A Prayer about Doing Justice

by | Feb 11, 2021 | Daily Prayer, Gospel living

A Prayer about Doing Justice

Heavenly Father,

I will never forget the time the Reverend John M. Perkins spoke in our high school chapel,

the stories he told, his book we read, “Let Justice Roll Down.” 

He challenged us as he challenged himself to search our hearts 

to see if we truly understood what was good. 

Today I am rereading his book, 

his call to deep repentance and forgiveness, 

his own example of deep repentance and forgiveness 

of the people who brutalized him. His words call me to pray:

Lord, you have shown us what is good. 

[Name some of the things Jesus has shown you about what is good.]

Lord, what do you require of me?

[Spend some time in silence, listening to the Lord speak to you.]

You call me to do justice. 

How do you want me to do justice?

[Spend some time in silence, listening to the Lord speak to you about doing justice].

You call me to love mercy. 

What does it look like for me to love mercy?

[Spend some time in silence, listening to the Lord speak to you about loving mercy].

You call me to walk humbly with my God. 

What does it look like for me to walk humbly with you?

[Spend some time in silence, listening to the Lord speak to you about walking humbly with your God].

May we, in the power of the Spirit, truly do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with you.

In Jesus’ justice-fulfilling name. Amen.

Read Micah 6:8; Amos 5:24, 5:15.

A Prayer about Holy Sexuality in a Sexually Insane World

by | Feb 9, 2021 | Gospel living, Prayer, Weekly Gospel Meditation

A Prayer about Holy Sexuality in a Sexually Insane World

This week, the week of Valentine’s, seems like a good time to pray about sexuality in a sexually insane world. Please join me in this prayer of confession and hope, and please share this prayer with others. 

“This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one. Now the man and his wife were both naked, but they felt no shame.” Gen. 2:24-25, NLT

“Let there be no sexual immorality, impurity, or greed among you. Such sins have no place among God’s people. Obscene stories, foolish talk, and coarse jokes—these are not for you. Instead, let there be thankfulness to God.” Eph. 5:3-4

Most merciful, Creator God, we come to you, weighed down by the sexual insanity of this world, deeply broken over our own deceitful lust and greed, and profoundly thankful for your everlasting mercy.

We praise you for your creation of holy and exuberant sexuality.

We praise you for your exquisite design of sexual love expressed in the context of marriage—two sinner-saints joined together in lifelong covenant. You knew that there would be inexpressible joy coupled with heart-shattering grief. You knew the man would fail the woman in silence. You knew the woman would try to take life into her own hands. You created and redeemed sexual love in marriage for your glory.

Lord, we confess that not one of us is free of sexual immorality. Some of us let our eyes linger long on someone else’s spouse; others darken our minds with words and images that have nothing to do with your holy sexuality. We consume others, not caring how our lust may wound them or grieve you.

Lord, we also confess that we have failed to protect our young.

We don’t know what to do with a culture of adolescents that sext and hook up in school hallways, so we give reprimands but refuse to enter hard conversations.

Rather than recognize and respond to the horrifying news of young children being sexually trafficked, we change the channel to something more soothing.

We tell women and men who have suffered sexual abuse that what happened wasn’t really a big deal or that the other person didn’t really mean it.

In the midst of all of this sexual insanity, Lord, we bow before you, marveling at your mercy and forgiveness.

The apostle Paul had it right when he offered thanksgiving as the holy alternative to sexual immorality.

We thank you…

for creating holy sex.

We thank you…

for your healing love that meets us in the midst 

of our sexual brokenness.

We thank you…

for your compassion and mercy for the abused, the oppressed, and the addicted.

We thank you…

for never shaming or humiliating us, 

but inviting us to flourish in the healing mercy of our faithful and ever-loving Savior, Jesus Christ.

In his precious and holy name we pray. Amen.

A Prayer about Seeking Peace and Pursuing It

by | Jan 28, 2021 | Daily Prayer, Gospel living

A Prayer about Seeking Peace and Pursuing It

Peacemaking God,

Make us, like David, people who seek peace with our enemies. 

We desperately need your intervention to live out these words,

“Keep [our] tongues from evil

And [our] lips from speaking deceit” (Psalm 34:13).

