Our Father in Heaven, We praise you for making the sun and rain fall on more than 4 billions lives in Asia and Africa. Thank you for providing the ever increasing resources for them to make families and flourish. Lord, we now seek your grace and mercy for these people to be saved. We pray that your Holy Spirit will move in this vast landscape and stir the hearts of men and women to reach out to the unsaved. May your divine grace bring them the knowledge of saving grace, and make them … [Read more...]
Of Gardens, Fields, and Good Friday
Carolyn Adams Roth reflects here on what likely was the plant from which the Roman soldiers plaited the crown of thorns for Jesus. Reading that got me thinking. On this Good Friday—marking the most horrific sin in all history, the murder of God—it is good to reflect on thorns and what they teach us. The Bible’s first mention of them comes in God’s proclamation of judgment on Adam in Genesis 3:17–18: “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I … [Read more...]
We Pray that God Would Pour Down His Guidance and Wisdom
Our Father in heaven: What a blessed privilege it is to come before You in prayer. What joy it brings to us to know the assurance of Your presence with us, Your benevolence toward us, and Your lovingkindness that is ours forever because of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Our hearts are bowed and our minds are submitted to You in every way. In humility we seek Your guidance. We must have Your wisdom. We long for discernment born to us and in us by the Holy Spirit. Father, please do Your … [Read more...]
Thank You for the Gift of Jesus Christ
"God who made all things, the earth, the air, the sky; Who gave the light its birth, cares for me..." * But gladly I can thank and praise You O God, for making many like me to share all that you have created. I rejoice with my brothers and sisters. Life is not always pleasant because the first people made a mess of their lives by disobeying You! Thank you for so kindly sending the Lord Jesus Christ to deliver us from the penalty due to all of us for our rebellion. Now "when life's clouds … [Read more...]
We Pray for Holy, Loving, Godly Dominion
Our Father in heaven, we confess that as children of Adam we have sinned, both in him our covenant head and by our own immediate actions. You created us to be Your covenant representatives, to subdue and rule the earth for Your glory and our neighbors’ benefit by transforming wilderness into garden that we are then to cultivate and guard. But we chose to seek our own glory instead, and soon every imagination of our hearts was only evil continually, and so in Your justice You judged us and the … [Read more...]
