarity and integrity as a child of God.

       We don’t often think about it, but self-knowledge is a prerequisite for teaching others how to recognize their true selves. This is especially true when we think about character traits that are in concert with the persons we describe ourselves to be.  It’s difficult to imagine a blind eye-doctor, deaf audiologist, or a speech therapist who can’t speak themselves.  Likewise, it’s difficult for us to teach someone to be a Christian if we aren’t clear about who we are and haven’t taught ourselves to claim our identity.

• How often do you consider that how you live your life is a teaching model for others who want to identify themselves as Christians?
• What difference should that make in terms of how you define who you are?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious Christ, lead me into that holy place where I may learn who I truly am in You so that I might live my life as a witness to others.

       Lack of clarity about who we are opens the door to faulty practices of faith that are misleading to us and others.  Perhaps in our culture, it’s appropriate to be divided about who we say we are and what we do.  After all, everyone seems to be doing it.  We even allow it in some circles.  The question is about whether or not these actions lead to integrity of identity, or simply serve to confuse us and others about who we really are.  It seems that knowing and practicing who we are is the key to a life of true witness.

• Where are the blind spots in your life preventing you from knowing who you are?
• Make a list of three things you will do to shed light on your blind spots?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
All-knowing God, empower me to live my life in the full knowledge of who I am in You and with integrity before the world in which I live.

       It is a special privilege to be called a child of God.  It’s not a name that we take.  It’s a name that is given to us.  It’s a name by which we’ve been identified by God and one by which we identify ourselves (or at least should be).  It then becomes a curious lifestyle that we live when claim we have one God who claims us but often give ourselves over to serving and worshiping other gods who have no claim on us at all.  Knowing who we are is a strong inhibitor against serving and worshiping other gods.  It’s also a strong incentive to worship the God who protects us.

• Use the first part of today to reflect on times when you’ve been unfaithful to the God from whom you draw your identity.
• How does our unfaithfulness to God work to undo our knowledge of who we are?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, as one who claims my relationship to You to define who I am, enable and empower me to be faithful to no other God but You.

        We are forever looking for God to do something to prove God’s identity to us. Perhaps that’s a part of who we are — someone always unsure and unbelieving. And yet, unless we live as the people we claim to be, our lack of faith that becomes a challenge (or test) of God will probably do more to identify who we really to those who may be searching. Our identity — who we really are — is proven more by our faith than by our insecurities, doubts, and fears.

• Have there ever been times when your fears or insecurities pushed you to ask God to prove that he was near or really God?
• Does your assurance of who God is and your relationship to God give you a clearer identity of who you are?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Merciful God, enable and empower me to wrestle my insecurities into submission such that my faith in You to do all things defines who I am.

       There may, in fact, be some solace in recognizing that we are not alone in life’s challenges.  It’s in those challenges where we succeed or we fail — where we find affirmation about who we are or live with the doubts of who we are.  It’s also in those challenges that we can claim to know who we are as children of God who are at times tempted, at times succumb to those temptations, but who, through faith in Jesus Christ, can come boldly to the throne of grace to find mercy and help in time of need.  That’s who we are.

• How does being able to boldly approach the throne of God’s mercy help you to identify who you are in relationship to God?
• How does receiving mercy affirm who you are in relationship to God?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving Christ, I give thanksgiving to you for clarifying my identity to you as one who is invited to boldly come to You for forgiveness and mercy.

       Someone was once quoted as saying about those of us who define ourselves as Christian: “We should so live our lives that when we tell someone we are Christians, they are able to smile in affirmation rather than being surprised by the fact.”  Perhaps people are surprised because some of us live our lives taking advantage of the grace we’ve been afforded rather than making a full faith effort to live according to how we identify ourselves.  It may be that we choose to live our lives with aliases rather that coming to that place where there is consistency with who we say we are and the choices we make about our lives.  One of the key things about how we live, the decisions we make in our life choices, and how others perceive us is knowing who we really are and knowing what it means to identify ourselves as children of God.  We wear many hats throughout the day that define us for a specific moment in time.  But knowing who we are makes a defining statement about who we believe ourselves to be, especially when we are tempted to make decisions that say otherwise.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious and loving God, enable and empower me to avoid the temptation of living my life with an identity other than the one I claim as Your child. Teach me to choose and live my relationship to You before the entire world.

       Faith has many components.  Of those variables of faith, we are called to respond to God in different circumstances, using those different parts of our faith.  In one instance, faith may simply mean being aware of God’s presence and responding to the needs of those around us.  In another setting, faith may mean trusting that God will provide for us.  But to remain unshaken in our faith leaning on God’s wisdom and counsel gives our faith rock-solid status.  Sometimes regardless of the circumstances it just may be all about being still and knowing that God is God.

• What circumstances in your life have most often invited you to lean on God’s wisdom for direction.
• What have you learned from trusting God’s counsel that leads to an unshakable faith for you?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving Christ, teach me through Your wisdom to listen to Your counsel so that I may always be unshakable in my faith.

       Too often we think of faith as being nothing more than a spiritual exercise — something which, once the believing is done, then so are we.  But the truth is, faith requires wisdom beyond knowing of God.  Someone once said that knowledge is knowing what to do; wisdom is knowing what to do next.  We all know what to do in our faith.  What we sometimes lack is the wisdom to move past our knowledge and take that extra step that may be more pragmatic than spiritual.  Linking faith and wisdom is the key.  Perhaps that wisdom comes from patiently waiting on God and preparing to receive him when he comes.  Nothing is worse than being called on and being unprepared.  The wisdom of a rock-solid faith is being prepared whenever Jesus should arrive in our lives.

• What things can we do to move our faith past just believing to working to make our faith a rock-solid reality for us?
• What might you do in your faith works that would be the next practical faith step?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious Christ, give me the wisdom of faith to know what to do, and the practical wisdom to know what to do next in serving You.

       There is much religious conversation among Christians about how important it is to know Jesus Christ.  And it is true that our relationship to God through Jesus Christ is critical to our transformation.  But more important than whether we know Jesus or not is whether or not Jesus knows us.  Knowing of Jesus doesn’t certify that we have an intimate and personal relationship with him.  We’ve all heard of famous people and may even know someone who knows someone famous.  That doesn’t mean we know the friend of our friend.  Jesus’ knowledge of us goes beyond whether or not we were in his presence at church or at a fellowship meal.  Jesus knows us through the acts of love and kindness we do for others, through common acts of prayer and devotion.  Sometimes it doesn’t hurt to have a little talk with Jesus and tell him all about our trials.

• What acts of grace and mercy do you participate in that Christ might claim to know you by?
• How do you separate the idea that your works gain God’s favor and not grace?
• What acts of an intimate relationship with Christ would allow you to say that Jesus knows you?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Precious Christ, enable and empower me to live knowing Your grace for me in such a way that You will know me through my acts of grace and mercy, as well as my prayers and outcries to you.

       The argument of grace versus works has gone on for what seems like an eternity.  Those who argue for grace maintain that doing works leans toward earning God’s favor and love, which can’t be earned. Those who argue for works suggest that works are those things we do to in response to God’s love which (in turn) allows us to please God.  But God judges our works through the intent of our hearts.  Yes, we are justified by our faith, but people of faith have done egregious things in the name of God, and non-believers have done loving things from their heart.  If not the unmerited grace of God working for us all, then all the kindnesses in the world aren’t sufficient.  Perhaps it is a both faith and works and not each independent of the other.

• As an exercise for this mid-week reflection, think about times when you saw people untied to a religious community doing things that Christians should do.
• What makes the difference between a loving act done by a person of faith and a loving act done by a non-religious person?
• What difference does God make in it?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving Christ, change my heart of faith so that my acts of love and mercy are driven by a rock-solid faith that works to please You.

       Sometimes we forget that faith — our faith — is an action taken on our part on behalf of our belief in God.  It is our way of connecting with the Holy Mystery.  And yet our connection to God doesn’t necessarily resolve any of the practical issues that face us in life.  That requires something different.  It requires an act of grace (or unmerited love) that gives evidence that there is a strong faith-filled connection between all humanity.  As such, our faith response is to provide them with what they need, just as God has provided us with what we need.

• In what ways does your faith in God get put into an action that merges your faith into an intentional act of grace toward others?
• What benefits do you receive knowing that your faith and works are connected?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Merciful Christ, enable and empower me to merge my acts of love into a rock solid faith in You that showcases Your love and care for others through me.

       We always live with the danger of people telling us things about God and Christ, and about our relationship with God that are offered in an effort to expand our wisdom and knowledge of God.  Perhaps there’s weakness in us causing us to desire wisdom from that charismatic person who seems to know more than we do.  And yet, sometimes people are more concerned with their own power and persuasion over others than leading them to an authentic and meaningful relationship with Christ. When it’s all about them, it can’t be about Christ.

• What are some tools and methods that you might use to ensure that you were not being deceived or led astray in your faith and relationship with God.
• What actions do you engage in that help you to continue to build on your faith in God without divisiveness?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Merciful Christ, enable and empower me to have discerning ears that the wolves of my generation might not destroy my rock-solid faith in You.

       Faith is the foundation of our relationship with God.  But we must also remind ourselves that at times our faith is shaky.  Our shakiness exists partly because we live with the polarity and tension between believing and doing.  The weight of that tension weighs heavy on the faith side as we are asked to inquire of ourselves if we know Jesus.  The weight weighs heavy on the ‘doing’ side as we work to do things in Jesus name that are pleasing to God.  And yet, it seems that doing things in Jesus’ name isn’t enough.  There’s more to having a ‘rock-solid’ faith than simply doing things in Jesus’ name.  Our faith is solidified by a life of following Godly wisdom — a wisdom that leads us to produce lives that bear evidence, not that we know Christ, but that Christ knows us and is guiding our life and works.  And so, we seek to be in a relationship with God in which our faith has been tried and tested — a faith that has withstood the trials and storms of life and remains steadfast and faithful to Christ.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving Christ, empower and strengthen me to act on my faith so that my life bears the good fruit of a relationship with You —one that assures me that by my works You know me and that I have a rock-solid faith.

       There are certain things we do in life, many of which are done to prove we are right.  And I guess there is something to be said for being right.  However, being right usually has the disadvantage of telling someone else they are wrong, which may cause spiritual injury to another.  What may be more important as Christians is that in all of our dealings, we try to give honor and glory to God.  It’s at that point that the glory of God shines in us and through us, making God’s saving grace in Jesus Christ readily available to those we encounter.

• Is God glorified in our actions when another person is being made to feel that they lack understanding or knowledge?
• How might we glorify God at times when our need to be right could hurt others?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious and loving God, empower me to do everything I do so that You may glorified by all of my actions, seeking to offend no one.

        It’s amazing that we have so many wonderful gifts to be used to benefit the common good of the world, and yet, we find ourselves lacking in our ability to harness those gifts in powerful ways of transformation.  It is God’s desire that the gifts we’ve received from the Holy Spirit as trustees are shared with the world to be used to magnify God’s presence in the whole world.  I seem to remember a parable about a man who buried his gift and didn’t use it.

• In what ways do you use your spiritual gift to benefit both the church of Jesus Christ and the community of the world?
• Ask yourself this question: How might I share God’s gifts in me more liberally so that the world can benefit from God’s gift in me?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving Christ, empower me to apply the gift of Your spirit given to me as a trustee of God so that others may receive the benefit of Your love in me.

       One of the responsibilities of a trustee is that the thing we’ve been given to take care of doesn’t get abused or used for the wrong purpose.  If what we’ve been entrusted with is the unconditional love of God, then to not use it in ways that foster God’s love to everyone is an abuse of that gift.  As a trustee of God, displaying hospitality should be a hallmark of God’s welcoming nature.  We never know whom we might encounter that might be in need of simple kindness, respect, love, and human warmth.

• Are there ever times when, as a trustee of God’s unconditional love, hospitality to anyone might be difficult to extend?
• How does offering hospitality to others display God’s gift of unconditional love in us?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Holy and merciful God, enable me as a trustee of Your grace to always open the door of hospitality to others that you might be glorified.

       When we think of being trustees of God, we don’t typically think that our range of responsibility reaches to those outside of our faith.  And yet, displaying God’s love in ways that leads others back into the family of faith has the ability to hide those gaps in a person’s life, making them acceptable to us and the God in us.  A part of being a trustee of God is to care for broken and damaged goods so that they may be restored.  That’s what being entrusted with God’s grace does.  It restores others.

• For a time of mid-week reflection, consider those you know who have wandered away from the church, from their faith and their relationship with God.
• What could you have done as a trustee of God to help them find their way back? How might both of your lives have been changed because of your trusteeship?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
God of grace and God of glory, empower me as a trustee of Your grace to put Your glory on display so that those who wander may be restored.

       As trustees of God, it seems that there is more to life than simply keeping and maintain a trust.  It also seems that we are called as trustees to represent the One who has entrusted us with this very important task.  This is not unusual.  The one who has been entrusted with the care of the house is the onsite representative until the homeowner returns.  The same is true for those who are trustees of God. We represent God and as representatives and trustees, our actions and conduct should be in accordance with that of the owner.

• How is your relationship with God as a trustee displayed in your actions as God’s representative?
• What can you do to become more aware of your actions as a trustee of God?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
God of love, empower me as Your trustee to always be representative of who You are in everything I do.

       One of the most difficult things we will ever encounter is giving up our control.  We live most of our lives trying to become independent.  All of a sudden, we enter into this relationship with God in which we are required to deny ourselves and live for a higher purpose than ourselves, and a higher purpose than we’ve done before.  It’s hard to walk away from the things we’ve lived for to begin living for someone else’s dream.  And yet, as trustees of God, we have a responsibility to put aside our lives momentarily in order to extend love and care for the lives of others.

• What do you believe is the most difficult thing about living for God, and not for yoursef?
• How might you reprioritize your life so that what God wants comes first?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Almighty God, enable and empower me to place your agenda for my life and living above mine. Teach me to understand that when I live for You, I am living for me.

       From the beginning of time, we’ve been designated as the keeper of things.  By keeper, I don’t mean one who saves stuff to be brought out or revealed later.  Some of us fail miserably at saving things.  But, by keeper I mean that we have been given things that we have responsibility for.  We’ve been given keys, cars, objects which seem to have no apparent value to us, and yet to the one who gave them to us, gave them to us in trust.  Whatever the item was that was given, was given with the belief that we would keep and take care of the keys, the house, or the car — whatever item was entrusted to us.  And they trusted that they would get them back in as good or better shape than they were given.  In that way we literally became trustees of whatever we held.

       Our first item of trust as humans was the earth.  God gave it to us that we might take care of it.  And yet the greatest gift of trust given to us by God isn’t the earth, but each other.  We have been given each other as trustees of God with the responsibility to fulfill God’s will that we would take care of each other.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, empower me to live in the Spirit so that I may become Your trustee — a steward of Your grace who lives according to Your will, caring for the hearts and lives of others.

