If you sin,
don’t wallow in discouragement.
Confess your failures to God,
and confidently ask for His grace.
Then put your sins behind you
and never go back to them.
Rest in His complete forgiveness,
and return to your ordinary business of loving and worshiping Him.
Hymn: Father, I’ve Failed You
The best way to serve God and fellowship with Him
is through ordinary occupations.
Lift each daily task as an offering to Him.
Before you begin, ask for His help.
As you work, consecrate the task to Him
and speak simple words of love and praise.
When you finish, thank Him for His faithfulness.
To sanctify your days to God,
simply do for Him what you would ordinarily do for yourself.
Hymn: Holy in You
We grasp so much for material goods
though they give us little satisfaction.
Yet we are satisfied with so little of God.
He has endless treasures to give,
and we are content with only passing moments of inner joy.
Give yourself entirely to God.
Make pleasing Him your only concern.
Whatever you do throughout your day,
do it for Him.
Turn away from everything that doesn’t lead to Him.
You were made for God alone.
Find your happiness in loving Him.
I cannot control the
evil and
injustice
that flood my world.
I cannot erase all the problems,
big and
small,
that pressure my days.
My heart is weighed down by my
weakness and
uncertainty.
But I look to You:
almighty,
all-wise,
all-loving God,
pure,
unchanging,
high and lifted up,
always right, and
always,
always
good.
Father,
You are my joy.
You are my rock-solid stability.
I look to You, and
Smile.
Hymn: My Father, My Joy
Father, I spend much of my prayer time
talking to You about
my concerns,
big and small.
And that’s good!
You welcome me, and
You encourage me to bring my concerns.
But I also know that You are the One who put me
here and now,
in this time and place.
I am here to
concern myself with
Your concerns.
Father, awaken me and
keep me alert,
to the dear people and
eternal matters
that surround me every day.
Eternal matters
regularly masquerade as
daily matters and
small things.
People are Your concern.
People are to be my concern.
Teach me, Father.
Guide me by Your Spirit.
Help me to fill my
here and
now
with
Your love for the
individuals around me every day.
Hymn: Prayer of Intercession
Father, in Your great heart
You long for us to know You
entirely and completely,
all we are
knowing
all You are.
You created this entire universe,
immense and majestic,
not only to show us Yourself,
but to engulf us in
Your power,
Your wisdom,
Your love, and
the vastness of Your mystery.
Yet even as we are immersed in all this, we see only
the fringes of Your robe.
We hear only
a faint whisper of You. (Job 26:14)
To show Yourself completely,
You gave us Your own Son.
You incarnated Him as
the most helpless and humble of all human beings:
the newborn infant of
an unmarried peasant girl
from a small, oppressed people
in one corner of the world.
Here is the transcendent, undiminished God!
Here is the full radiance of Your glory!
Here is the exact representation of Your very nature! (Hebrews 1:3)
Here is the fullness of Your Deity in bodily form, and
You have made us
full and complete
in Him. (Colossians 2:9-10)
As we look to Him,
we are being changed into His likeness. (2 Corinthians 3:18)
But we do yet see Him for all He is. (1 John 3:2)
With all His many magnificent names,
He has a name, an identity,
that no one knows but Him. (Revelation 19:12)
But we know this:
when He appears,
we will be like Him,
because we will see Him just as He is. (1 John 3:2, NASB)
We will know Him fully,
we will know You, Father,
even as we are fully known. (1 Corinthians 13:12)
Your deep longing for us
will be fulfilled
every moment,
forever,
entirely and completely,
all we are
knowing
all You are.
We will be immersed in You,
one with You,
saturated with
Your presence,
Your holiness,
Your love,
Your life, in all its depth and richness.
Father, finish what You have begun.
We long for You!
We are waiting at the door.
Whatever awaits me the moment after I die,
Father, I want
my first thought,
my first desire,
my first awareness to be
You.
Hymn: Knowing God
God has ascended amid shouts of joy,
the Lord amid the sounding of trumpets.
Sing praise to God, sing praises…
For God is the king of all the earth…The kingdom of the world has become
the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ,
and he will reign for ever and ever.
(Psalm 47:5-7; Revelation 11:15; NIV)
My heart longs for our God,
for our Father,
for Jesus Christ our Savior,
for the constant breath of their Spirit,
for complete oneness with them
and in them
that we taste only briefly here.
