FATHER, challenge ____ to grow up spiritually—more and more discovering the height, length, breath, and depth of CHRIST (Eph 3:18). Provide for (him/her) that (he/she) may know the love of CHRIST and then desire to be filled with all fullness of You (Eph 3:19).
Lead ____ to not satisfy (himself/herself) by gaining more and more knowledge of CHRIST but instead, find the true joy of knowing CHRIST. Extend to (him/her) faith to meet CHRIST, not simply know of Him through study (Eph 3:17).
Lead (his/her) not into temptation to follow laws, instead furnish for (him/her) the desire to interact with CHRIST. Strengthen (him/her) with power through the SPIRIT in (his/her) inner being (Eph 3:16). Teach (him/her) to leave off with the activities (he/she) can do without CHRIST’s presence and go on to activities that need CHRIST’s power to perform. Enlarge the meaning to live from faith to faith for ____ (Rom 1:17).
FATHER, because of Your Word ____ knows of Your promises. And, because of Your SPIRIT, (he/she) will have (his/her) belief strengthened as (he/she) experiences this frowning providence.
I thank You for Your Bible. Your words have supernatural influence, motivating and guiding ____. They correct thoughts and are able to change unbelief to belief (2 Tim 3:16). Lead (him/her) to Your Scriptures that will strengthen (his/her) belief.
You GOD, in Your steadfast love will meet (him/her) (Ps 59:10). You are faithful and will never let ____ be tempted beyond (his/her) ability to endure but, with the trial, You’ll provide a way so that (he/she) can endure it (1 Cor 10:13). You will make sure (he/she) can triumph over every enemy (Ps 59:10).
LORD, turn the darkness before (him/her) into light, making the rough places into level ground. Give (him/her) the understanding that You guide (him/her) and will never forsake (him/her) (Isa 42:16)—that You have plans for (him/her), plans for wholeness and not for evil, to give (him/her) a future and a hope (Jer 29:11).
Cause (him/her), FATHER, to tremble at Your Word, not tremble in fear at this calamity. Before You LORD, may (he/she) humble (himself/herself); O LORD, see (his/her) broken and wounded spirit. When (he/she) is ground to pieces, melted down to nothing before You, then look please, at
(him/her) and regard (his/her) lowly state (Isa 66:2). Come to (his/her) rescue.
Give ____ rest now in Your perfect peace. You alone, O LORD, will make (him/her) to dwell in safety. Tonight, may (he/she) lie down and sleep knowing You will care for (him/her) (Ps 4:8).
FATHER, how good the word “rest” sounds. And, there is a rest for me. This state of blessedness manifests itself as I embrace the Gospel.
Since I believe CHRIST JESUS has given what You require from me, I enter into rest (ref#15, [Heb 4:10]). My experience of rest is ceasing from my own works of righteousness, and from the burdensome works of the law just as You and Your Son ceased from Your “works of creation and redemption” (ref#18, [Heb 4:10]).
Since CHRIST impresses You; I don’t have to impress You. Resting in CHRIST is a state of happiness. My salvation does not depend on my continuing work of being righteous!
But FATHER, keep me abreast of situations that threaten my rest. Situations continually rise to steal what You freely give me through CHRIST. Happiness disappears when I lose fellowship with You and default back to trying in my own strength to be righteous.
Impress upon me that if I don’t rehearse the Gospel I will fall back into burdensome works and be void of rest. FATHER, I know preaching the gospel to myself each day will equip me with more boldness to believe what You say. I’ll recognize and benefit more from Your grace and be more willing to embrace Your commands (ref#60, p52). By reveling in CHRIST I retain our fellowship and find my rest! As I rehearse the Gospel, “give me that rest without rest, the rest of ceaseless praise” (ref#76, p172).
FATHER, the discovery of my sin is a part of the wisdom that is hid in CHRIST and made known to me through the SPIRIT (Col 2:2,3). If I am not attentive to the SPIRIT I only have a sense and knowledge of sin that is revealed by my conscience; it is the general knowledge of good and evil. But, it’s obscure so I notice my own faults only if they are very obvious or I sin in such a way that they are particularly embarrassing to me (ref#35, p200).
Familiarizing myself with the laws set down in the Old Testament helps me recognize more of my corruptions. But even laws do nothing to make me see my deep personal sin (ref#35, p202).
The work of conviction, from Your SPIRIT, gives me the best knowledge of sin. This knowledge is so useful that it reveals sins that I, on my own, do not have the ability to detect; these sins must be made real to me by Your SPIRIT—a source not connected with my native nature (ref#35, p202).
I thank You FATHER, for Your SPIRIT’s conviction. I am not offended when I recognize His voice, instead, I’m humbled. He has the ability to convince me of sin in such a way that I’m unable to deny His words and am ready to repent. I thank You, FATHER, that Your SPIRIT not only is able to point out my sins but has the ability to accomplish in me the sorrow for sin which leads me to the obedience You require. So, search me, O GOD, and see if there is any grievous way in me and then lead me in the right way (Ps 139:23-24).