       It is amazing what simply valuing others as an act of caring will do.  It invites us to extend ourselves beyond simply knowing people and adopt ways that offer caring — genuine caring — to others.  It’s not just about using our mouths to tell people about Christ, but it’s about displaying love and caring in tangible ways that make the gospel of Jesus a reality as opposed to an abstract concept.  It’s from our genuine caring that others become valued and valuable to us and the love of Christ becomes real to them.

• How can our acts of caring become a way to share the gospel with others?
• How does genuine caring display the good news of Christ where other ways fail?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious God, empower me to reach out to others through personal acts of caring so that the gospel is displayed to others in real ways.

A lack of caring and indifference is noticeably present in our world today.  This is not true across the board, but it does lead people in some ways to show apathy towards their brothers and sisters.  But what seems to be a problem in our world is always converted into an opportunity for the members of the body of Christ, the church.  Our opportunity unfolds as an opportunity to show Christ’s loving care in a world that may not be ready to receive it.  Any other way — by sniping and back-biting only leads to bitterness and self-destruction and showcases our lack of care in ways that denigrate Christ.

Conflict in the world and in the church has always created indifference and apathy toward others in some ways.

• How can acknowledging and valuing others be utilized in ways that strengthen rather than weaken the body of Christ?
• What can we do to display God’s glory thru caring we extend to others?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, empower and enable me to see the opportunities in Your world to value others, acknowledging their gifts, while showing care and concern to others so that Your grace may prevail.

       The ministry of caring, actually, goes beyond acts of mercy.  It’s exhibited in ways that simply invite us to offer words of encouragement — to build each other up in spirit.  That is caring for each other in a very different way, and yet, it still says to the other person, “I care about you!  I value you.”  Sometimes a kind and encouraging word can do more to build a person up than a gift of appreciation.  Or it could be said that a kind word as an act of caring is a gift of appreciation.  It can do more to give value to someone else who may be feeling depressed because they’ve been devalued.

• What are you willing to do to encourage or build someone up that will be understood as valuing their gifts and showing that they are needed?
• Can you see how valuing and encouraging others can demonstrate to them that they are needed as an important part of the community?
• In what ways?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
God of love and life, enable me to encourage others and build them up as an opportunity to create a more harmonious community in Your name.

       Empathy is one of the most powerful ways to care for and be emotionally and spiritually present with others.  It allows us to quietly cross the bridge of their discomfort or joy and join with them in deep expressions of their emotional situation.  For some, it’s called the ministry of presence — of being with someone emotionally regardless of the circumstances they are in.  Neither grief nor joy is anything that should be experienced alone.  It is the act of care and caring to share God’s gift to our lives with others. It even means peacefully respecting them when they want to be alone.

• As a mid-week reflection, think about those times when you’ve been present with someone who was going through an emotional time of joy or sadness.
• How did you feel empathizing (being present with them) was a sign of caring?
• Did you consider your presence a use of your spiritual gift?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
God of love and grace, empower me to be sensitive and caring to the emotional needs of others. Teach me the art of valuing and caring for others with empathy and understanding.

There is no doubt in the world that we’re all different.  Science has shown the power of God to create diversity in our lives.  But because we are connected so closely, it’s important for us, just as the various parts of our bodies “acknowledge our dependence on one another”, and to offer the best that we have with what we’ve been given.  Whether or not we know it or understand it, offering the best we have of God’s gift to us and to one another leads to our survival.  It’s not just that I can survive on my own.  As a member of God’s creation, we need each other to survive.

• Have you ever considered that God created and gave us gifts so that we would have to rely on each other for survival.
• How does knowing that “we need each other” (our gifts and strengths) impact your understanding of what it means to care for one another?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving and tender God, through our gifts, it is Your will that every need be supplied. We are important to each other and need each other to survive.

       We’ve been created by God differently so that we would come to be interdependent rather than independent.  The value of our relationships with God and Christ depends on how we value and care for one another. We need each other for the success of Christ’s church because none of us can do it all alone.  It’s therefore important for us to embrace who we are as different, and value each other as if we are the same.  We can’t do anything alone, and so we need each other to do God’s work.  

• How do you acknowledge the gifts of others in ways that display your value of them and their gifts?
• How does acknowledgment of their gifts underscore that you care about them and need them?
• What can we do to exhibit acknowledge the gifts of others and show care for those who have different gifts than we do?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, help me to acknowledge the significance of the gifts of those who are placed around me. Teach me to care for them as a ministry of our Christ and Your church.

       Most of us who live our lives in the Christian faith live them unaware of the spiritual gifts that God has given us. Our entrance into the spiritual church from the secular world makes us accustomed to giving value to those who are in leadership positions without recognizing those who work behind the scenes.  That typically leads to value judgments about the importance or lack of importance of certain people within the body of Christ.  However, it also leads us to the place where we become blind to the value of those God-given gifts and why those gifts are given.  God gives us all of these remarkable gifts, not so that we can consider how important we are, but so that we might value the gifts that each person has, acknowledging them in caring ways.  And so, the purpose of our gifts — God’s gifts to each of us — is so that we might dedicate ourselves to Christ in ways that we actually honor, value, and care for one another.  It’s done so that the seemingly insignificant might value and care for those who seem significant and those who seem significant would acknowledge the value and extend care to those who seem insignificant.  It’s both how we acknowledge the gifts that God gives each of us and helps us to recognize that we need each other. 

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious God, teach me to acknowledge and use Your gift to me as an instrument of Your grace to care for others and empower me to acknowledge Your gift to them as a something we all need to be whole.

       For all that we are, and however we might see the world and those around us, we represent those in the world who are waiting to be restored.  It’s a strange irony that God calls us — challenges us to continue the work of Christ by restoring people to life when we, too, are in need of the same healing condition of being restored.  But therein is our glory.  We know and depend on God’s faithfulness to bring us up from whatever condition we are in to restore us.  Our job and Christian duty is to give restoring life by the love of Christ to those who are in need of restoration today.

• Who are some people in need or restoration in our world today? (think about those who are hurting and dismissed by society)
• What are some ways that you can work to restore life in others who are in need?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Merciful God, awaken in me a sense of Your Holy Spirit present with me so that I may courageously restore life to others while I wait for You to restore me.

       God has always been in the restoration business — taken people from one broken state to a renewed state of being.  That’s the nature of restoration.  It doesn’t put us back where we were as much as it gives us a new perspective and way of looking at the world and each other through our relationship to God.  And we all need restoration in some ways.  Ananias needed it to go to Paul and Paul needed it to begin his ministry in the name of Christ.  Restoration energizes us, and when it’s done for others, they, too, feel more energy to live.

• Have you ever known anyone who, after encountering a relationship with God, was restored to a new life?
• What ways might we work to facilitate restoring life to others who are broken?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Loving God, open my eyes that I may see the value of restoring life to others in Your love and grace so that they may be energized to serve You.

       Restoring life is not easy.  Sometimes to make people whole again — to restore life to them — it means crossing traditions of faith, culture, politics, class, ethnicity, and law.  And yet, there is no real law against making people’s lives better, especially if it’s done with the love of God at its center.  The question we must ask ourselves is, “Are we willing to violate those traditions and boundaries to restore life to others for Christ’s sake?”  It’s a simple question, but the correct and Godly answers may invoke the anger and indignation of those close to us.  They may even invoke us to anger against God for requiring such a demand from us.

• Have you ever violated a cultural or religious tradition in order to restore life to someone who was lying in the middle of life’s road?
• What are the dangers of going against cultural and other norms for Christ sake?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
God of love and life, enable me to find the courage to stand against any cultural norms in order that I might restore the lives of others in Your name

       The biggest destroyer of life in any age or culture is our unwillingness to embrace those who are different from us.  According to this Scripture, the woman (who is a Samaritan) reminds Jesus he is crossing cultural boundaries because her experience is that the Jews have nothing to do with the Samaritans.  In our world culture it is in some people’s minds a preference that the blacks have nothing to do with the whites, the Japanese have nothing to do with the Koreans, and the list goes on and on.  In what was labeled the “Age of Aquarius” (a period of enlightenment from the 1960’s) a song writer once wrote the words: “There is a green one who won’t accept the blue one for living with a fat one trying to be a skinny one.” And it still continues in our world today.  The road to restoring life begins when we put aside our differences and relate to each other as humans.

• Use today to reflect on ways in which personal and cultural biases have gotten in the way of restoring life to others.
• What can we do to help remove biases that destroy life rather than restore life?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
God of all creation, work in me to remove my biases so that I may become an agent of Your life-restoring powers in my encounters with others.

       We are so good at the art of justifying ourselves.  We want to be right (or righteous), and yet we’re not limited in what we will do to make ourselves appear popular and accepted by those who are closest to us.  What’s clear is that God is not impressed by our self-justifying efforts.  What’s in our hearts is more important than our social or cultural acceptance by groups.  And sometimes our desire to be accepted by others prevents us from restoring life to others in ways acceptable to God.

• Why is self-justification and peer group acceptance such a powerful force against our desire to be accepted by God?
• How can seeking to justify ourselves get in the way of restoring life to others?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Righteous God, empower Your Spirit to work in me that I may be justified and accepted by You in ways that inspire me to restore life to others.

       In every act of righteousness toward God, there seems to be a test that comes to us, helping us to determine exactly whose side of righteousness we’re on.  And the test is more than about loyalty.  The test is often one that gives us an opportunity to restore life to someone or to remove it.  Capital punishment is such a hot-button issue because the choices are life and death. The same is true for any man or woman lying in the middle of the road.  Our decision to walk by or to help is life and death for them — restoration or cessation of life.

• Have you ever been tested in ways that you could determine your loyalty to God?
• When given the choice, do you choose to restore life or to end life by walking by on the other side?
• What guides you in making your decision?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Gracious God, when I find myself tested regarding my faithfulness to You, may I always decide in this life to choose to restore life rather than end it.

       We are a people whose characteristic trait is to value life.  It’s when life and lives are broken, or in some ways devalued that we have a responsibility to step up to the plate and do what we can to restore to wholeness that life of an individual or those lives of a group.  It sounds easy enough, but it requires some spiritual growth and resolve on our part.  Many of the lives we encounter are broken because we — sometimes through negligence, prejudice and indifference — are responsible for their brokenness.  It may be because they don’t represent who we are.  It may be because we share our own personal biases against them.  But the biggest reason why people are typically broken and devalued is because we have failed to see them as totally human.  We are sometimes guilty of walking by those in our lives and communities who are lying broken and in the middle of life’s road because we have something more important to do, or we’re afraid to approach them.  But if we are who Christ calls us to be, then our correct response is to be a neighborly one.  We’re supposed to restore life and not dismiss it or neglect it

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Loving God, empower me to see those broken and avoided souls on life’s highway in my community whose lives need to be valued. Grant that I may be the Samaritan among those in my community seeking to restore life to others.

       How disappointing it is to desire something and not be able to get it.  It cuts right through to the heart of our desire.  And yet, our desires seem to be motivated by things that have little or nothing to do with God’s will, but more by our own selfish desires.  When we lack wisdom, we lack not only the intelligence to know what’s best for us, but we lack the ability to manage it once we get it.  Allowing wisdom to determine what we want and why we want it could cause our entire world change iin ways that benefit everyone.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Loving Christ, give me wisdom so that I might know the right things to ask for and the wisdom to be a good steward of all I receive.

       Wisdom — at least God’s wisdom — invites us to come openly to God in search of those things that are hidden in our hearts — things enabling us to accomplish God’s purposes in our world.  And so, if we ask, search, and knock on the door of God’s wisdom, God is more than happy and willing to supply us with whatever it is we need to deal with our issues.  The best gift we can receive from God is the wisdom to live a life that gives honor and glory to our God.  Wisdom is the beginning of pleasing God.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Gracious Christ, enable and empower me to draw from the deep wells of Your wisdom that my every desire may be filled with wisdom from on high.

       “Experience keeps a dear school — a fool will learn in no other.”  Those are well remembered words from Benjamin Franklin.  It begs us to explain why we will not take wisdom at its calling and give heed to it rather than embarking on a journey of the learned experience where pain, disappointment, misery, and a host of other things are the reward for our foolishness.  It seems that if having anything was the deal on the table, wisdom enough to avoid life’s follies would be number one.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Gracious God, give me the wisdom to avoid making foolish decisions in life and to know that Your wisdom saves me from the lack of knowledge.

       Many of our decisions are made without discernment about giving consideration to God’s will.  To that end, we often find ourselves wondering why it seems that our prayers fall on deaf ears.  Knowing what to ask according to God’s will is not a matter of knowledge, but a matter or wisdom.  Wisdom seeks to find and exercise God’s will in our decisions and in our activities.  To do anything else might be based on knowledge, but wisdom acknowledges God in both the present circumstances and the future outcome.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Gracious and loving God, empower me in all of my requests to seek only Your will for my life, both in the present and in the future.

       I play chess occasionally.  Regardless of what people say, it’s a game that requires knowledge — knowledge about the board, about the various techniques, about strategy and tactics.  But knowledge without understanding can lead to foolish and dangerous moves that point the way to defeat and failure.  However, coupling knowledge and understanding allows one to play the game with wisdom.  Employing God’s wisdom incorporates knowledge and understanding that leads to good decisions, enabling us to avoid living our lives as defeated people.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
All Wise and knowing God, enable me to employ Your wisdom when making any and all decisions about my life.

If we could ask for anything, I’m quite confident that wisdom would not be at the top of our list.  When we think of things, we typically turn to creature comforts and security — knowing that we will have a roof over our heads, that we’ll have enough to live on, and that perhaps our children will be secure when we’re gone.  Those things can happen, but we think of them as being an outcome of material wealth, not wisdom.  Wisdom ensures that “IF” we have “IT” we will have everything else we need.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Loving God, enable and empower me to know the true wealth of Your Wisdom that I may possess the riches and honor that Your wisdom provides.

        There are many people who live with the dream of being rich beyond their wildest dreams.  This can be determined by the number of people who attend gambling casinos and those who buy lottery tickets.  Each one is hoping to hit it big and have enough to live on forever.  But the records show that having huge amounts of money doesn’t mean keeping it all.  Many who have won it all didn’t have the wisdom necessary to manage what they had.  It leaves one wondering, is it money that we really need, or is it the wisdom of knowing what to do with our money.  I would say that Solomon had the best request: not money, but wisdom.  It’s like Jesus said, “Seek first the Kingdom of God, and everything else will be provided.”

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Generous God, teach me through the gift of Your Spirit the wisdom of knowing what to do with the resources I’ve been blessed to receive. Empower me to know that the wisdom to know what to do with Your gifts serves me better that having them.

       Being wishy-washy — uncertain of where we stand or what we stand for is almost never an admirable personality trait.  Perhaps it’s borne of the fear of being wrong.  Indecision because we are weighing things out is one thing, but we eventually have to come to a place of decision about where we stand. This is especially true about our faith and convictions about God.  Either God is or God isn’t where we place our trust and faith.  But to move the line of faith in the sand without any conviction at all leaves us with lines drawn all over the place.

