Reading: Isaiah 61-64; Psalm 120
Father, you deliver me in times of distress when I call on you. My tongue is deceitful, my lips are lying. Yet like Isaiah, my lips have been touched by a burning coal from your altar and my sins atoned for by the blood of the Lamb. It is difficult to be among people who hate peace. Help me to be a peace-maker by relying on your wisdom and Spirit. Jesus is our perfect example of a peace-maker. You anointed him to bring good news to the poor, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives, to proclaim God’s favor and vengeance, and to comfort those who mourn. Even though he did all these things, we counted his peace-making as evil and sentenced him to death on a cross. On this earth there will be little peace, but this is not the reward we strive for. We keep pressing on, bringing your good news to the world so that one day we will be with you forever with those who come to know you through our work. I am clothed with the salvation and righteousness of Christ. His holiness is mine! I will strive to live a life worthy of the calling I have received, and press on until that day where the race is finished and I receive my crown of righteousness.
Grayson Pope 