“Give us deep trust in your faithfulness. . . . Give us obedient hearts that we may live out the teachings of your word. . . . Fill us with the grace of the Lord Jesus, in whose name I pray. Amen.”
This succinct little prayer derives from a devotional I receive in each morning’s mail. It in turn stems from a present ongoing study in 2nd Thessalonians 3.
The three sentences above distill down the salient points that resonate within my own heart and spirit this morning. Current events, early morning news reports, and an understanding that we have a country – okay, a world in crisis cause these three thoughts to jump out at me.
Everything in your life stems from choices.
Yours. Mine.
“Have a nice day, now!” As if you can confer that on me? Don’t think so. I’ll have the day I intend to have; the day I’m purposeful in making. I don’t have nice days. I make ’em. Therefore, I figure a great place to begin making a good day is to be reminded that God’s ultimately faithful.
Everything in your life stems from choices.
God. Is. Faithful. Period. That’s not at issue. It’s my belief about and my trust in His faithfulness. Therefore, I choose today to have a deep trust in Who, what, when and how God will be working in, around and through my life today. Hence, “Give me, Lord, a deep trust of Your faithfulness.”
Having established God’s exhaustless, limitless faithfulness, then, the only real question is about mine. I know any parent responds to obedience. God, self-identified as my Heavenly Father, is perfectly responsive to my being obedient to all I know of His wishes and direction for me, outlined in the Bible. It makes sense, then, for me to work, play, rest, and interact with others in a manner consistent with a habit of obeying Him. This, to me, is the essence of being a Biblical Christian: doing my best in each moment to live as authentically as I’m able according to what God’s Word, the Bible, has to say.
So–if those two things are nailed down for me today, then I have every expectation that God will lavish His grace in, on and through me as I look for ways to invest His influence through me in others – the same grace that rested on Christ himself when here.
Between you and me, I can use all God’s gracious assistance I can get. And I do joyfully receive it in Jesus’s strong name.
I love you, and I believe in you.
Dan
© D. Dean Boone, August 2015