• Have you ever known people whose belief and value system seems to change dependent upon who they are talking to?
• How can instability in what we believe make others unsure of our faith position?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, enable me to draw a line of decision in the sands of my faith so that my beliefs and my relationship with You are not all over the place.

       There is something reassuring about ordering our lives according to wha t we believe and say while being consistent in that.  Now, of course, we’re human and prone to mistakes. However, to continually say we believe one thing while doing another says more about where the lines are drawn in the sands of our faith.  It is impossible to consistently wear two faces before the crowd before becoming confused about which one is true.  Hypocrisy begins when we tell ourselves and the world where the line of our faith is drawn, but the line is clearly drawn in another, far away from the line we speak about.

• Have you ever been guilty of finding your actions in conflict with your faith in God?
• What can we do to bring our faith and what we believe back in line with our actions and how we live?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, empower me to live a faith that is consistent with where I say the lines of my faith are drawn so that my faithfulness to You has integrity.

       God weeps for us when we have allowed ourselves to be “taken captive” by other gods.  It’s a difficult thing for God to watch as we continually proclaim our faith one way and live inconsistent with that faith from day to day.  We have, at times, chosen other gods and then blamed God and others when our lives hit a bump.  We are typically willing to blame anyone as long as it doesn’t fall on us.  But there is profound truth that tells us that drawing the lines of faith to exclude God’s word is the fastest way for our lives to end up in darkness and destruction.

• What do you imagine happens when a person's faith is consistently inconsistent with how they live?
• Are there other gods in your life that might cause an inconsistency of faith?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
God of love and life, enable me to draw the lines of my faith in the sands of a life that includes You and faithfulness to Your word and will.

       God’s expectation of faithfulness happens because we are chosen to experience it.  There is also the expectation that we will live in a faithful relationship with our God so that God may live in faithful relationship with us through keeping God’s promises.  The relationship of faithfulness is sealed by the promise of God.  And yet, God cannot and will not honor what we do if we have chosen other gods to worship.  God’s faithfulness is predicated in real ways on our faithfulness to live God’s will for our lives in justice and righteousness.

• Today reflect on the ways in which you try to live consistent with your faith. Be honest about those areas in which you struggle and write them down.
• How can you let go of other gods in your life that come between you and Christ?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
God of love, empower me to draw the lines of faithfulness to You in my life so that I may receive the blessings of Your promises to me.

       There are times when we think of God’s requirements as a real pain.  So many times we hear the “don’t do’s” of our faith.  In reality, God wants only that which is for our own well-being.  That’s where the stretch of faith comes in — seeing that God is trying to help us and not hurt us.  Life might be so much easier if and when we could draw the lines of our faith around a principle that reminds us that God is for us.  And if God is for us, God is more than the world against us.  I believe that’s Scripture.

• Have you ever considered God’s “restrictions” on your life as more of a hindrance to living than a method to promote your well-being?
• Have you ever known someone who has chosen to ignore God’s way for us to live whose life ended up in shambles?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving and tender God, help me to see that the drawn lines of my faith that keep me obedient to You are for my benefit and not for harm.

       We can’t imagine what it’s like to be told by God to leave everything we’re familiar with and to go to a place where we would be a total stranger.  And yet the situation is perfect for establishing a faithful relationship and trust in God.  But that trust is only realized when we are able to draw the lines in the sands of our faith, as Abraham did, and trust that God is God, and that God is faithful.  The question will always be before those who place their faith in God, “Where do we draw the lines of faith?”  Hopefully, we can answer, “In our God.”

• Have you ever felt God pulling you in a way that challenged you to draw a line in the sand about being faithful and obedient to that call?
• How can continue to promote integrity of faith as a basic principle of our faith?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, enable and empower me to draw the lines of my faith in such a way that my actions are representative of my total trust in You.

Loyalty, faithfulness, commitment, core values and principles — these are all human qualities that everyone will reckon with in their lifetime.  The question will eventually come down to: “Where do we stand, and how far will we go before we go no further?”  It is an interesting question that typically comes at the point of decision on our part before the proverbial ‘line is drawn in the sand.’  That same question about where we stand in principle on certain other areas of our lives is equally important where God and faith are concerned.  We surround ourselves with other gods and goddesses, some of them lifeless forms to which we pay homage which ascribe to certain ideals we hold sacred.  Others are human vessels — a group of friends, a political ideology, or perhaps some person of importance to whom we raise to the level of a god in our lives.  And that is where the point of decision is made in our faith as we ask and honestly answer the question, “Who and where are these other gods and goddesses in my life that I am worshiping and being loyal to over the God of all Creation?”  When we have answered that question, we will have sufficiently drawn a line in the sand of our faith, choosing whom we will serve.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Loving God, enable me to clearly see and be honest about those other gods in my life that prevent me from being faithful to You. Empower me to draw immovable lines of loyalty in the sands of my faith so that I may serve You and You alone.

       There is a significant difference in being free from the law of sin and death to practice the law of the Spirit.  The law of sin acts as a constant reminder of our inability to do what is right.  The law of the Spirit blankets us with a forgiveness that frees us from the fear of facing God’s wrath because of a tally sheet of wrong.  The spiritual law of forgiveness doesn’t free us to sin without consequences, but sets us free to live with the grace of God to move forward without fear of condemnation.  Even in our darkest moments, the light of God’s grace shines upon us and is a constant reminder of the forgiveness we’ve received.  It’s our constant awareness of our grace that should remind us to say, “There, but for the grace of God, go I.”

How does freedom from the law of sin and death and freedom to practice the law of the Spirit empower you to live differently?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Gracious and giving God, enable me to live my life knowing that through Your generous act of forgiveness, the chains of sin and death are gone.

       The nature of our lives in Christ is really tied to the Great Commandment.  It’s a more powerful connection to our relationship between God and each other.  For some mysterious reason, God has connected our love of each other and how we practice that love to our love of God and how we practice that love so that to say we love God, but to live and act in ways disrespectful of each other is no different than living in disrespect to God.  This is essentially a confirmation of Holy Scripture when John stated, “Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar.  For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.  And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister. (1 Jon 5:20-21).  Loving and honoring God and each other enables us to reach for the greatness that is within us all and allows the light of God’s glory to shine through us.

• Has there been a time when you may have intentionally or unintentionally disrespected another person?
• How did your acknowledgment of that act show God’s light of love shining forth from you?
• What were you led to do?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Gracious Christ, empower me to live my life that I may see my opportunity to love others as an occasion to reach for greatness of Your light shining in me and show my love for You.

       Perhaps the greatest gift of God is the gift of forgiveness that comes by faith in Jesus Christ. We’re not always conscious of what it means to live each day having 10 commandments and an auxiliary and complimentary set of some 600 plus rules by which our lives are ordered and measured.  It must have been a significant burden to end each day with nothing but a list of failures and the fear of facing God’s wrath and judgment.  Being made righteous by faith ties us to God with the same bonds of freedom with which Abraham is tied.  It is that grace of God in Jesus Christ that allows the greatness of God to shine in our lives.  Thanks be to Christ and our God.

• How has God’s grace enabled you to live for a greater purpose in Christ?
• How do you openly display that transformation for others to see?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Merciful God, Your grace has freed me in ways for which I can never be grateful enough. Empower me to reach for the greatness I’ve received through my faith in You.

       It’s difficult for us to view grace, faith, and law in the same light.  It seems that the law is so restrictive and punitive because it exposes all of our flaws.  At the same time, grace is so liberating because it frees us from punishment by the law.  Faith on the other hand is our ticket to freedom or judgment; freedom if we trust in grace by faith; judgment if we choose to hold ourselves to the letter of the law knowing how often we fail.  And yet, we are constantly faced with the realization that the three are not disconnected.  It’s not a matter of faith only.  It is God’s grace, which offers us forgiveness.  It is the law which reminds us of God’s righteousness.  And it is faith in Christ which justifies us, making us righteous before God.  It’s not one alone, but it is all three together.

• How do you understand the difference between grace, faith, and the law?
• How does your understanding influence your actions toward others?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Gracious God, empower me to reach for the greatness in me, always mindful of the faith that justifies me, the law which guides me, and the grace which saves me.

       It’s an overwhelming thought to consider that everything that we did could be exposed and seen by everyone we knew.  And if that were a real possibility, I imaging there would be some significant changes in our behavior or the way we do some things?  My guess is that we would all be greatly affected by an open and uncensored exposure into our lives.  And yet, God’s invitation to us is to live our lives as if we had nothing to hide.  Somehow there is truth in the statement that everything that can be seen becomes light that reveals something about us.  There is real power in living the truth of who we are, bringing our true selves out into the light.  There is also a humbling sense of embarrassment if the truth of who we really are inside was made manifest to the world.  Both can be humbling in the light of God’s truth.

• What feelings arise in you when you think about your life be open to the public?
• What would you change if you believed your life would be put on public display for others to see?
• What’s preventing you from changing it now?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
God of Light, enable me to live my life in a way that, if exposed by light, reveals me reaching for the greatness You have placed in me as Your light to the world.

       It’s not often that we think about whether or not the sharing of our faith has become effective. For the most part, we do what we do as well as we can and what it is — well, it is whatever it is.  That wouldn’t be an acceptable outcome for our work.  It wouldn’t be an acceptable outcome for the way we raise our children.  None of us would keep a lightbulb in the lamp if it wasn’t functioning or being effective.  We would work to make sure it was doing what it was created to do.  Shouldn’t we be that way for God’s work?  Shouldn’t we ensure that if we were created to shed the light of God’s grace in the earth that we are achieving our goals?

• What would you change about your life if a self-evaluation of how you loved others in Christ’s name indicated that you were being ineffective?
• Would an accountability partner be helpful in keeping your light shining?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Loving Christ, enable me to reach for the greatness of Your grace and love to become as effective at loving others as You are at loving me.

       Almost every person considered to be great in our time and culture has succumbed to certain laws and principle to achieve their level of greatness.  And to be sure, there are certain rules that must be followed to enable them to achieve greatness in whatever form it occurs.  Musicians, artists, athletes, engineers, doctors, lawyers, chefs, bakers, and candlestick makers must first excel at the fundamental laws of their profession.  And it is their expertise that catapults them into the arena of greatness, first among their peers, and widely among the general public.  It is in the perfecting of their craft that their light begins to shine that others may revel in their artistry or talent.  But whatever the level of their expertise, they cannot abandon the basics of the rules.  Those remain sacrosanct to their greatness.

The same is true for those of us who profess Christ.  To be sure, there are certain fundamentals that cannot be abandoned (the law) that keep us true to who we are.  But there are also the fundamentals of grace that breaks through the darkness of intolerance and exclusion.  Once we’ve incorporated and perfected the fundamental rule of grace, it is then that our light begins to shine.  It’s the glorious and radiant light of God-love shining forth from us that enables others to see the greatness of God’s light and what it’s capable of accomplishing.  And if we do it well — let the light of God’s love shine — it can’t be hidden but becomes an attractive light to those around us.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Gracious Christ, empower me to reach for the greatness of Your radiant light shining in me so that the grace by which others experience Your love through me becomes a great light of attraction to all people.

        There are many stories told in the Bible where people were with Jesus and never recognized him. Mary met him in the Garden and didn’t know who he was. Paul heard his voice on the road to Damascus and was unable to determine who he was.  Two disciples were on the road to Emmaus and were blind to Jesus’ presence.

• How many times might we have overlooked Jesus because we weren’t looking for him, or because of his common demeanor, we overlooked him because he was as one of the least of those among us?
• Is there any indication offered that might lead us to have a stronger clue about how to recognize Jesus when he is clearly in our presence each day?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Merciful God, allow my spirit to be open to the reality that you might be present anywhere and I might not recognize you. Teach me to love and serve all people in your name.

       Biblical images of God as judge over his people are laced throughout the biblical text. And the notion of God as judge makes some of us anxious. We don’t like to think that we’ve not been successful or faithful in pleasing God, and yet the ritual of separation as God makes righteous judgments about people seems to be a biblical reality.  In God’s world GOAT has a much different meaning than “The Greatest of All Time.”  And God’s goats seem to face a much different end than those who are esteemed among the people.

• When we know that God’s judgments are righteous, what assurances does that provide for those of us who are believers?
• When we acknowledge the reality of God as Judge over our life and our endeavors, and the ultimate judge of over eternal life, what comfort can we take knowing that God is watching how we live and what we do?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Loving God, order my steps that I may be found among the faithful and blessed as you judge righteously between those who have been faithful and those who have not.

There seems to be a concurrent them running through the reality of God’s judgment on humanity.  Those who are blessed by the LORD stand to inherit all that God has promised to them. Those who have missed opportunities to actively care for the needy seem to be headed for a land where they will not have access to God, or in other words, be cut off.  In a faith system that speaks of God’s tremendous grace through Jesus Christ, how can we make sure that we don’t miss opportunities to love others who seem to be our gateway into reconciliation and eternal life

• What can we do to eliminate our fear of the righteous judgment of God that stands ready to separate us from the Kingdom of promise because we missed opportunities to care for our brothers and sisters?
• Do we still comfortably hold on to the idea that we will be blessed while others, perhaps our loved ones, will not inherit the Kingdom?  Why or why not?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Merciful God, lead me into a life of service and faith caring for those who are considered the least of your brothers and sisters that I may find my blessing among those you bless.

There is no doubt that our hearts are often in the right place.  We’d like to see those who are hungry with food, those who are naked with clothes, those who are homeless with shelter, those who are sick with healthcare.  And the list goes on.  There is a part of the equation that makes us more likely to speak a blessing than to be a blessing.

• With the economy in a hole and the numbers of needy increasing, how can we help to be more than a verbal blessing giver in order to make our opportunities more tangible?
• When we look around at the things that we possess, is there any indication that our cups have overflowed to the point that we could let our blessing be a blessing to others?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Loving Christ, help me to go beyond offering well wishes to those in need to becoming a person whose heart is in and whose hands are personally involved showing love to my brothers and sisters.

       Poor Job.  Not only is he now numbered among the least of these God’s children, but his friends are leveling the charge against him that he is suffering from some large form of wicked behavior.  He is accused of stealing and taking the clothes from the naked, making them thirst, and making the hungry go without bread.  And yet, his friends, while laying the charges at his door, seem to be doing nothing to alleviate Job’s suffering.  It’s as if they believe Job should not only pull himself up by his own bootstraps but should lend a hand to those in his same condition.

• Are there ways in which the allegations leveled against Job could be placed on our doorstep because of our negligence?
• Many people donate food to feed the hungry. Is it possible to build a personal relationship with those who are hungry by only donating food?
• What can we do to avoid facing our own reality of not feeding the hungry, giving water to the thirsty, or clothing the naked?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Gracious Christ, help me to do more than keeping my hungry brothers at arm’s length by only donating food. Empower me to engage in a personal relationship with the hungry.