“If possible, so far as it depends on [us], 

[may we] live peaceably with all” (Romans 12:18).

Help us to remember that your eyes are 

“toward the righteous and [your] ears toward their cry” (Psalm 34:15).

The fact is, we’re really no good at revenge, 

but the day will come when you will 

“cut off the memory of [those who do evil] from the earth” (Psalm 34:16).

Help us then, to follow our Lord Jesus, who leads us 

to “turn away from evil and do good, 

to seek peace and pursue it” (Psalm 34:14).

In Jesus’ peace-bringing name. Amen. 

Read Psalm 34:10-22.

A Prayer about the Creator and Ruler

by | Jan 9, 2021 | Daily Prayer, Gospel living

A Prayer about the Creator and Ruler

God, our King,

Forgive us. 

We bow down before earthly rulers, 

scrolling through feeds to discover their pronouncements, 

feeding off their power, 

obeying or giving lip-service to the decrees 

of a fallen man or woman. 

You merely spoke, words like, “Let there be light,” and light appeared. 

Again and again, through Genesis 1, 

“And God said,”

“And it was so….”

How could we doubt your power, your might, 

your right to rule over us?

How could we doubt your capacity to rule all of creation, 

since you spoke all of creation into existence?

Forgive us, Lord, and draw us to bow down before you 

as our Creator and King, the only One who has the right to demand our service.

In the name of the King who died that we might live we pray. Amen. 

Read Psalm 33.

How Cynicism Kills Gratitude

by | Nov 17, 2020 | Devotional, Gospel living, Thanksgiving

How Cynicism Kills Gratitude

“For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.” Romans 1:21, ESV

She is astute and assertive; nothing gets by her. She sneers at her sister’s naiveté; smugly congratulating herself on not being easily fooled by such childish notions of God and heaven. She will shed no tear over her own suffering—after all, what more would one expect from this miserable, pitiful life? She has no awe, because nothing is really awesome. Life is hard, and then you die.

Who is she? She is the Modern-Cynic. Independent and strong, intelligent and competent, she doesn’t need God or others to help her out in this life. She thinks she knows foolishness, but Scripture says that she herself is a fool. According to Romans 1:19-23, the evidence of God’s goodness, holiness, love, power, and majesty is inscribed everywhere in the cosmos. But the cynical heart refuses to see it. Cynicism is the murderer of gratitude because it has lost its awe in God.

The cynicism of our own hearts may not be so overt as Ms. Modern-Cynic’s. We must seek it out as it sneaks about in the crevices of our sin nature, subtle as it may be. Consider Simon the Pharisee of Luke 7:37-50, whose cynicism about Jesus left him with little love and gratitude.

Do you have a murderer of gratitude lurking in your story? #gratitude #story

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Simon is certain—certain that Jesus cannot be a “prophet” because he doesn’t even know that the wild woman weeping all over his feet is “a sinner” (my emphasis) (Luke 7:39). In the ultimate irony, Simon does not know, cannot know, that Jesus is reading his mind (Luke 7:40)! Self-reliant Simon sneers at the needy woman, silently mocking her effusive show of gratitude. Jesus tells Simon a little story to invite him to see his own sin and thank God for forgiveness. When Jesus concludes, “he who is forgiven little, loves little” (Luke 7:41-46), I always long for the truth to dawn on Simon, for his eyes to grow wide with awe as he recognizes Jesus’ compassion in his warning. I want him to fall on his knees before Jesus right next to the weeping sinful woman. Sadly, that is not how the story ends. Simon’s “foolish heart is darkened” (Romans 1:21).  His cynicism has killed his gratitude.

What about you? Can you sniff out scents of cynicism in your own story?

  • Perhaps you’ve prayed a seemingly unanswered prayer for a spouse, a child, a friend, for years? You’ve begun to doubt that God even cares; you’ve begun to feel certain that God won’t intervene in this impossible situation.
  • Or, maybe you’ve succumbed to the whatever response to life in a fallen world? It just hurts too much to feel the ache of creation’s groaning, so you shut your eyes to the joy and beauty of God’s redemptive handwriting in the universe?
  • Maybe you’ve learned your role as a strong and independent being so well that you’ve forgotten what it’s like to be as desperate as the sinful woman who loved much because she was forgiven much.

