Daily Prayer: May 6, 2017

Reading: Isaiah 65-66; Psalm 121

Father, I lift my eyes up to you. My help come from you, the maker of heaven and earth. You are my keeper, protecting me from evil. You are always there, waiting to be sought after. You are ready to be found by those who seek you. Thank you, Lord, for letting me find you! Your wrath and judgment will not be held back from those who do not follow your ways. Oh, how grateful I am that you snatched me and my wife from the darkness! Please save my children as well. You are creating a new heavens and new earth where everything will be as it should. Our sins will be forgotten and cast out once for all. Until then, let me be glad and rejoice for the good things you have created. Lord, you are sovereign above all, and what you desire are people who are lowly in spirit and tremble at your word. Father, make me a man like this. Make me content not to make a name for myself, but for you. I must become less. For when the Day comes, I want to be found honoring you with everything I have, lest I be among your reaping. O Father, you are gathering your people to you and deploying them around the world to bring your glory to the nations. They will all sing your praises one day. Then the world will know that you alone are God.

Daily Prayer: May 5, 2017

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.

Daily Prayer: May 4, 2017

Reading: Isaiah 58-60; Psalm 119:153-176

Father, the sum of your Word is truth. Your Word endures forever. Give me the peace that comes from knowing and doing your laws. Religious rituals without obedience do not satisfy you. Let me not mistake ritual for obedience, or talk of your Word with living it. You desire a contrite heart that trembles at your Word and takes action on behalf of the vulnerable. Let me not seek my own pleasure as I pursue you. Father, keep me from sin because it separates me from you, and nothing could be worse than that. Do not hide your face from me, but turn your face towards me and see that the righteousness of your Son covers me. Truth has stumbled in the world today, and it is not easy for it to enter. The one who lifts it up is made an enemy, but they also make themselves your friend. A friend of yours is an enemy to the world.

Daily Prayer: May 3, 2017

Reading: Isaiah 55-57; Psalm 119:129-152

Father, unfold your Word to me and impart your wisdom and understanding. Keep me on the right path and don’t let me fall into temptation. Anguish and trials won’t overtake me, Lord, because I delight in your law. You are near to me and your Word is true. Thank you for being a compassionate God who abundantly forgives. If not for your compassion, there is surely no way I would have been saved. It is good news that you and your thoughts are higher than mine. You forgive when I do not. You have understanding that I do not. Your Word does not return empty to you; it will accomplish your purposes. May I seek to always live in your blessing by keeping the Sabbath, doing justice, and remaining righteous. May I seek the riches of heaven and not of this world, Father, because you can give me what this world never will. I long for the days when your house is a house of prayer, full of people from every nation.

Daily Prayer: May 2, 2017

Reading: Isaiah 52-54; Psalm 119:97-128

Father, the eyes of your people from of old longed for your salvation and the fulfillment of your promise. Thanks be to you that I live in the day where your salvation is freely offered and your promises have come true in Christ! Help me to understand the implications of what Jesus has done. It is seemingly simple to understand, yet the more I study the gospel the wider its reach seems, and the deeper its depths. Thank you for the gift of your salvation. How beautiful were the feet of Jesus when he came publishing good news! His beauty was not in his appearance. He was despised by men and beaten beyond recognition. He was well-acquainted with grief and sorrow. He was killed on my behalf and on behalf of everyone who has lived before or since. The weight of all our sins was laid on him. He bore that weight without uttering a word. He did not try to get out of what was coming, and so he was killed. Brutally murdered by being nailed to a cross and hung to die. And all of this was your will, Lord. It was your will to crush him. But you knew that through his grief there would be much rejoicing when he came back to life and became the once-for-all sacrificial atonement your children needed. Through his righteousness now many are made righteous, including me.