“I rejoice to think that all things are at Thy disposal, and I love to leave them there. Then prayer turns wholly into praise, and all I can do is to adore and love thee” (ref#76, p49).
Salvation
You, GREAT FATHER, have given me faith to know of Your existence (Heb 11:6). You have formed me from the dust and breathed living life into me (Gen 2:7).
Your standards are most glorious but I fall short of them (Rom 3:23). Therefore, You destine me to die; And I face Your certain wrath (Heb 9:27).
But, by Your free gift of grace I am delivered from Your judgment. You make me a partaker of CHRIST’s salvation through my faith and not through my striving (Eph 2:8).
You make my death temporal not letting me continue under its power. You give me a resurrection to life eternal (John 11:26).
CHRIST is the way, the truth, and the life. I come to You, GOD, through CHRIST (John 14:6). He bore my sins so I might die to them. Through CHRIST I can live rightly (1 Pet 2:24).
Through CHRIST, through CHIRST, I turn to praise. I adore and love Thee— through CHRIST, through CHRIST.
Your steadfast love, O LORD, extends to the heavens, Your faithfulness to the clouds (Ps 36:5). It is “so high that it does not change with the weather…” (ref#18, [Ps 36:5-12]). Your mercy is so exalted it is more extensive than I can conceive—above all visible space—to the eternal regions (ref#15, [Ps 36:5]). Your mercy and loving-kindness is infinite, Your loyalty astronomic.
Constant and unfailing is Your love. Indeed, Your faithfulness binds You to fulfill the promises and covenants made by Your mercy and love.
Your righteousness is like the mountains; Your judgments are like the great deep (Ps 36:6). Your justice, O GOD, is as fixed as the everlasting hills—sure and immovable. Your judicial dealings are immeasurable and vast—beyond comprehension as the ocean (ref#16, [Ps 36:6]). You are “a God of unsearchable wisdom and design” (ref#18, [Ps 36:5-12]).
With You is the fountain of life (Ps 36:9). You give life-giving streams of providential goodness—that living water (ref#15, [Ps 36:9]). It includes “the fullness of happiness” because no foes can take away life and blessedness that comes from You, FATHER, the “Fountain” (ref#17, [Ps 36:9]).
So, let not the foot of arrogance come upon me, nor the hand of the wicked drive me away (Ps 36:11). Reveal to me the preciousness of Your mercy; teach me to value it beyond all treasures; I want to know how to prize it (ref#68, [Ps 36:5-9]). Forever bless me with Your steadfast love O LORD, my righteousness.
“It is not enough to remember [who God is and what His promises are]; we must hear it again. Prayer is the act in which we hear it again. It is not enough to carry memory verses around with us; we need daily encounter with the resonant voice of God. Prayer is that encounter. Situations change. Does God change? We pray. We listen. God speaks his word again—the same word!—and we are restored and renewed in our commitment….Resolve is essential but not enough. In prayer God provides renewal. Prayer is not so much the place where we learn something new, but where God confirms anew the faith to which we are committed” (ref#144, loc 1298-1311).
Reasons for Waiting for GOD:
Because You plant eternity in my heart—a sense of purpose which nothing under the sun but You can satisfy (Eccl 3:11), I will wait for You. Because my blood is costly in CHRIST’s sight and because He has pity on me (Ps 72:13- 14), I will wait for You.
Because You confirm and make me steadfast and established and endue me with the gifts of the HOLY SPIRIT (2 Cor 1:21), I will wait for You. Because Your lovingkindness is better than life (Ps 63:3), I will wait for You.
“Christmas is the annual Christian festival celebrating Christ’s birth, held on December 25 in the Western Church. The traditional date goes back as far as A.D. 273.”1
When we celebrate Christmas, we are celebrating the moment in history when prophecy was fulfilled. God came to be with us. It was the beginning of God’s redemptive plan for humanity. An act He didn’t have to take part in but He chose to out of love.2
The central truth of the Christmas story is this: the Child of Christmas is God; Christmas is not about the Savior’s infancy; it is about His deity. The humble birth of Jesus Christ was never intended to conceal the reality that God was being born into the world. Without forsaking His divine nature or diminishing His deity, He was born into our world as a tiny infant. He was fully human, with all the needs and emotions that are common to us all. Yet He was also fully God—all wise and all powerful.3
It was only in the Babe of Bethlehem that the whole of God’s character shone forth, that men might not merely find Him and bow before Him, but trust in Him and love Him, as one who could be touched with the feeling of their infirmities. A God in need! A God weak! A God fed by mortal woman! A God wrapped in swaddling clothes, and laid in a manger! God has been through the pains of infancy from the nature of the babe on its mother’s bosom, to the nature of the full-grown and full-souled man, fighting with all his powers against the evil of the world. All this is His, and He is all; that no human being, from the strongest to the weakest, from the oldest to the youngest, but may be able to say, “What I am, Christ has been!4
Christmas is not about pretending that everything is great and we don’t struggle or suffer. Christmas is about acknowledging that sometimes things are not great and we do struggle and suffer, even at Christmas—and that God knows this, God hears us, and God has got involved for us. You live in a world that has been visited by its Maker. God showed up. God didn’t send Moses. God came himself. That’s how committed he is to your good.5
[W]e are all poor and desperate, so we all need the promise bound up in that baby. We are in need of a way out of our poverty of soul and the desperate state of our human condition. We find it in this child lying in a manger, who was and is Jesus Christ, the long-promised Messiah, Seed, Redeemer, and King.6
“For all the promises of God find their Yes in him” (2 Cor 1:20 ESV).