       The prophet Isaiah raises the issue of how we live in relationship with God and how we honor our relationship with God by living in relationship with others.  There seems to be a strong connection between equity, the implementation of justice, and how we treat others less fortunate than we are.  And, while Jesus lived several hundred years after Isaiah, the problems have not seemed to go away.  The opportunities and God’s expectation that we will proactively engage the “least of Jesus’ brothers and sisters” at the point of their need seems to have fallen at our feet.

• Why is it that we miss the connection between our relationship with God and our relationship with those who are in need?
• Why do you think God has such a strong affinity for those who seem not to have even the bare necessities of life?
• Does God require more or less from us today than was required from those who came before?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Loving God, enable me to see the needs of those around me with your eyes. Fill my heart with compassion that I will do all in your love and power to meet those needs.

       Jesus has something to say about the way we live and the way we care for one another.  Matthew has placed this event at the end of life’s accounting period when all human accounts on the books will be settled.  The people are gathered before Jesus.  And while the separation begins, no clue or reason is given at the time of the separation indicating why.  And then suddenly the books of life are reconciled.  One separated group has a much different fate than the other.  They have seemingly lived parallel existences, each sharing the same experiences and having the same opportunities.  Yet the outcome of their life’s fate seems to be tragically, yet radically different because one group has blindly missed the opportunities right before their very eyes.  The other group receives a blessing because they unknowingly took advantage of an opportunity because a spirit of caring was innate to them.  One group is blessed and invited into eternal life, while the other seems doomed to live with the results of poor life decisions made in the midst of great opportunities missed.  In our world and culture, nursing homes are filled with lonely people who have no one to visit them.  Prisons are filled with people (some of whom have been unjustly judged and imprisoned) with no one visiting them to offer hope except family (and sometimes not even family).  Many people have empty bedrooms just for show and special guest while the homeless are left to sleep in extreme conditions.  Grocery store shelves are lined with food while people go hungry.

• What is the likelihood that Jesus may be among those mentioned above and that we, too, may have seen Jesus and dismissed the opportunity right before our faces?
• Where are opportunities in our day and time to encounter Jesus?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Gracious God, so that I may live eternally with you, save me from the blindness and indifference in my heart which causes me to miss opportunities to minister to You present in those seen as the least of your brothers and sisters.

                  We often think of the baby Jesus at this time of year.  However, his appearing had an impact on more than those who were aware of his birth.  There were eternal consequences of his coming and the reason for his appearing.  His coming was an invitation to join him in denouncing those things that were not a part of God’s true purpose for creating us.  He was our realized hope to live holy lives, as much as possible, while we awaited Christ’s glorious return, and our restoration to our once perfect state.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Oh God of grace and mercy, grant that I may live my life in a way that honors Christ, my realized hope, until you come again to perfect me.

                  Humanity has lived in a relationship separated from God for a long time.  This might not be the case for everyone.  But it is our nature to separate ourselves from the One who created us because of our self-will.  It was our desire to do our own thing and not God’s will that created the atmosphere of sin with separated us from God.  And that separation could not be repaired by us.  Our continued desire to do what we wanted over what God wanted for us prevented us from closing the breach.  Our only hope was that God would do something to save us.  Jesus came to do what we could not do: to save us from our sins, thereby repairing and restoring us to a right relationship to God.  Jesus became what we only hoped for without achievement — our realized hope.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Holy and gracious God, I thank You that when all hope was lost, You came into the world as our realized hope to save us to be in a right relationship with You.

                  God’s actions are filled with assurance and provide us the certainty that God will do as God has said.  For Simeon, it was that he would not die until he had realized his hope — seen his Salvation with his own eyes.  God was faithful.  And when Simeon had received the promises of God made to him, he recognized the wonder of what he had just experienced.  It may not be a bad thing for us to always be in an attitude of thanksgiving, praising God for receiving the promises made to us from ages past.  God’s faithfulness to allow us to experience realized hope is a true blessing and joy.  It gives us yet more hope to cling to until all of God’s promises are completed.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Holy God, Your faithfulness speaks Your truth to us. Grant that I may live as a witness to your faithfulness and the realized hope You’ve given through Your word.

                  Not much in life moves us any longer.  We have come to the point where we’ve seen it all, or we’ve either been there and done that and have a T-shirt and coffee mug to prove it.  And yet, there are still those things of God we don’t know that leave us in the dark.  We don’t and can’t know everything there is to know about God.  Nor do we understand why God does what God does.  And yet, when our hope becomes reality and we are able to acknowledge it, there is both a reason for fear and curiosity, as well as wonderment and joy, praising God that our realized hope has come.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
God of grace and God of glory, enable me to continue to be surprised by the realized hope of God present in Jesus Christ and in my life.

                  The promise of God’s realized hope was planted in our hearts and minds hundreds of years before it would bear fruit.  Promises that are a long time coming can wear on a person.  But a promise fulfilled brings with it the best news.  It can not only change the way we see things, but it can change how we respond to the promise.  A promise fulfilled brings with it the realized hope of all who have waited, increasing and verifying any hope we have for the future.  It is a cause for celebration whenever we see the light of reality confirming that our hope was not a false hope, but one that is confirmed in the fulfillment of the promise.  God is now here.  Our Emmanuel has come.  And his name means more than we could ever ascribe to it.  Our hope  which has been realized in Jesus’ coming is more real than ever because it has reaffirmed our faith that other promises made by God yet unrealized will come to pass.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
God of faithful promises, enable and allow me to live with such joy, that your presence among us allows us to know that our hope of salvation is realized and rekindled.

                  The idea of becoming, much less being children of God is (for the most part) beyond us.  It’s difficult for us to make the mental transition from who we are as flesh and blood to who we are as Spiritual relatives of God.  And yet, who we are is not a matter of flesh and blood as much as who we are is a matter of spirit.  Our bodies fail and we lose confidence in their ability to continue.  But our faith continues to breed hope within us and connects us to God and Christ in ways that our flesh and blood can never do.  Faith then becomes our hope realized in ways more tangible than the world we see with our eyes.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Loving God, empower me to hold on to the belief that my relationship to You is secured by faith that Christ is Your realized hope for us all.

                  It’s difficult for us to imagine a world that is bathed in darkness.  Most of us have never known a time when there wasn’t a light source from somewhere.  And yet, there has always been and continues to be a pervasive darkness in people’s hearts and minds.  That darkness is borne mostly out of our unwillingness to see what’s plainly before us.  For the most part, we work hard to adjust to the darkness.  We squint and self-dilate our pupils to compensate for the lack of light in order to actually adapt to the darkness that’s around us.  And so, we limit ourselves to realms of darkness, learning to accept alternate forms of light even though they, too, are simply lighter forms of the darkness.  And if that darkness we adjust to is simply the lack of hope, or the lies of self-deception we’d rather accept, then we learn to live without it.  And hope becomes something that doesn’t lead us to anything real, only figments of what we dream about created from and in the darkness of our own lives.  But God has chosen to open up the door of life so that our hope can not only be imagined, it can become as real as the God our faith confirms exists.  And that reality is found in the Son, the true light that makes God known.  His name is Jesus.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Gracious God, help me to experience the light and truth of Christ beyond what I see with my eyes. Help me to know that he is my realized hope alive in the world and alive in me.

                  Peace has been defined as something more than just the absence of conflict.  Rev. Martin Luther King, using a biblical model, has called peace the presence of community.  It’s difficult to create community when there is conflict and hostility between neighboring groups.  And yet, Jesus is the one who came that we might put down our hostilities to live into the type of conflict and hostility free zone that represents God’s ideal world.  Allowing God’s ideal world to consume us can fill us with a peaceful hope — a peace for everyone.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Loving Christ, empower me to live with a peaceful hope, seeking to imitate You by helping to destroy the hostilities that exists within Your human family.

                  We aren’t the first culture to seek immediate gratification.  In our impatience, we want everything now.  And we want it faster and faster.  We don’t often consider that peace is a process.  It takes time to work out the details.  Like a baby being nurtured in its mother’s womb, a real and lasting peace must go through a process of growth, insuring that in the end, the peace will be a lasting peace.  Our peaceful hope found in Jesus Christ arrived as God and the prophets had indicated, but the covenant of peace wasn’t signed until years after Jesus’ birth.  What we hoped would be an immediate peace took 33 years to bring to effect.  The first season of peaceful hope was just the beginning of the process.  But because of Christ’s entrance into the world, God’s contract with humanity was introduced.  We read through the contract for 33 years.  It was then signed, sealed, and delivered, reconciling us to God by his blood, bringing peaceful hope to all who believe forever.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Loving God, You gave the gift of Your peace to us in Your Son who offers hope to all who believe. Grant that we may accept the peace offered and sealed through his blood shed on the cross.

                  It’s difficult for us to see a baby as being powerful.  So much of his/her life is spent depending upon others to be strong for them.  They must be cared for, fed and protected from any and everything that could harm them.  And yet, a prophet suggests that one who is weak is the more powerful; that one who is helpless comes to rule with might; that one who is dependent upon others now, will feed those who come to depend on him and carry and protect them.  It is within this Godly power that we find our peaceful hope.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Loving God, enable me to find my peace and hope in the future of a baby born with the power and dominion of a king You have consecrated.

                  There is nothing at all peaceful about a woman in labor.  In fact, the idea of child bearing labor whether real or a metaphor, is nothing to sneeze at.  In either case we long for it to be over — long to be rescued from the agony of our situation.  It’s hard to hear the promises of God over the groans of our pain.  And yet, it is precisely in hearing the promises of God despite our pain that we are invited to find a peaceful hope within our circumstances.    Knowing that God will rescue us and bring us to safety gives us a peaceful hope.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Faithful God, help me to live in peaceful hope remembering Your promises and not focusing on the stress and difficulty of my own labor pains.

                  The one who is the Ancient of Days — the eternal God — is often understood as a powerful Spirit without human substance or form.  And yet the image we have from Daniel is not of one who is born of the Spirit, but one who dares to come in the flesh.  Could this be our God with us — the one with whom justice and equity are a part of their existence?  The idea of someone in human form raises our hope level because we know this person will also usher in peace.  Peaceful hope takes our anxieties away and fills us with trust in God.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Almighty God, open my eyes that I may see You in human form. Give me the peaceful hope of knowing that Your Kingdom will never be destroyed.

                  It is a time when all eyes begin to point toward Bethlehem.  It wasn’t a big place — hardly a dot on the map.  And yet this is the place where the history of a people and of a nation and of the world would change.  A city that was too busy, and filled with chaos to even take notice of the peaceful hope of God entering among them, now finds itself just a little removed by time from the delivery of God in their midst.  Amid the chaos and distraction, peaceful hope made its way to Bethlehem to be delivered in peace.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Gracious God, enable me in this season of chaos and distraction to discover a peaceful hope moving into my world quietly without a lot of fanfare.

                  We each search for peace in our own way.  Some of us seek peace away from others, secluded in the construct of our own little worlds.  Some of us seek peace in places where conflict isn’t present – that could mean among our families or friends.  Some of us seek peace as a way to protect ourselves from the chaos the world throws at us.  And yet, all of our attempts to find a peaceful hope are crowded out of life by our anxieties, our insecurities, and our fears where we sit behind locked doors, nervous and afraid, sometimes surrounding ourselves with weapons, all with the hope that peace and safety are going to be a part of our reality.  A peaceful hope rests secure, free from the anxieties that the fear of danger brings with it.  The peaceful hope we long for is one that establishes a new norm where hope and peace are married together in the One for whom peace is natural.  That can only be from the One in whom the Peace of God rests.  He is the one we’ve been waiting for.  He is the one in whom we model a peaceful hope and a non-anxious presence to the rest of the world.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Holy and loving God, in a world where danger, anxiety, insecurity and fear affect us all, enable me to show others that I am at peace and that my hope is in the one who is Your peace. His name is Jesus.

                  We receive a certain kind of surprise and joy when the news comes that we may be called out and honored because our circumstances are about to change.  If we’ve been the object of ridicule and shame and then know we will be lifted up for any reason at all, it gives us a reason to rejoice and have hope.  This is especially true if our tears of sadness are transformed into tears of joy, and our prayers of anguish have been answered.  Even though our hope isn’t a reality, it has become a joyful hope, rather than an anxious one.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Holy God, enable me to live today in the joyful hope of a future being created by You in which I will experience Your delight in me.

                  The entire notion of moving from one who has lived with injustice and wrongdoing into the arena where justice is the norm and vindication is soon to be instituted is enough to give a person joyful hope.  When we think about the season of Christmas, it’s important for us to remember that God was on a mission to right the world — to create a situation in which those who had been left out and abased would be lifted up, honored, and blessed.  Just the thought of it happening is enough to create joyful hope in those who lived with injustice.  Just to trust that it will happen is enough to lift one’s spirits high.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Gracious God, enable me to live with the joyful hope that Your day of vindication and recompense for those who experience injustice is near.

                  There is nothing more joyful than knowing that our situation is being changed from bad to excellent.  We can live with dreams and visions of what the change might be like for us.  But, until that day of change comes, all we can do is live in hope of its coming.  That time can be a time of high anxiety during the waiting period.  But, with the certainty of that day coming — knowing that God’s promises are driving that day — our only hope will be a joyful hope knowing that God never fails.  God’s steadfast love endures forever.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Merciful God, enable and empower me to live with the steadfast and joyful hope that Your promises are going to be fulfilled and that my life will change.

                  It takes a relationship of experience with God, trusting that God’s word is faithful in order to be filled with a faith that can’t be moved.  That kind of faith only serves to fill us with a quiet confidence that God will deliver on God’s promises.  And while the time of our waiting can be an anxious time, it can also become a time that is filled with the joyful hope — the joy-filled hope of knowing that our God is faithful.  It is God’s faithfulness that elicits feelings of joyful hope within us.  That’s what it means to be blessed — to be filled with a hope that no one can take away.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Faithful God, help me to live remembering Your promises and Your faithfulness so that I may live a life filled with the joyful hope of Your coming.

                  It’s one thing to be given instructions on what a proper response should be.  It’s another thing entirely to be able to do it.  And yet, we can find encouragement — and perhaps, too, the strength — to accomplish things that we couldn’t normally do if we can rely on the person who inspires the change in our hope.  Such is the power of God to alter times and circumstances when God gives God’s word.  It can change a fearful, strength-sapping experience into one in which we are filled with joyful hope that God will save us.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Almighty God, create in me the spirit and resolve to not just wait for Your promises absent of hope, but filled with joyful hope in Your faithfulness.

                  There is always a sense of excitement around something as important as God coming to dwell with us.  If we’re honest, we say it’s what we want and desire.  We want to know that God is not a God who resides a long way off, but one who is close and accessible when we’re in need.  Knowing (or believing) that God is coming gives us a reason to be filled with a joyful hope — a hope that settles everything in its place and places God at the center of that joy and hope.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Gracious God, fill me with the assurance and joy-filled hope of Your promises. Enable me in faith to experience joyful hope as I await Your coming.

