I am a Christian, a retired teacher, a mother and a grandmother. I love to read and I love the Lord Jesus Christ! Unless otherwise specified ,all visual illustrations are from the YOU VERSION APP of the Bible.
King Hezekiah was faced with an enemy who was not only powerful, but Sennacherib also knew how to use psychological warfare. He tried to convince the Israelites to surrender to him and all would be great in their lives. King Hezekiah wisely told the people to ignore Sennacherib and not to even reply to him. Then, he laid out the matter before God and trusted God’s sovereignty to protect them.
By acknowledging who God is and how powerful He is, Hezekiah opened the gates of Heaven for God to help him in his dire situation with the ungodly king of Assyria.
Here is a prayer that Nicky Gumbel wrote in the One Year Bible devotional this week. I am praying it for our nation and our world and hope that you will agree with me and pray this heartfelt prayer, also.
Lord, as we look around at the state of our city, our nation and our world, we need your deliverance. You alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You made heaven and earth. Give ear, O Lord, and hear; open your eyes, O Lord, and see. Pour out your Holy Spirit again. May we see people seeking your name again. May we see miracles of healing. May we see the evangelisation of our nation, the revitalisation of the church and the transformation of society, so that all kingdoms on earth may know that you alone, O Lord, are God.
Sometimes, my devotional leads me to a prayer, a time of crying out to God for myself and for others. Such was the case as I read and studied my Bible verses this morning. May this prayer be true in your life today and every day in which you face darkness. May the light that floods your soul give you the hope that you need and the confidence to realize that you are His children. One day we will inherit the kingdom that He has prepared for us. Until that day comes, may our hearts be totally consumed with the light of His love, mercy grace and hope.
There isn’t much in this life that is free. I get excited when I win a prize from an author that gives me a free book. But once I read that book the excitement is gone and I look forward to the next one, even if I have to pay for it. God’s grace is free all the time, ready and waiting for us to accept it. His unmerited favor is right there…like a gift that keeps on giving every day if we just reach out to God, stay connected to Him and accept His free gift.
We have nothing that we can do to save ourselves. God did all of the work on the cross through His Son Jesus. We just have to accept that gift and its magnificent benefits and then use that grace that we have to bless others.
The knowledge and understanding that we need is readily available to us these days though various sources. I have multiple copies of different versions of the Bible to read. I also have the YouVersion Bible App, technology that makes it possible to have all kinds of versions at my fingertips on my computer. The real knowledge and understanding come from a relationship with God. He loves us, we love Him and that love overflows to others. That is the foundation of our understanding God. He is love, pure love, poured out for us and on us so that we can pour out that love to a lost and dying world that needs to know Him and His grace.
I pray daily, throughout the day. Some days my prayer is a whisper, a hopeful murmuring to the Lord. Other days, my prayer is intense. Yesterday was a day of intense prayer as our grandson was traveling alone to D.C. to start his new internship there. But his trip was delayed due to car troubles, so he ended up having to travel at night. So, my husband and I prayed that God would work out things with the car and get him there safely. God came through for Isaac as he left about 6 p.m., arrived at 9 and missed a lot of the awful traffic on the beltway. Sigh of relief and praise of thanksgiving that he arrived safely in spite of all of the obstacles. Of course, prayers will continue for him and our other loved one in the days ahead. I must admit that sometimes I am ashamed of how little confidence I have that God will answer my prayers. I pray, wait for an answer and hope that it will come but I am not surprised when the answer is delayed or doesn’t take the form that I thought it would. There is a prayer in scripture that addressed that for me this morning.
Knowing that God is the source of hope helps me to trust in His sovereignty. My confidence is in His answering in His timing and in a way that is best for all concerned. Look at the powerful words in this verse: joy, peace, trust, overflow and confident hope. This is a verse that I need to personalize daily and pray over myself as I come before the Lord and present my thanksgiving and petitions. Today, I pray this prayer for each of my readers, with the confident hope that God will completely fill you with His joy and peace as you trust in Him.
“C” is for confession. There should never be a time when you have not willingly confessed your sins to the Lord. All of us are sinners saved by grace and we need to remember where we came from, what He brought us out of.