11. Isaac Watts, The Psalms and Hymns of Isaac Watts (Morgan, PA: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 1997) 497.
12. “The Spirit of the LORD GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound” (Isaiah 61:1 ESV);
Love is the greatest of all the virtues on the Advent wreath and encompasses Jesus’ entire purpose for being on earth. Christ connects all the Advent candles. Through him, we can have hope, peace, joy, and love.1
“It was a holy night. God’s glory came to earth and wrote a love letter to the world in the form of a newborn baby.”2 “God made His love visible.”3
And certainly the greatest truth about Christmas is that God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son. Christmas is really the effect of which God’s love is the cause. God’s love for mankind then is evident in the offer of the gospel to all people. And the path to the gospel has been given to everybody.4
This was the most loving act ever performed in history, for there has never been and can never be a gift greater than the life of the Son of God given for the “sins of the whole world.” Without God’s Spirit indwelling them, people cannot look to the love they have for others or even the “love” they have for God as an example to be emulated for we are born self-centered and remain so unless the Holy Spirit changes our hearts.5
“In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son” (1 John 4:10 ESV).
Christian love comes from God Himself. This love is not natural to fallen humanity. It originates in God and is a divine gift to His people. When we are transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit, we are given a capacity for this supernatural love that has God as its source and foundation. [N]ot every human being who loves another is born of God. The kind of love of which he speaks comes only from regeneration. Without the Holy Spirit’s transformation of the human heart, no one has this capacity for love. No unregenerate person has this kind of love, and no regenerate person lacks such love. Therefore, a person who does not have the ability to love in the way John describes has not been born again. “Anyone who does not love [in this manner] does not know God.”6
The Father sent his Son to make his worst enemies into beloved children, and yet he’s crowded out by other, more earthly details — the kind of details that can be finely painted on ornaments. [W]e have an almighty Father of infinite wisdom and relentless love, a Father who authored that first Christmas and every one since. Nothing compares to the Creator of the universe sending the radiance of his own glory, the exact imprint of his nature, into his creation. Let Christmas remind you that the Son was sent, in love, from heaven, and that you are sent, in love, on earth.7
“Advent is a journey to joy, but it is not we who are traveling. Joy is coming to us.”1
This third week in Advent, let us remember that the good news of Jesus’ birth has the power to bring us great joy this Christmas season. [J]oy that flooded the hearts of the shepherds, the angels, the wise men, the hosts of heaven, and Mary and Joseph is the joy that still has the power to overwhelm our hearts with rejoicing.2
“And the angel said to them, ‘Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people” (Luke 2:10 ESV).
“The words are expressed in the same kind of language that was used by kings and emperors when a new heir was born. It was the Birth Announcement of a King.”3
“The angel opens his discourse by saying, that he announces great joy. By calling it great joy, he shows us that this blessing is so great and boundless, as fully to compensate for all the pains, distresses, and anxieties of the present life.”4
“We find joy in the truth of what God has already done and in the anticipation of what is to come, in the expectancy of God’s faithfulness. Joy overtakes uncertainty when we see how God works in unexpected ways to fulfill promises.”5
[T]he distinguishing nuance of joy is that it lasts beyond the moments of happiness. It can be present when the shine of Christmas cheer dulls or even tarnishes. Biblical joy is an attitude that God’s people adopt, not because of happy circumstances, but because of our hope in God’s love and promises.6
“We find joy in our current circumstances by choosing to remember the joy that Jesus’ redemption of our lives brings, redemption that is only possible through his birth, death, and resurrection.”7
“Let us learn to be so delighted with Christ alone, that the perception of his grace may overcome, and at length remove from us, all the distresses of the flesh.”8
In our present challenges, we anticipate the returning King, who with ‘salvation and power and glory’ will bring the hope of the fulfilled kingdom into being. We look around us at the brokenness of our world, and in the power of Jesus’ life and love, choose joy anyway.9
“You made known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Ps 16:11 ESV).
Bonnie's Prayer Affair 