I long for Almighty God to be enthroned over
every thought,
every desire,
every relationship,
every life,
over all reality
every moment
forever.
Your Kingdom come!
Almighty God
will soon take up and exercise
the power that has always been His.
All the kingdoms of the world
will become His Kingdom, and
He will reign forever.
He will rightly judge every individual and
establish justice and peace
throughout all His creation.
Hymn: Enthronement Hymn
The creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth until now. (Romans 8:20-22, NASB)
For all the elegant beauty of this natural earth, it is also a violent, tumultuous place where life is always in the grip of death. How can this be, if God rules all creation? How can a good God claim to be sovereign in a world such as this?
Genesis 1:26-28 proclaims two truths about God’s creation of the human race:
We are inseparably connected to God our Creator, and we are inseparably connected to this earth, over which we rule. God subjected the earth to us.
When we rebelled against our Creator, we chose to use creation for our own selfish purposes (Genesis 3:1-6). When our relationship with the Creator was corrupted, so was the earth over which we ruled, now as unfaithful stewards (Romans 8:20). As our home and our responsibility, the earth shared in our fractured relationship with the Giver of all life (Genesis 3:17-18; see Psalm 104:27-30). The results were corruption, futility, and death, both for us and for our beautiful home.
Consistently in scripture, our obedience or disobedience to our Creator brings us either God’s blessing or His cursing, respectively. This blessing and cursing are shared by our natural home as well (e.g., Deuteronomy 7:12-15; 8:6-10; 28:4, 18). As Creator God subjected this earth to us, this earth unwillingly shares in the fruit of our rebellion.
We see the turmoil in our natural world and know that as violence, pain, and death shrouds all human life, it shrouds our natural home as well.
But the good news is this: the corruption, futility, and death that rule this earth are only a passing phase. Creation’s present turbulence is only the pain of childbirth (Romans 8:19-22). When we are redeemed and freed from our suffering, our earthly home will be as well (Isaiah 11:6-9; Revelation 21:1). Our destiny, God’s unchangeable promise, is that we and our beautiful home will be perfected to the full glory of God. As it has shared our curse, it will share our blessedness. All the earth will be permeated with His life, His love, His holiness, and His perfect peace.
Right now creation groans with us
under the weight of our sin.
But soon it will share
our glorification,
our freedom from all corruption, and
our full restoration to
God’s blessing and purpose.
Imagine such a world!
Jesus said to His disciples:
“Who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.” (Matthew 16:15-16, NASB)
The Apostle Paul wrote:
You are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit. (Ephesians 2:19-22, NASB)
If you had all eternity and all the resources of the universe,
what kind of home would you build for yourself?
God is building a home for himself.
That home is His people.
Our infinite, holy, all-wise, and endlessly creative God
is planning to live forever
with and in His people.
Imagine knowing such a people,
the home of an infinite God!
Imagine actually being part of them!
If God is investing all His energies in building a people,
that’s how I want to invest my life as well.
A material home will last a short time.
God’s people will last forever.
We believers are all together
in the same room,
waiting for God to finish the deliverance
He has so beautifully begun.
As we endure these final hours of
pain, darkness, grief, and death,
let’s encourage one another to the
hope and joy that are ours.
Let’s share songs, stories, and
acts of kindness that
remind us of God’s unfailing love.
Hymn: Revelation 21
How lovely are Your dwelling places,
O Lord of hosts!
My soul longed and even yearned for the courts of the Lord;
My heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God.
(Psalm 84:1-2, NASB)
For me, heaven is not a mansion,
a harp, or
angels’ wings.
It is not meeting old friends or
an endless family reunion.
That is not what my heart longs for.
My heart longs for You,
my Father,
my Creator.
My heart longs for my Savior,
my Brother,
my Wisdom and Holiness,
My heart longs for the Second Adam of all I will be.
My heart longs for the Breath of God,
the Wind of God,
the Life of God
blowing fully, freely, and unceasingly through all I am.
I long for
a heart,
a mind,
a world
permeated completely and forever
with God alone.
Come, Lord Jesus!
I long, and
I wait.
Father, I embrace the brevity of
my life in this world, and
I long to be where
my oneness with You is complete,
constant, and forever.
Hymn: O Living God