                  It’s difficult for us to imagine being removed from our homeland, then taunted and chastised by our enemies, or even to imagine that our displacement has occurred because of a broken relationship with God in which our punishment was brought about by our own faithlessness.  Our image of God doesn’t fit that picture.  But what we might begin to imagine is what it’s like to be broken — broken by our failures, broken by poor relationships, broken because somewhere in our lives we feel we’ve failed ourselves, our children, our parents, or our friends.  Sadness looms somewhere in all of our lives like a nightmare that comes back from time to time to revisit us and take us to those dark places we’d just as soon forget.  And now, imagine this.  We get the news that in those dark places, we’re no longer going to have to endure the humiliation, embarrassment, or degradation that broke us, whether it was because of someone else or because of something we’d done.  Knowing that freedom is on the way fills us with a joyful hope of renewal — the joyful hope we experience while we wait for Jesus to come.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Gracious and loving God, as people who are sometimes broken by our enemies — by fear, betrayal, and tragedies caused by life, You alone remain our joyful hope for renewal and honor in all the earth.

            One sure way to know that our hope is a prepared hope is through our prayers and the prayers of others who are praying for us.  To know that someone is praying for our wellbeing and that our lives are being lived in a way that is worthy of, and in line with God's will for us is enough to fill anyone with hope.  We know that God answers prayer; and so, God's promises of inheritance fill us with a hope prepared for the day of his coming.  And if God’s promises secure us, we can rest assured that our hope truly is a prepared hope.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Loving God, continue to create in me a hope that is prepared by the certainty of Your promises offered in and through the prayers of others for me.

            There is a point at which all that we do to prepare ourselves becomes nothing more than a futile effort to please.  We either seek to please others and provide them with false ideas of who we are, or we seek to please ourselves in order to appear acceptable.  We place a clean cloth over a dirty table hoping to hide the errors of our ways.  A hope that is prepared comes ready to accept the terms of agreement set by the one whose standard we are required to meet.  When we rely on God to prepare us, we need not fear if all that needs to be done is done.  Our hopes are as prepared as they will ever need to be.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Gracious God, enable me to live with the assurance that it is Your preparation of me that secures my hope that I shall experience Your promises to me.

            Our greatest hope is that God will finally and fully claim us.  In some ways that defines our relationship with God.  That we would be cut off and considered unacceptable to God can destroy our hopes and leave us in fear of our eternal life.  However, to be claimed does not necessarily translate into being prepared.  Being prepared is in one sense the art of being ready.  On the other hand it could mean being made ready.  Just as a bride has those helping her to be prepared for her wedding, we too need help to be fully prepared to meet our God and Savior.  When one is brought up to a qualifying standard, they are truly prepared, and their hope is prepared as well.  God is the one who prepares us to meet our hope.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Merciful God, my hope rests secure in knowing that You will be the one who refines me, making me acceptable to You. You are my sure and prepared hope.

            How does one prepare for something that they really are ill equipped to prepare for?  When we think about what this season of Advent is truly all about, there is a sense of quiet peace while we wait for our hope to come.  But how can that translate into an adequate preparation for someone like the God of all creation.  If God's arrival were imminent, there would be an anxious terror within us.  The best preparation we can make is to sincerely humble ourselves the best we know how.  In that way we are prepared for the Lord to come where the humble will be exalted.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Loving God, create in me spirit of sincere humility, that in the time of your coming my hope may be truly prepared for Your arrival.

            When we are faced with the prospect of good news — news that comes as the fulfillment of a promise — we are by nature excited.  But to receive the good news and to be prepared for the coming promise are two entirely different things.  There is always work to be done when we anticipate company or important guest’s arrivals.  Sometimes that preparation stems from the hope that we will have done what we needed to do to make their arrival as pleasant as possible.  You might say that when our hope is on the horizon, we must make room for its arrival and fulfillment in our lives.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Holy and loving God, enable me to do those things in my life to make your arrival one that indicates that I have a hope prepared for Your coming.

            There are always things to do when trying to make ourselves ready for a royal guest.  Naturally we want our surroundings and ourselves to be acceptable.  Our appearance is important, as we want to make a good impression.  But more important than preparing ourselves is to make sure we've made adequate preparations for the one we are expecting.  We certainly don't want their way cluttered upon arrival.  We show that our hope is prepared when we’ve done what we could to ensure that our special guest’s arrival is unobstructed.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Loving God, enable me to do those things in my life to prepare a way for your entrance so that my hope will be a prepared hope, ready for you to come.

            We are never so far removed from a situation as when we are unprepared to meet it.  It’s one thing to be surprised.  Surprises usually happen when we have no knowledge that something is about to occur.  But it’s another thing altogether when we know of an event, a meeting, or an important arrival and we’re caught off guard, not because we didn’t know, but because we weren’t prepared.  Something of being unprepared speaks to the lack of hope within us.  Something gets in the way of our trust, our faith and belief that something is really going to happen.  However, when we are filled with the hope that what we want and most need — that what we’ve longed for and desired for so long is coming — there is something alive within our hope that pushes us to be prepared; to get ready.  All of this presumes that we know how to prepare.  There are circumstances that require more preparation than we can do ourselves.  In spiritual matters, our inability to properly prepare ourselves then depends upon God, who can and does make us ready for His coming.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Gracious and loving God, in this season of hope, prepare me, yet again, for the coming of the Christ child. Help me to realize that it is You who purifies me and prepares me to be an acceptable offering when he comes.

       There are times when we are blind to the things we don’t know.  As one person has wisely admitted, “We don’t know what we don’t know.”  It seems an obvious answer to our own ignorance.  Couple that with the fact that understanding who we are is a learning process.  Also acknowledging that people tend to be more in tune with diminishing us than lifting us up can leave us feeling a little bruised in spirit. Even so, there are song with lyrics to remind us: “I may not be the best of anything or have the best of everything; sometimes I think that I’m the least of all.  But I know someone who knows everything; and to me, He is my everything, and I am thankful just to know that I’m his child.  His name is Jesus, the righteous Son of God.”  Those words offer us all comfort and the wisdom of God, knowing that we don’t have to depend upon our own righteousness, but depending on the righteousness of God, the hope of who we can become can be an exciting hope.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Holy and loving God, continue to fill me with the knowledge and exciting hope that my reliance on Christ righteousness brings, and comfort me in this hope.

We presently live in a world where safety and security of all of its citizenry is in question.  The rise in gun violence threats of violence against racial groups have people on high alert about their safety whether in the cities or rural towns.  And yet, we’re entering into the season of Advent where God’s promise of safety rings through Scripture as a hope for the people to look forward to.  It may be something to excite our hopes, but it’s also apparently something that we will have to wait for.  While it seems so far off in our culture and time, God’s promise is sure, and still gives us something exciting to hope for.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Gracious God, in these troubling times, help us to find reasons to live with excited hope about Your promises of safety and security for Your people.

       Waiting is one of the most difficult things we do, especially if we’re waiting for something that we've longed for, but has been a long time coming.  That waiting is amplified by the importance of the thing we’ve been waiting for.  If all of our hopes are hinge on that one thing we’re waiting for, then there is a tension between our excitement in the thing we hope for and the patience with which we wait for it.  Knowing that our hope is coming keeps us excited.  But the timing of it, forces us to be patient, lest we turn ourselves into nervous wrecks while our minds scream the question, “When is it going to get here?”  We soon learn that the difference between anxiety and anticipation.  One is filled with patience, the other with nervous energy never trusting the outcome of our expectations.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Gracious God, in these anxious times, temper my excitement for all that I hope for with the patience brought about knowing You are faithful to Your word.

       It is, perhaps, one of our greatest hopes that we live in safety.  Our world seems to be in such turmoil that safety and security are issues.  It is possible to surround ourselves with things, specifically weapons that kill, to protect ourselves from harm.  But at that, in our disturbed minds, we run the risk of harming the innocents or injuring someone we believe is displeasing to God.  Then comes the guilt or indifference from the harm we’ve done.  Finding respite from our sins, then leads us to our own pitiful sacrifices to atone for our wrongdoings.  Our comfort comes in realizing that God is our hope, and that in God’s faithfulness and care, we are able to be at peace and find safety only because God provides it.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Merciful God, fill me with the certain hope of Your faithfulness. Enable me to live within that hope knowing that You are my safety and security.

       One of our greatest hopes is God’s promise of justice and righteousness.  We try as much as we can to institute it as a principle of our lives, but our humanity often clouds our judgment.  Biases, prejudices, and our blindness to what is fair and just, keep objectivity and equity for everyone just out of our reach.  But it is our hope in God’s promise that excites us.  It is our faith that one day God will institute His justice, equity, righteousness and faithfulness.  It will not then just be principles on which we hang our laurels or hopes that excite us, yet linger in a distant future.   It will become a reality that we can all experience.  That’s a hope we can all stay excited about.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Gracious God, excite in me the ongoing hope that Your promise of justice, equity and righteousness have and are still to become a reality in Jesus Christ.

       The hope of God’s promise has been with God’s people for years.  When those hopes have become a reality, God has always given us something new to hope in.  And with each new promise and each new hope, God’s people have become excited.  We’ve longed for those days when God would no longer be absent among us, but when God would let us find Him, and live into the fulfillment of God’s promises for us.  Because we aren’t there yet, it is the hope of God’s promises that keep us excited.

• Can you remember a time when you were excited by nothing more than a promise that had been made to you?
• Did your excitement grow as it got closer to the day of it becoming a reaiity?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Holy God, keep me continually living with the excited hope that one day, Your promises will become a reality in my life and future with You.

       Nothing quite comes over us as powerful as the emotion of anticipation.  We feel it in our bodies in ways that our brain alerts us that something is about to happen.  Our stomachs quiver.  Our bodies begin to shake nervously.  And our mind can’t or doesn’t stay focused on anything for very long before it’s drawn back to that one thing that we’re hoping for.  Our restlessness kicks up in the excitement of our hope as we wait — and not patiently, but excitedly — looking perhaps for something that has been promised to us.  And if we’ve waited for a long time, then it seems our excitement is in direct proportion to the time we’ve waited.

       God gave us a promise long ago.  It was a promise of certainty of God’s faithfulness.  And that promise was so powerful that even today it awakens in us a fulfillment of that same hope — justice, and righteousness; safety and security; salvation and the presence of God among God’s people.  It just might be that today those hopes are rekindled anew, not just because of our world situation, but because of our faith in Christ’s coming.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Holy and loving God, as we are called once again to remember your promises of salvation, we are also called to experience the exciting hope of His coming. Fill us with the excitement of renewed hope for the days of waiting still ahead.

       We’ve become constrained in our praise of God.  We’re constrained to the point of limiting how and where we offer up our praise with regard to all things.  Some of us prefer silence, or a quiet atmosphere of worship.  Musically, some only want to hear the organ.  The idea of drums and tambourines is offensive and too noisy for some.  Some of us prefer the more contemporary sounds of electronic instruments, bass, guitars, horns, and drums.  Still other’s only desire is to hear the choir, while smaller ensembles are welcomed by others.  And dancing seems all but out of the question. Yet Scripture is clear.  Praise God anywhere and everywhere; with musical instruments of every kind. Then, let everything that has breath praise God, while musicians express their  rejoicings of the Spirit through playing.

• When you consider the instrumentation of this psalm, do you find your lack of acceptance of certain musical instruments a limitation on how God can be praised
• How can you expand what it means to “let everything that has breath praise God?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Holy God, enable and empower me to openly give praise to You anytime, anywhere, and in every way for all You’ve done and are doing.

       The idea of the God’s glory filling the space of the sanctuary eludes us.  It’s certainly not one of those experiences that fits into our contemporary understanding of God’s presence in sacred space.  And it’s difficult to determine what our response might be if anything of that nature were to take place.  But, I wonder if the brightness of God’s glory could be a result of God’s presence being seen in the faces of those present in a more contemporary age.  After all, if we are the temple of the Holy Spirit and God’s Spirit is inside of us, it should be the glory of God that shines through us.

• How can we become more open and available to the radiance of God’s glory filling us as a result of our praise to God?
• What can we do to display God’s glory thru praise when we’re in the sanctuary?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious God, enable and empower the brightness of Your glory to first be found in me that it might fill the space of Your sanctuary.

We experience life in different contexts. Some of us experience pain, disappointment, frustration and sorrow.  But those are not the only experiences we have.  There is also joy, freedom, peace, comfort and satisfaction.  That God has dared to allow us to experience the whole of life’s experiences means that we are not mono-dimensional.  We’re allowed to experience the goodness of God, enabling us to praise God and understand God’s love in a personal way.

• How have your life experiences of good and bad enabled you to recognize the goodness of God and praise God for God’s love?
• How do you understand the reality of God’s eternal and enduring love for us?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious and loving God, enable and empower me to continually give praise to You for Your goodness as I live and experience Your love daily.

       I’m fairly confident that most people are more focused on what is going wrong in their lives than what is going right.  Mistakes we make have the ability to become distractions that eat at us and endlessly nag at us.  It’s typically not until we find a corrective course  through forgiveness and reconciliation that we are able to go on with our lives as normal until the next mistake — and there will be a next mistake. When God forgives us — and God does forgive us — and welcomes us back into a right relationship, it’s then that we realize that God is worthy and due all praise.

• As a mid-week reflection, think about those times when you felt you stood outside of God’s love and God openly welcomed you back into favor.
• How does being renewed in your relationship with God cause you to praise God?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Merciful God, may my mouth be always filled with praise for You and Your love and mercy. Thank You for the grace that makes me whole again.

       One of the most devastating things in life can be walking around in darkness, living with falsehoods and untruths, and not knowing (or believing) the truth.  Nothing is more relieving than to discover that there is a light of truth that brings understanding and clarity of heart, mind, soul, and spirit.  It is especially true that when that light and truth come from the wisdom of God, we find joy and release.  Freedom from the lies of the past and clarity around the future when they come from God are all good reasons to give praise, making music to God’s ears.

• Have you ever experienced a time of being lost and God’s truth showed you the way?
• How did God’s truth bring joy to your life that caused you to give praise to God for what God had done?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Gracious God, enable me to celebrate Your light and truth as guides to the pathways of my life. In Your truth, I find joy that empowers me to always praise You.

       There are those of us who decry the use of other than what we’ve come to know as standard instrumentation in worship. We accept the piano and the organ, but frown on other instruments as being inappropriate at times. The guitar has become more acceptable, and a study of Holy Scripture will show us that stringed instruments and percussion instruments, drums and cymbals were a regular part of praising God. Perhaps when we sing, “Give me that old time religion”, it will include drums, cymbals, tambourines and guitars.

• How has your faith been impacted by the use of different musical instruments to give praise and thanksgiving to God.
• What can we do to encourage a broader participation of musical diversity?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Holy God, teach me to accept all musical instruments as an acceptable means of giving praise and thanksgiving to You.

       For those of us who are believers in God, we often come to worship — to give praise to God for various reasons. Some of us come not to praise God but to learn and grow in our understanding of who God is in our lives. But there is always music when we come.  There is always a song sung by those present.  There are always those of us who lift up our voices to sing of God’s praises.  I sometimes wonder if we know why.