Dear friends, let us draw near the cross to remember the black day that Jesus stamped out all cause for cynicism once and for all, as he hung there dying. Let us draw near the empty tomb and join the first disciples in resurrection joy, falling on our knees in gratitude for our Savior.

A Prayer about Cynicism

Our Dear Lord, Creator of the Heavens and the Earth,

By your power, you have given us everything we need to believe in something beyond the here and now. Thank you for the wonders you have worked—in the stars and in our stories. Forgive us for closing our eyes to your goodness, for thinking we know more than you about glory and goodness. Slay in us that murderer of gratitude, our subtle and sometimes overt, cynicism. In Jesus’ in-credible name we ask, Amen.

Photo by Chris Barbalis on Unsplash

What to Do When the News Is Overwhelming

by | Oct 6, 2020 | Devotional, Gospel living, Suffering

What to Do When the News Is Overwhelming

Dear Friends, 

I don’t know about you, but I can be sucked into the media scrolls and screens. In this season, perhaps more than ever, we need to remember where to set our minds. Enjoy this excerpt from From Recovery to Restoration: 60 Meditations for Finding Peace & Hope in Crisis today. 

Set Your Minds on Things Above

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.  Colossians 3:1, ESV

We scroll through our social media feeds, searching Twitter, Facebook, Instagram—for what?  We glue our eyes to the news at any and every hour of the day, filling our minds with words and words and words from people we don’t know and barely trust. Pandemic panic has set in, and our world is seeking hope and help, but the apostle Paul suggests we may be looking in the wrong places. 

Paul reminds us that we have been raised with Christ; that reality changes everything about where we should look for hope and help. He tells us to “seek the things above, where Christ is…” (Colossians 3:1). To seek the things above is to seek the one who first sought us—Jesus. To seek the things above is to look first for the things that Jesus cares most about, his kingdom and his righteousness. As we seek the things above, we find provision for all of our needs, and our anxiety subsides (Matthew 6:25-34).

Not only must we seek the things above, we must “set [our] minds on the things that are above, not on things that are on earth” (Colossians 3:2). We must “set our minds,” or “fix our minds.” To fix our minds is to have the intense concentration of a world-champion chess player, to have the laser focus of a brain surgeon. For Christians, it means that instead of fixating on non-stop news, we instead fill our minds with the things of Christ, his rule and his reign, his glory and his grace.

Setting our minds on things above does not mean that we ignore the things of this earth. It simply means that we begin by seeking Christ in Scripture, in prayer, and in fellowship with other believers. As we set our compass on Christ, we remain on course to live as he has called us to live on this earth. During crisis, moms and medical people, delivery workers and truck drivers will focus their minds and energy on the earthly tasks that need to be accomplished to care for those they serve. But they will do so while praying, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10).

Finally, setting our minds on the things above will help us remember that the day of restoration is coming. When our lives are centered on Christ, we are always scanning the horizon, watching for his return, waiting for the day when we will live with him in the new heavens and the new earth. In that day, in that place, we will “appear with him in glory” (Colossians 3:4), living and loving forever in his perfect peace.

Prayer

Lord Christ,

Draw our eyes away from our screens and toward your glorious presence on the throne next to our heavenly Father. Help us to set our minds on you and seek to live out your love on this earth. In your glorious name. Amen.

Further Encouragement

Read Colossians 3:1-3; Matthew 6:25-34.

Listen to “Turn Your Eyes upon Jesus” by Lauren Daigle.

For Reflection

Do you find yourself filling your mind with things of this earth during crisis? Make a list of three ways you could set your mind on things above and schedule times on your calendar to do them.

Learn More about True Freedom

Advance Review for From Recovery to Restoration

"Whether it be in the midst of physical pain, addiction, abandonment, abuse, or habitual sin, Elizabeth will redirect your gaze over and over through scripture to meditate not on the gaping hole of your loss, but on the relentless pursuit of Jesus's love."

Hope Blanton and Christine Gordon, Authors, At His Feet Studies

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