Finally, “S” is supplication. This is telling God what you need and most of us usually start and end and even have this part of prayer as our entire prayer. It is the last thing that we should be approaching the throne for. After adoration, confession and thanksgiving, then we tell God what our needs are, the ones that only He can meet.
I generally end my prayers with thanksgiving again, but the pattern above is one that is easy to remember and to follow. I am not saying that all should follow this pattern because I am not a legalistic. I am just suggesting that whatever you pray and however and whenever, you need to remember to include praise, confession and adoration along with your requests. God is your Father, not Santa Claus who brings all the goodies your heart desires. He is your Father who wants what is best for all of us. He may not answer our prayers right away, but His timing is always perfect.
By Wilferd A. Peterson (August 21, 1900 – June 2, 1995)
Slow me down, Lord! Ease the pounding of my heart By the quieting of my mind. Steady my harried pace With a vision of the eternal reach of time.
Give me, Amidst the confusions of my day, The calmness of the everlasting hills. Break the tensions of my nerves With the soothing music Of the singing streams That live in my memory.
Help me to know The magical power of sleep, Teach me the art Of taking minute vacations Of slowing down To look at a flower; To chat with an old friend Or make a new one; To pat a stray dog; To watch a spider build a web; To smile at a child; Or to read a few lines from a good book.
Remind me each day That the race is not always to the swift; That there is more to life Than increasing its speed.
Let me look upward Into the branches of the towering oak And know that it grew great and strong Because it grew slowly and well.
Slow me down, Lord, And inspire me to send my roots deep Into the soil of life’s enduring values That I may grow toward the stars Of my greater destiny.
I have a small plaque of this poem that my husband and children gave me about three decades ago. It hangs in my bathroom next to the sink, a place where I can see it each day if I choose to take the time to look at it. Lately, I have been seeing it a lot, first out of the corner of my eye, then taking it down and reading it carefully and finally, taking the time to read and think about what it is saying to me. This life that we live on earth goes fast. We are only here for a season and then we are gone, leaving footprints behind on the hearts of others. At least, that is our hope. I want to leave a footprint that says that I loved well and that I was well loved. I want to leave memories of activities together and laughter that we shared. I want to enjoy the moments, days, years that I have left on this earth making a difference in the lives of those whom I know best and love best. I can only do that if I slow down and take time to just be.
The world says to rush around and work hard each hour of each day so that you can make more money to buy more things. But Wisdom says to listen, to understand how quickly life passes and how important it is to take the time to be with God, to be with those you love. That is why we need to slow down, so that we can appreciate what we have and be grateful to the Father who gives us all things.
The Holy Bible is filled with prayers, of ordinary people talking to an extraordinary God. Probably the one prayer that is most well-known is the Lord’s Prayer, in which Jesus was asked to teach us to pray. It begins with praise, continues to petition and ends with praise. It is a model for us to follow as well as a prayer to say. I found another prayer today in my devotional and it spoke to my heart.
I hope that this simple prayer of declaring trust for God speaks to you, also. When I am discouraged or just not feeling as close to God as I should, this is a prayer I can come back to, again and again. My soul belongs to God and one day will return to His loving care. For now, it rests in my body and desires to commune with the One who breathed life into me to begin with. I am flawed but not forsaken. I trust God to bring me to the end of my journey, however long it may be, still serving and being taught by Him along the way.
May your day be blessed with fresh insight from the Lord and a walk with Him that instills you with peace, joy and love.
The Scriptures are filled with prayers for each of us. Most of us think of The Lord’s Prayer when we say that the Bible has prayer in it. I read the Bible daily and often find prayers that help me in my daily walk with Him.
This is a prayer to say daily because we should always want to stand right before the Lord. It’s hard to lead others to eternal life if we are faltering in our own walk with Him. God knows that we suffer from anxiety, and He also knows that He is able to keep us through whatever it is causing the anxious thoughts. We should strive not to be offensive, to God or to people so that the testimony we give to others stands out as truth and something others will desire.
Have a blessed day as you begin each day with prayer and a clear conscience before the Lord.
Vickie's Book Nook and Meditation Corner 