       A part of me believes that we praise God through song because it’s our tradition.  Music is an intentional part of the worship experience, but we don’t necessarily do it because we are thankful.  It should be realized that true praise of God comes as an expression of thanksgiving.  Praise of God comes when we realize what God has done, is doing, and will do among us and for us.  And if we join together in one voice of praise and thanksgiving using all of our musical talents to praise God, it is still possible for God’s presence to be an awe-inspiring event — one that leaves us helpless to do anything but stand awe-struck in silence before our God.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer —
Holy and loving God, enable my praise and thanksgiving for You to so fill the earthly temple of my body and spirit that I stand helpless and in awe of You and Your awesome love for me.

       Poet and author John Donne reminds us that “No man (person) is an island unto himself.” Each of us becomes what we are because we are touched by someone else’s life. That person may be sent by God to do the very things that open our eyes, enlightening us, and allowing us to move forward to do God’s work in profound ways. By whatever means it happens, we are moved to a position of new truth, proclaiming our new discoveries with new found dedication and enthusiasm.

• Recall an experience where you or a friend may have been enlightened by someone to do something God was calling you/them to do?
• What was your/their experience like?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Merciful God, open my eyes that, in my life, I may fully know the truth about who You are that my witness may proclaim the truth.

       None of us are Holy enough or righteous enough on our own to do what God calls us to do.  Each of us must undergo some type of transformation to be truly useful to God.  But for the person who embraces their change, a great and challenging future awaits them.  The entire act of change begins with the act of humility.  That requires an inward change of heart and mind.  But then, we are always most useful to God after we’ve submitted our heart, mind, and spirit to God’s will.

• Has there ever been a time when you were reticent to do something God was asking you to do?
• What was the eventual outcome of your experience?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Loving God, empower me to willingly embrace the changes You would make in my life so that I am fit to do whatever You would have me to do.

Many people think of God in a corporate way, meaning, their experience of God should be everyone’s experience of God.  And yet, God has always had a rather personal and intimate relationship with people.  God reveals God’s self to one person in one way, while others all around that person are seemingly oblivious to that person’s experience.  That kind of intimacy alone has the power to change people.  And such is the mystery of a God who chooses to be revealed (or not) to those with whom God has business specific to God’s plan for humanity.

• Can you recall a time when you or someone you know experienced God’s presence when others were unaware of it?
• How were you enlightened by their/your experience?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Gracious God, humble me to embrace those changes that You make in my life that allow me to share in a more intimate relationship with You.

       In some ways, it is expected that we share in the experiences of the persons we follow.  That can be true in other areas of life besides the things of God.  And persecution is no different. We experience persecution often because of others misunderstanding of our position or faith, rather than their understanding.  It’s borne out of their passion for what they believe, and we become guilty by association with those who are persecuted for no other reason than we shared the same belief, principle, or faith perspective.

• Have you ever experienced persecution for your faith?
• How did you understand your persecution.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Holy God, empower me through my faith in Jesus Christ to gain strength from those who would persecute me because of my faith in Jesus as the Christ.

       People don’t always understand how transformation and change in your life can be such a radical departure from what you’ve been or done before.  Their desire to know is often based on the fact that they don’t fully understand how or why.  Sometimes their desire to know springs from curiosity.  Sometimes there is the desire to drag you back into a previous lifestyle.  The reasons are varied and often extensive.  Yet, in the midst of great personal change, it sometimes becomes necessary to explain your new found position.

• Are there any God initiated changes in your life that you’ve had to justify?
• How did/do you explain them?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Loving Christ, enable me when it becomes necessary to justify changes that You’ve made in my life, that I will be able to testify to Your truth in all things.

       When we are passionate about something, that passion may be displayed in ways that might make other people uncomfortable.  We label them overzealous and do what we can to avoid becoming who they are.  If that person’s passion is properly directed, it has the potential to do enormous good for the individual and the world. We appreciate the passion that musicians, artists, athletes bring to their work.  It makes the world a better place. However, if someone’s passion is misdirected, it has the potential to become terroristic in its execution.  When that happens, it usually leaves most of us somewhat reticent to approach or be around such a person.  God, however, has the ability to recognize the most beneficial characteristics of a person that can be used for God’s glory.  God harnesses the passion that is misdirected and transforms it into a powerful tool of witness to God’s truth and glory.  We are not always open to accept the changes that God wants to make in our lives.  Sometimes God is compelled to do something radical inwardly to get the desired change outwardly.

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Loving and gracious God, humble me to graciously embrace the change You would make in me. Enlighten me that I might truly know You, growing to become a more suitable witness to Your truth, and an instrument of Your divine plan.

Whatever is in the heart of people must come out at some point.  We can only be true to who we are.  Jesus spoke about this truth on several occasions indicating that good fruit can’t come from a bad tree, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit.  What is in us will undoubtedly be revealed to others as acts of the heart.  It goes to say then, that if the Spirit of the Living God is alive inside of us, then those things we do will be life giving and borne of the Spirit of God.  However, none of this could have happened before the fulfillment of the promise. God’s promise that we would receive the spirit has been fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

• What is you experience knowing that you carry the heart and Spirit of God within you?
• Do you at times, find yourself at war with the Spirit because of your actions, or do you find it easy to dismiss the Spirit in favor of your preferences of life?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Loving Christ, enable your Spirit alive in my heart to give evidence of the living waters of faith and love because of my relationship with you.

We are often anxious to know the truth.  Our hearts search for it.  Our minds are so curious about it that we dig up the earth, search for old artifacts, look for signs, tangible and intangible, to know for certain that what we believe (or say we believe) has merit.  When it comes to a God we can’t see, doing things that we can’t explain, in ways that we don’t understand, our knowledge about the truth becomes uncertain.  But then, God gives us something within that informs us about the truth so we can be certain.  And it’s not just that we somehow know.  It’s that we know that we know that we know, and our knowledge of the way of the truth is unshakeable.  God’s truth becomes our truth.

• Is it possible to explain the truth and reality of God alive today without the Spirit?
• Can we invite people to experience the Spirit of God without the truth of Jesus?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Almighty and eternal God, enable the presence of Your Spirit within me to be a witness to those who have not experienced You.

Confirmation of the Spirit is as much a fulfillment of God’s promises of the past as they are the reality of God’s presence here and now.  David knew about it and prophesied about it without having experienced it in the way we know it.  He exhibited true faith.  And now, those of us who are members of the body of the church of Christ live with the reality and fulfillment of God’s promises.  We have received the Holy Spirit, and that Spirit dwells within us because Christ was necessary to effect the promise.  For all purposes, practical and impractical, Christ is the promise and the Holy Spirit is God’s “in place warranty” that Christ and God are real.

• Does experiencing God’s Spirit at work within you as a fulfillment of an earlier promise reaffirm that you are God’s child?
• Does this experience of God present in you cause you to “walk humbly with your God?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Gracious Father, empower me to walk more humbly with you on my life’s journey as a confirmation of my experience of Your reality alive in me.

God’s promise has always been to deliver the Spirit of God to those who belonged to God’s family.  God was nondiscriminatory in its distribution.  God’s Spirit was to go to old and young, men and women, slave and free alike.  To that end, God’s desire is to be known among all people, not just those who claim to have some special dispensation of the Spirit.  There is also the reality that the Spirit of God will know no boundaries.  Wherever the people of God are, that’s where the Spirit of God will be present to dream the dreams and envision God’s vision for the world.

• Have you also felt a desire to share your experience of God with others when you have been aware of God’s Spirit in yourself or others?
• How do you experience the Spirits presence in your life and in our world today?
• Where do you see it?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Almighty God, give me the openness to see, experience and the accept the presence of Your Holy Spirit working in the lives of others wherever I am.

The promise of the gift of the Spirit is not new.  God’s promise of the presence of God’s Spirit as an available gift has been made know to the prophets from the beginning.  The reception of the gift is (in fact) a fulfillment of God’s promises.  The Spirit’s purpose was singular — to make the presence of God a reality among the people of God. And with the promise comes a certain judgment.  It is not a condemnation, but a judgment of revelation — that some have missed the opportunity to intimately commune with the Spirit of God, such that it becomes a sorrowful event.  The situation almost begs us to recognize and accept the presence of the Spirit of Christ as a reality, and to mourn that all have not experienced God in this way.

• Jot down a few words about your experience with the Holy Spirit of God.
• How was your faith by your experience?
• How does your experience with God’s Holy Spirit affirm God’s reality to you?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Gracious God, grant that the awareness of my spiritual experience with your Holy Spirit continues to confirm the faithfulness of Your promises and that my faith is real.

The idea that, as humans, we might need help to negotiate the spiritual trials that would face us was not a new phenomenon to Jesus.  He expressed this reality even before the news of his departure was clear to the disciples. We have some difficulty acknowledging the presence of God within us.  Perhaps it is because God is not an annoying presence that causes pain or anxiety.  It may be because we are so unaware of God’s presence that we are lulled to sleep by God’s seeming inactivity in our day-to-day decisions.  That may be because many of our decisions are not of a spiritual nature.  But, when up against the wall and we seek that spiritual guidance that is so necessary, Jesus wants us to know that he is there.

• Have you sought a spiritual answer to a problem in your life and found the Holy Spirit present to guide you?
• Did you have a calm affirmation that your decision was spirit-led?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Loving Christ, give me the comfort of knowing that in my day-to-day decisions, Your Spirit dwells in me and with me that I may experience You in real time.

       God is often a silent partner in our lives. That is not to suggest that God is not with us. It is to suggest that we have a basic insecurity about God’s presence when God is so silent. From time to time, God does speak to us, but often in non- traditional ways. To eliminate our frustration around what might appear to be God’s absence, God has provided an alternative to Christ’s physical presence by providing an eternal, ongoing, reality through which we can experience our Creator. God’s approach to our insecurities is to affirm us of God’s ongoing care for us through means other than a physical presence. This experience of God goes, in many real ways, to the heart of our experience with God. It is also a post-faith affirmation since those of us who believe in God have already taken the first step — believing that God is. This action of the part of God (to assure us that our experience of God is legitimate) is God’s way of giving us reassurance and affirmation that despite our insecurities, God is.

• Has there ever been a time in your life when you experienced the presence of God even though you could not see God present?
• Would you be willing to say that this affirmation of God’s presence and reality was something that you felt within you, rather than an external presence?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Eternal God, grant me the assurance of always knowing that no matter how uncertain life may become, I can always trust in You through Your Holy Spirit to be present with me.

     It’s one thing to be let in the house.  It’s another thing to be included as a part of the family with full rights, privileges, and benefits.  In the biblical culture, there was a family ring signifying that one was a legitimate member of the family.  It symbolized both connection and status and placed that person above the status of the hired help. When we are accepted by God we are placed above the status of hirelings.  We are given the honor of becoming children of God.  I believe that’s why Jesus said, “No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.”  Whether we are adopted or born into the family, God has claimed us.  Perhaps our ring is the symbolic cross.

• How do you view those who wear the family crest (the cross), but seem to act is if they are not a part of the family of God?
• Is it possible for you to view them as a member of God’s family and accept them even if they are away?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Loving God, allow me to wear my family ring humbly. Help me to acknowledge all people as children of Yours and brothers and sisters of mine whether they are living in the house of have chosen to leave.

To experience God’s acceptance is an act of restoration.  In it we find full reception back into the family. It’s as if we’ve been given a new lease on life.  Perhaps that is (or was) at one time our fascination with getting new Easter clothes.  It is an outward statement that we are not the same — that we are different than we were before being clothed with ‘pure vestments’ and restored.  Being included in the family is a significant act of grace, especially when the separation was initiated by us, but the restoration was not.  However, God is ready with new wardrobe indicating our acceptance back into the family

• Have you ever been restored back to a relationship that you initially broke off?
• How did you experience your acceptance within the relationship upon your return?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Gracious God, may we always experience the joy and peace that comes with knowing that we are always accepted and loved by You.

     The act of humility required to return home can be inwardly revealing.  It requires a “coming to oneself”.  There is a sense that when one ‘comes to themselves’ they return to their right mind.  Suddenly things are in perspective and the world is no longer skewed or distorted.  In that relationship with God, there is the presumption (and perhaps an act of recognition) that confession opens the door of acceptance so that those who are away admit that there is a need for God.  Hence gone is the arrogance and self-sufficiency.  Then comes the willingness of God to openly welcome those back who realize the need for God.  Blessed are the poor in Spirit, for they know their need for God.

• Have you ever sought acceptance from God by turning from a previous lifestyle?
• In what ways did you feel restored?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Almighty God, grant me the wisdom to always be aware of my need for you.

       People becoming angry with God isn’t a new thing.  There is often a feeling of resentment whenever we think or experience someone receiving a blessing when we feel we deserve better or more.  We feel slighted and resentful.  And yet, there is a need for us to come to an understanding that perhaps our resentment is an acknowledgment that we’re not as grateful for the blessings we receive and experience as we are resentful that someone else may be getting more than we feel they deserve.  This feeling of resentment can be coupled to a feeling of entitlement.  It’s an ugly character trait.  And as I’ve always heard, “God don’t like ugly!”

• Have you ever found yourself resentful of others because of privileges they had received?
• Did you examine your resentment in light of the blessings you had been privileged to experience.
• How did your experience of God bring you to a more resolute state of mind?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Gracious God, grant me the spirit of acceptance that my jealousy or resentment because of Your compassion towards them will not become a barrier to a right relationship with You.

     There are scores of children who have found shame and embarrassment at how they have squandered their inheritance.  There is no doubt that the child who left acted unwisely.  He squandered what he had.  And more seriously, he has wasted his present and future resources.  He now has nothing to look forward to and only regret to look back on.  It is a tragedy when we live for the immediacy of the moment — when we seek what has become a cultural norm of instant gratification.  Perhaps it is reflected in the restlessness of people thinking and believing that the next best thing is somewhere other than the place where they are.  And so, off they go in search of a bigger, better deal, only to realize that there’s no place like home. Even still, pride keeps some from returning home.

• Has your anger ever driven you to squander your resources foolishly on things that only brought you immediate gratification?
• Have you ever been in the desert of life and believed you saw a green oasis that turned out to be only sand?
• How did you recover from that predicament?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Loving God, give me the wisdom to recognize that sometimes it’s better to accept the blessings of my present circumstances than to allow anger to drive me to self-destruction.

In a culture strong in traditions, the first born has certain inalienable rights that cannot be changed, regardless of events.  The maternal relationship or the love of the father for the mother doesn’t matter.  What’s important is birth order, especially when it comes to the inheritance due the children.  This can often be a cause of enmity between siblings, especially when one seems favored over another.  And perhaps it’s especially true when the scales of equality seem unbalanced.  There’s an old comedy routine dedicated to the theme, “Mom always liked you best.”  And when the child asks to step outside the cultural bounds of relationship, because of sibling jealousy, one might feel it better to leave and make it on their own than live in what might be perceived as an unfair environment?  But what happens when the youngest child considers his parent as good as dead, asking for the inheritance even before there is an actual death?  How does the order of birth play into the significance of legacy and inheritance?  And what is the parent supposed to think when the child proclaims them dead while they are still alive?

• Where are you in the pecking order of family birth?
• How has birth order played a role in your family’s structure, or does it?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Eternal God, strengthen my understanding that Your love for me is not based on when I was born, but upon acknowledging that my life rests in my relationship with You.

       Acceptance is difficult, whether we are seeking acceptance from each other or, whether we are seeking acceptance from God.  Mix in a bit of arrogance gone wild, pride, and selfishness and it becomes easy to see why other people’s acceptance of us may be difficult.

       On the other hand, when we, like the older son, presume our faithfulness to anything, (done out of duty and not love) buys us a place of honor and both entitlement then it’s easy to become resentful of someone who appears to have taken advantage of a situation and then appears to get rewarded.  We become angry and resentful of others and their actions, while at the same time disregarding the grace we receive each day, believing that somehow life just isn’t fair to us.

The truth is, we’re often willing to overlook our worst traits and consider them trivial in light of other people’s unacceptable characteristics.  The only way (then) to acceptance is to eat a heaping helping of humble pie, admit we all fall short of reaching perfection, and offer ourselves humbly back into relationship with God knowing that God accepts and loves us just as we are.  It’s there that we experience God as the one who seeks to restore, to heal, to bring us back into relationship, happy that we have returned to the one which we once considered as good as dead, or whether we’ve felt we’ve always deserved more than we’ve received.  God’s love for us is so great, that we are loved and accepted whatever we believe the status of our relationship is.

• Do you know anyone who has turned their back on God only to see them return with full acceptance?
• Has your experience of God been as one who is accepted, not because of your goodness, but because of God’s grace?
• How do you view God’s unconditional grace toward those who may be deemed undesirable?
• How do you understand the statement, “Grace sufficient for your need?”

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Gracious God, allow me to come to my right mind and recognize that Your love for me has no limits and is always available to me. Let me live each day assured that Your love for me is unearned; that You love me, and I’m helpless to do anything about it.

       The test of a person’s faith is not the depth of their belief in God when things are going well.  Experiencing God through faith is realized when suffering has invaded our lives.  David said, “I believed, even when I spoke, “I am greatly afflicted.”  Job’s encounter with God led him to believe God, even in the midst of his suffering.  And who can forget the words of our Christ, hanging on the cross and saying, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?  Faith that believed, not just in fair weather, but in foul is the test to pass, primarily because faith in the face of difficulty invites confirmation that the rewards one receives are irrelevant to the suffering one endures.

• Have you ever suffered in such a way that you questioned your belief in God?
• Did coming through the storm lead you to believe more strongly in God’s providence?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Loving God, help me to seek to experience You, not just when things are going well, but in the midst of my suffering let me know You are near.

       To experience God is to get to know God intimately.  To a large extent, that means placing the reality of God and how we experience God on a spiritual level.  For Paul, it meant not just believing in God, but sharing in the experience of God in Jesus Christ so that Christ’s suffering became his suffering (spiritually) and Christ’s glory could become his glory.  To experience God in faith, then, is to encounter God at the point of sacrifice.  It is that place where we stop depending on our merits and trust in the merits of Him who has experienced what it is to be human, who gave up everything so that we might only depend on the power of His grace.

• How have you experienced grace? What does God’s grace look like?
• Does the grace of God allow you to experience the reality of God rather than relying on your own sense of right and wrong?
• If so, in what ways?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Gracious God, keep me keenly aware of Your grace made available to me so that I may experience You at times when I have failed to be faithful.

       Those who worship the Spirit of God must use that which is invisible to give honor, praise and glory to the invisible through the invisible.  No one has ever seen God.  God is Spirit.  And yet, no one has ever denied that we have spirit.  But, has anyone ever seen our spirit.  My guess is that the answer is, “No.”  People may have seen evidence of our spirit.  And yet, we believe in our spirit and celebrate the resultant power of our spirit to accomplish remarkable things.  What we see is the product of our Spirit.  And are we nothing more than a product of the Spirit of God.  Imagine — that which others cannot see in us is a product of that which we cannot see — God.

• Has it occurred to you that God seeks those to worship God with the very essence of God’s reality?
• How have you experienced worshiping God through your Spirit?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Loving God, may I acknowledge each day that my spirit which I cannot see is born of Your spirit, which is also unseen and alive in me. Grant that I may always experience Your spirit alive in me.

       Our world is filled with “things”, all of which came about before there was any proof that they were possible. The need for a hole was enough to spark someone’s imagination to first, imagine a drill, and then create it.  Even the lowly wheel (perhaps copied from something found in nature) was imagined before it came into being.  More contemporary language says, “If you can conceive it and believe it, then you can achieve it.”  This is nothing more than a paraphrase of Jesus’ statement.  And yet at the core of the statement is faith — faith in what we believe is possible, even when we can’t lay our hands on it, or fully imagine what it may become.  Faith is enough to motivate us to bring about that which is invisible and bring its unrealized vision into reality. This is the creative power of God at work in us.

• Have you ever come up with an idea for something that didn’t exist (a recipe, a design for quilting, etc.) that later became a reality for you and others?
• Does the realization of the invisible becoming visible increase your faith?
• In what ways?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Gracious God, give us all the wisdom to trust that through faith in you, we will be able to experience You in ways that make everything else understandable.

       There is nothing surprising about our hope.  What we look forward to is abundant with the ideas of things we can’t presently see.  We believe that there is life that follows after this life though we can’t see it.  We believe in the wind, that it blows and caresses our skin, yet we can’t see it.  We’ve acknowledged the temporary nature of our world, but have, in faith, believed that there is something more permanent outside of our human existence.  To experience God through faith is to hope for that beyond what we can see.

• Does your faith in God lead to your faith in other things that are invisible to you such as eternal life?
• Does experiencing a God you can’t see through your faith make belief in other things un-seeable easier to accept?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Gracious God, bless me to continue to experience You in the unseen things of our world. Help me to grow in faith that my hopes are secure through my faith in You.

     The creative power of God is captured in these words of Scripture.  God existed and created out of nothing what we now experience as our reality.  There was only darkness and it covered everything.  And out of this nothingness God spoke.  Science would lead us to creation with a Big Bang Theory.  I have yet to see an explosion of any kind without a dissipation of energy and light.  And there was light. But could a world designed with so much order come about from a random explosion?  Could the formation of DNA and the litany of creative order be pure coincidence.  Some say it is.  But our faith says that it is not coincidence, but God-incidence. The entire creative process was God’s activity in the creative process from the beginning.  Our faith supports our belief — is (in fact) our belief.

• Does your view of created order help you to experience God’s reality?
• In what ways?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Almighty God, as I experience the vast expanse of Your created universe from the open sky to the smallest flower, I grow in my faith that I have experienced You in their existence. Empower me to continue to find assurance and discover Your presence in every living thing.

     Experiencing God has a beginning point.  That beginning point is not in God, so much, but is in the place where God is revealed to us.  In essence, experiencing God is the beginning point and foundation of all that we can see and all that we can know.  It is the place we technically call faith.  Faith, as we understand it is the place where we believe in God before we have a relationship with God.  But it is not a blind belief.  It is a belief that is grounded in the witness of those who have come before.  It is testified to in the lives of Abraham, Enoch, and even the blood of Abel.  That faith is certified by the presence of our world.  Our belief and faith is captured in our own belief in things which we can’t see but we can imagine, and is borne in our hope.  Our faith is an awareness of the presence of God through God’s revelation of God’s self to us.  So, we can know without understanding and believe in the presence without having to see the substance. We see the product of God’s reality through faith, and through faith can actually touch the reality of God.

• How and when did you experience the reality of God through your faith?
• How was your belief in God confirmed or affirmed?
• Has the evidence of God been confirmed by your faith or do you wonder at times?

Todays Prayer

day’s Prayer
Gracious and eternal God, grant to me the peace that comes from knowing that Your reality is greater than anything I could imagine, but is evidenced in a belief that gives me hope. Strengthen my faith to always keep me certain of Your reality.

     James doesn’t mince his words when he speaks about having confidence in approaching God.  And if we’re honest with ourselves, we lack a generous amount confidence when it comes to drawing near to God.  There is a prayer of confession that leads off with “God, we are not the people we like others to think we are.”  Perhaps it is because we know who we are and even more to the point, God knows who we are.  And so, we live in some fear that God will not accept us.  But the invitation is to approach God and God will approach us.  The outcome of approaching God is that we can share a deeper sense of intimacy with God, leading to greater confidence.  Perhaps a humble refrain of the hymn, “Just As I Am” will create just enough humility that we can approach God with confidence.

• Have you ever felt at times that God was distant from you?
• Have you ever felt at times that you were distant from God?
• What gave you the confidence to close the distance between you and God?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer –
Eternal and gracious God, empower my faith to give me the confidence to draw near to You seeking forgiveness, even when I know that I have failed you. Allow me to have confidence that you are always close to me.

     It is a powerful feeling to be able to stand on your own.  We live in culture where making it on your own is a powerful statement of accomplishment and strength.  But a more powerful statement is made when we can admit that we can’t stand on our own merit.  When we can face the reality that we have failed in our relationship with God, that we have fallen short of God’s glory — well, that too, is a powerful statement.  And to know that we can put our trust in someone else — that, in fact, God has provided a perfect gift of grace — then, it is in that gift of grace that we can begin to find a bold confidence and strength in our faith, not in ourselves. Our confidence in our faith grows with our trust in the gift of God’s grace.

• Are there times when you realize you need a power greater than you possess to stand in the presence of God?
• When are those times?
• Does your relationship with Christ give you feelings of confidence in your relationship with God?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer –
All loving God, thank you for .your wonderful gift of grace through faith. Grant that each day my confidence in Your grace will serve to increase my faith and strengthen my relationship with you

     Coming to God is not something that we do on our own initially.  We don’t search for God as much as we are allowed to discover God.  And it would seem that even that discovery is done by the Holy Spirit on behalf of God.  It would seem then that drawing near to God (or approaching God) would give us confidence to approach God because we have been invited.  There is a different level of confidence we possess when we’ve been invited to the party and are not just attending at the behest of a close friend.  God desires intimacy with us; that is why God extends to us the invitation.

• Has there ever been a time when you felt really close to God through God’s invitation?
• Do these experiences lead you to become more confidently hopeful?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer –
All loving God, thank you for extending an invitation to me that I might draw closer to you. Grant that my confidence in my relationship with you might grow always knowing that I can approach you because you have invited me.

     Jesus has been given many titles.  We’ve called him our Emmanuel, Prince of Peace, Savior, Lord of Lords and King of Kings, and other names appropriate to his role in our salvation.  It is not often that we think of him as a High Priest.  A High Priest offers sacrifices to God on behalf of the people as atonement for our sins.  A High Priest has the authority to stand before God.  But our High Priest is different in that Jesus has endured life as a mortal and has acted as a forerunner on our behalf.  Jesus stands before God pleading our case for salvation, having offered his body as the sacrifice.

• Do you think of Jesus in the role of your High Priest or is he someone else to you?
• What role as high priest would you most like Jesus to do on your behalf?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer –
Gracious, I give thanks to You for providing me a High Priest who not only stands before you pleading my case, but who has first-hand knowledge of my human experience. Grant that I may have full confidence in his sacrifice of atonement for my salvation.

     We live with the clear distinction between us and Christ.  Our relationship with God has been severed on many occasions.  When we live in a relationship separated from God by our willfulness, it is called sin.  However, Jesus was never in a broken relationship with God.  His life was a life lived totally in union with the will of God. The life of God was in Him and the love of God poured out from him. God had appointed Jesus to do what Jesus did in faith, always giving honor to his God and not taking human credit for his actions. He had no sin but became sin for us all that we might not have sin.  Satan had no hold on him. He was sinless, and it is through his sinlessness are we restored to a right relationship with God through faith.

• Does knowing and believing that your/our sins are covered by the sinless nature of Jesus offer you spiritual peace and confidence?
• Does understanding how Christ’s Spirit intercedes for us change how you will pray to God?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer –
Almighty God, open my heart to accept the power of Christ and his sacrifice of love to take away my sin. Give me the confidence to approach you humbly yet boldly in the name of Jesus that I might experience the peace that only Christ can give.

     We don’t often allow the humanity of Christ to drift forward in our consciousness.  We frequently hold Jesus in such high Godly esteem that we often diminish or neglect the human part of his life.  Many people will refuse to believe that Jesus was divine (or, God present in flesh). Others will accept his divinity but are willing to overlook his humanity. For those of us who believe, his humanity and his divinity merge together in ways that let us know that he was both God in the flesh and Spirit. Jesus understood as much as anyone what we go through as humans and therefore empathizes with our human condition.

• When you read Isaiah’s portrayal of Jesus, how does it affect your understanding of just how human Jesus was?
• Is there greater comfort in knowing that God’s understanding of us is because God present with us is personally impacted by our life experiences?
• In what ways (if any) do you believe Jesus’ experience resembles yours?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer –
Loving God, enable me to gain confidence in my relationship with You through my understanding that Christ has lived through the human experience and understands what we go through.

It’s a difficult thing to overcome fear, but not impossible. One of the benefits to overcoming fear is gaining confidence. We gain confidence in ourselves and attain a certain resolve that allows us act in ways that highlight our confidence.  Of course, there is a danger in gaining too much confidence.  One of those dangers is becoming so confident that we become arrogant: arrogant in our beliefs, arrogant in our truths, arrogant in our faith.  There is a very fine line between confidence and arrogance.  It’s difficult to tell when we step over the line.  However, one of the major signs of arrogance is a loss of respect for the other.  In our relationship with God, it is important to have a healthy fear (respect) for the Lord.  But our God loves us so much that we are encouraged to have confidence in our relationship.  We are invited to rest assured in our relationship with God; confident and not arrogant so that we may “walk humbly with” our God.

• What gives you confidence in your relationship with God?
• How does that confidence liberate you to come to God any time with any issue or concern?
• Does your freedom in your relationship with Christ humble you, yet strengthen your confidence?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer –
Loving God, remove all of my anxieties about drawing near to you. Give me the courage to approach you with boldness and humility that I may walk with you in confidence and in peace.

     Moving and living in a culture that expresses being ‘woke’ as a negative virtue of liberalism, perhaps needs to be revisited.  Both in our scripture for today and Sunday’s scripture (Eph. 6:18) the admonition for God’s people is to “keep alert”, and to be awake.  If we’re going to be ‘woke’ or awake, perhaps we should be remaining alert to those evils that tend to destroy us spiritually or awake to the presence of God’s love present around us.  Whatever the circumstances, being awake (or woke) and alert to those spiritual dangers that compromise our relationship with God are of the highest priority.

• Where is there spiritual warfare happening in our world or culture that that seeks to deny or destroy God’s love in Jesus Christ that we need to be alert or ‘woke’ to?
• What can we do to become more faithful in our efforts to stay awake?

Todays Prayer

Loving Christ, give me the wisdom and ability to remain alert and awake to those times when my spirit is being challenged by the world we live in.

     Prayer (at times) seems like such a powerless form of protection.  Yet, prayer is actually one of the most powerful weapons to use when engaging in spiritual warfare.  Sometimes we find ourselves unable to speak because we can't find ‘the Word of God’ or we’re unable to find just the right words to say.  At times, life so overwhelms us that we find ourselves speechless.  It’s at those times of weakness that the spiritual armor of prayer is our most potent offense and defense.  The spirit is able to communicate with God in ways that we can’t in a language of groans too deep for words.  It’s at those times God is able to hear our petitions even though we can’t articulate them with our mouths.

• Have you ever found yourself needing to pray but were unable to find just the right words to say?
• Does it provide you with a sense of power knowing your prayer can break through the sound or silence barrier and be heard by God?

Todays Prayer

Holy God, teach me to rely more each day on prayer as a way to defend myself against those unseen spiritual enemies that seek to destroy me and my relationship with You.

     We have all (at times) underestimated the power of God’s word.  We sometimes believe that the more we say or the louder we say it will have the power to persuade people to believe and trust what we are saying.  While at times we are comforted by other’s acceptance of what we say, we have in those moments been less likely to influence people.  The danger that lies within is sometimes our willingness to distort God’s word to accomplish our purposes.  Satan did it to Jesus in the wilderness.  I’m convinced that we’re capable of doing it as well to achieve our purposes.  But God’s word brings a power of its own to separate the truth from the lie, and the will of our flesh from the power and will of God’s Word.

• Why is it so important to rely on God’s word rather than on the opinions, ideas, and reasonings’ of other people?
• What is the benefit of trusting in the word of God to guide every part of our lives?

Todays Prayer

Almighty God, grant me the wisdom to rely on Your Holy word to help me discern Your will above mine, and Your truth above all other proposed truths.

     Often today we find ourselves being led by what we see, or what we thought we saw, or what we hear, or thought we heard.  There has always been a disconnect between what someone said, what someone meant, what we heard and what we understood in our hearing.  That misunderstanding is what explains why two persons can see the same accident and supply two vastly different explanations of how it happened and often leads to unfair judgments.  Perhaps it’s because everyone tends to tell the story that points people in the direction of favoring their particular truth.  God tends to take a different view.  Instead of discerning base on hearing, God’s understanding is based on what is right for the poor and God will be faithful to that.

• Have you ever had to settle an argument or dispute based solely on what you heard, not fully capable of discerning who was being truthful?
• Did trying to resolve it by what was right, or fair bring any comfort to your spirit?

Todays Prayer

Gracious God, help me to strengthen my spirit through a process of discerning what is righteous and fair, giving me the wisdom to know the difference between Your will and my preferences.

     Suffering has never been one of the strongest human desires.  It’s not something that appears in the top 10 of our ‘be like Jesus’ to do list.  And if we’re honest, we never put ourselves in a position of having to physically suffer for what we believe in.  Our Scripture reminds us to “arm ourselves” mentally, or as is recorded in Philippians, “Have this same mind in you that was in Christ Jesus …”. One way to accomplish this is to always “having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness …”.  There is no greater joy than having suffered for righteousness’ sake.

• Under what circumstances might you be willing to suffer physically for righteousness’ sake?
• How might suffering for righteousness’ sake strengthen your Spiritual relationship with God?

Todays Prayer

Loving God, empower me to arm myself with the same mind and thinking of Jesus that if I suffer, I will know that I suffered for the righteousness’ sake to glorify You.

     We often live in a world where often physical and mental strength receive the highest praise.  And yet, not very often is the idea of becoming spiritually strengthened promoted.  Nevertheless, being spiritually strengthened is God’s recommended pursuit for those born of the Spirit of Christ.  It’s not for the purpose of saying we are Spiritually strong, but for the ultimate purpose of understanding the love of Christ in all of its power.  Knowing the full power of Christ and his love brings us to a deeper and more profound understanding of God.

• What do you believe are some spiritual exercises you could do to become spiritually strengthened in your understanding of Christ?
• How would you measure your spiritual strength following such an exercise?

Todays Prayer

Loving God, give me the wisdom to grow my spiritual muscles so that I may gain a greater understanding of You and Your love in Jesus Christ.

     American Express Card once ran an advertisement created to help people understand that when unpredictable financial situations arise American Express card can be relied on for that needed layer of financial security.  Their catch phrase was, “American Express – Never leave home without it.”  It is important to remember the necessity of carrying certain things with us when we leave home.  Because we’ve come to depend so heavily on our mobile device, leaving home without it is a cause for panic with most people.  If rain is in the forecast, an umbrella is a must for those who will be out in the environment.  Yet, I’m not sure that we give the same amount of consideration to our care where spiritual matters are concerned.  At times we take our faith for granted, accepting whatever truth is placed before us, sometimes going along with the crowd failing to discern what’s right from what’s popular.

                  Where our spiritual lives are concerned, God invites us to always be aware of the spiritual forces that represent a danger to us.  So, like the encouragement to “never leave home without our American Express Card” We are encouraged to always be prepared for the world by putting on the full armor of God and never leaving home without it.  The last thing God wants for us is to be hurt by unseen spiritual forces because we left home spiritually unprotected from those things that could compromise our relationship with God.

Todays Prayer

Almighty God, enable me to always be adorned in those spiritual safeguards You’ve provided for my safety so that I will always be able to stand strong against every evil scheme directed toward me.

     Lives are touched and changed when the story about God is conveyed with integrity. It doesn’t matter about your background or what one might be going through. It is the story we tell others about “this life” — a life lived in relationship with God that seems to be the way to do evangelism. The power of belief comes from having heard the story. And to hear the story, its important for those of us who believe to tell our story. It may be the most convincing story of all.

• What is the nature of your story about God and Christ and how you live in your relationship with God?
• Do you think your story might be important enough that if someone else heard it, they might be convinced about God?
• Why or why not?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer — Loving Christ, empower me to put aside whatever issues may prevent me from telling others the story of my life with You.

     Having a story to tell doesn’t necessarily lead others to believe.  It’s simply a reflection of the truth about our relationship with God.  There may be times when God’s activity in our lives simply goes beyond what others are able to believe.  And yet, what others are able or willing to believe shouldn’t interfere with our willingness or ability to tell our story.  Perhaps, it will be our story that might explain something that has occurred to them that they hadn’t thought about.  Who knows how God will work?

• Have you ever had an experience in your relationship with God that seemed too difficult to believe?
• If so, how does this affect your willingness to tell your story to others?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer — Holy and gracious God, empower me to continue telling others the story of my faith, regardless of how unusual my story might be to others.

     Telling our story or finding God’s reality and presence in the midst of story isn’t new.  God’s presence and activity in our lives and world has always been revealed in the stories of others.  It’s reflected in the stories of saints of the past. Today, the continuing message of God to others is reliant upon our story and what we’ve experienced in our relationship with God. Our story is the most contemporary story we can tell of God’s reality.

• What Bible story do you remember that has had an impact upon your relationship with God?
• How does the bible story you remember and the story of your relationship with God express the truth about God’s in today’s world?

Todays Prayer

Daily Prayer — Loving God, give me the courage and wisdom to continue to tell others of Your love through the experiences of the Bible and my story.

     The very beginning of our faith journey begins with the story.  And while it’s true that the story has been forthcoming for a long time, it was, in fact, John the Baptist who had the responsibility of being a verbal witness to the One who was coming into the world. John’s voice has been silent for a number of years, but not his story.  His story has become our story to tell about the One who has not only come, but who is now raised and lives forever.

• Do you ever reflect back on when your story of your relationship with Christ began?
• What was that experience like for you?
• How might you continue to tell others your story as a way to continue helping others to see God more clearly?

Todays Prayer

Daily Prayer — Almighty God, let me be faithful in my relationship to continue telling the story of how you came into my world that I might see you more clearly.

The story of Saul’s conversion is really a two part story. The first part tells of his encounter with Jesus Christ and being blinded. The second story is about Ananias sharing the story of God in ways that connect him to Saul. Two different people — the same story of redemption. It’s possible that God can allow two people to share the same story of God’s reality in our world. Two people sharing the same story is a powerful witness to the reality of God.

Today, think of those who shared the same story of God in different ways ( example: John the Baptist and Jesus, Phillip and the Ethiopian eunuch, David and Jonathan).

• Is there someone who might share the same story with you?
• If so, how?

Todays Prayer

Daily Prayer — Gracious God, enable me to see the connecting relationship between my story and those of others as a witness to Your presence in my life.

     We often shy away from telling others about our relationship with God. It may be that we’re afraid that they won’t believe us. It may be that we’ll offend them with what we believe is true about God. Nevertheless, telling others our story is like sowing seeds of faith. We don’t know whether the seeds we plant will bring forth fruit. We don’t even know how we came to believe. What is true is that telling our story is one way to plant the seeds of faith in others. God will provide the increase.

· Have you ever shared your story of your relationship with God to anyone?

· How did they come to know and accept God because you shared your story?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer — Loving God, empower me, when the world around me is caving in, to rely on a faith that cannot be seen except through my trust in You.

    Jesus tells many stories about God through a form of storytelling called the parable.  His efforts were an attempt to get people to see the everyday reality of God all around them — to allow them to connect to the reality of God through their everyday lives.  Some people understood it.  Some people didn’t.  Perhaps because no one had endeavored to tell stories about God and their relationship with God in that way before.  Perhaps it was because they refused to see God in the context of everyday events and images.  And yet in all of these years, God hasn’t changed.  Nor has our way of communicating and connecting others to the realities of God.  Even in this twenty-first century context of experiencing the things about God, we endeavor to get people to see God and God’s truth through the telling of stories.  Yes, we use the bible story.  But the most powerful story we can tell is one in which we are the characters in the story we tell.  It’s our story of our relationship with God that’s most likely to attract others to God’s truth.

Todays Prayer

Gracious and eternal God, enable and empower me to tell my story of my relationship with You in such a way that others may see and understand You and Your Kingdom more clearly.

Judgment comes to us whether we want it or not.  Perhaps it has already come when we face and accept the truth about ourselves.  Truth has an ability to cast a light of revelation about who we really are and what we are really about.  Is there grace?  Absolutely, but grace without a look into the mirror of truth is a grace forced to cover a multitude of sins unrealized.  Allowing ourselves to look into the mirror of our own life is shows that God is responsible for any transformation.

Todays Prayer

Holy God, allow me to look without hesitation into the mirror of Your truth so that my life may witness to Your power to transform me through grace.

I would imagine that the greatest sadness we experience is the pain that comes our failure to please God, or to show God’s love to someone who needs it because we’ve misjudged them.  Perhaps the latter is the more painful because it usually means that we are now faced with the need to admit we were wrong.  And yet it is that truth — admitting that we were wrong that shows we were willing to stand in the mirror of our own failings and see a God of grace.

Todays Prayer

Loving Christ, help me to stand without fear in the mirror of Your truth so that I may receive grace when I fall short and offer grace to others like me.

Being judgmental has been the immovable stain on who we are as Christians and people in general.  It has led to us being labeled hypocrites, among other things.  The fact that the word of God forbids us to judge has not stopped us.  And yet, the truth is still there that for every finger we point at others, there are three of our own pointing back at us.  Perhaps a deeper look into the mirror of our own lives would invite us to seek the kind of spiritual transformation that the Holy Spirit desires to do in us.

Todays Prayer

Loving Christ, lead me away from the criticism of others and move me deeper into the transformational relationship of self-understanding found in You.

When we are in the position of having to view sin and crime, we understand sin or crime to be a very targeted assessment.  We see what others have done specifically and reason that we’ve never done anything as bad as the thing(s) they’ve done. We therefore judge that they must be guilty and we, more innocent than they.  Christ, however, sees sin and judgment, not by a particular sin, but by the violation of the much narrower spiritual code of love and forgiveness.  How the world would change if we saw others as God saw us in God’s mirror of grace.

Todays Prayer

Gracious and forgiving Christ, transform me so that I can only judge others if I, myself, can stand on my own record of righteousness.

There is something about looking in the mirror from time to time that is revealing.  If we’re honest with ourselves, we can see where we’ve changed.  We can also see where change has been slow.  We can see where we’ve grown.  We can also see where growth has been stunted.  Our inability to see clearly what needs to be changed is, in some ways, due to our lack of total self-understanding.  We don’t know why we do what we do?  Fortunately, God does.  And God will lead us into full transformation in God’s time and at God’s speed.

Todays Prayer

Loving God, empower me to see myself more clearly in Your mirror of truth so that I may come to a greater understanding of myself and others.

It’s not very often that we think of self-knowledge and understanding as critical to who we are.  It’s possible to get post graduate education in the world and never be compelled to examine who we really are.  But the discovery of who we are as children of God isn’t meant to be hidden.  It isn’t meant to be secret.  It would benefit the entire world if we could admit that we fall short of the glory of God.  If we don’t confess it, it will eventually become evident.

Todays Prayer

Gracious Christ, enable and encourage me to look into the mirror of Your truth and admit what soon becomes everyone’s reality — we all need Your grace.

What appears to be a disconnected model of philosophy for living actually translates into a meaningful model for the Christian life.  It is, perhaps, because when we seek God‘s wisdom, we are ourselves blind to what God is trying to reveal to us.  Or perhaps it’s because we, too, are prone to make errors in judgment without knowing another person’s story, hurting people and needing forgiveness when we meant no ill intent, or simply withholding a needed grace from someone because we’ve judged incorrectly.  If we could all see through the eyes of Christ, these human typos could be eliminated from the human landscape.  Life in the mirror is a unique invitation by God to enter into self-evaluation, but more importantly understanding of others.  We so easily see what’s wrong with others and know all too well how to fix them. However, fixing ourselves is a greater problem.  If we’d spend greater amounts of time trying to understand our weaknesses, we might have a deeper insight into another person’s weaknesses.  True change happens when we have a greater understanding of ourselves after looking at ourselves in the mirror.

Todays Prayer

Holy and gracious God, give me the courage to look in the mirror that reflects my life and see where change is needed.  Enable me to humbly submit to your transforming power so that I may be made anew in your image.

       Poor Job.  Not only is he now numbered among the least of these God’s children, but his friends are leveling the charge against him that he is suffering from some large form of wicked behavior.  He is accused of stealing and taking the clothes from the naked, making them thirst, and making the hungry go without bread.  And yet, his friends, while laying the charges at his door, seem to be doing nothing to alleviate Job’s suffering.  It’s as if they believe Job should not only pull himself up by his own bootstraps but should lend a hand to those in his same condition.

• Are there ways in which the allegations leveled against Job could be placed on our doorstep because of our negligence?
• Many people donate food to feed the hungry. Is it possible to build a personal relationship with those who are hungry by only donating food?
• What can we do to avoid facing our own reality of not feeding the hungry, giving water to the thirsty, or clothing the naked?

Todays Prayer

Today’s Prayer
Gracious Christ, help me to do more than keeping my hungry brothers at arm’s length by only donating food. Empower me to engage in a personal relationship with the hungry.