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Showing posts with the label gratitude

Created and Sustained // A Prayer from Today's Psalms // July 8, 2025

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Lord, our Lord, open my heart and mind today to delight in your magnificent goodness and greatness. Remind me of your power shown in creating everything out of nothing: the earth, the universe...every molecule of substance, created and sustained by your constant power and wisdom. Lord, grant me humility today. Move my heart towards gratitude and obedience and worship in all that you have done, are doing, and will do for the sake of your glory and our greatest good. Make me keenly aware of the selfish, willfully disobedient part of my heart and mind. Make me see how I am searching for love and success and satisfaction in all the wrong places. Make me to know afresh how created things can never truly satisfy my hunger and thirst for my the One Who created me. I put my hope in you, Lord. Bring me out of anxiety. Bring to an end my loneliness. Bring me to you! Open my heart and mind to shout and sing in jubilant joy in you our Lord, our King! A Prayer base...

The Day is the Lord's // A Prayer from Today's Psalms // June 14, 2025

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Lord, the day is yours, and the night; you established the moon and the sun. You set all the boundaries of the earth; you made summer and winter. Lord my God, you are very great; you are clothed with majesty and splendor. Lord, train my heart and mind to see, hear, obey and worship you...in moments of fatigue and fighting, as well as in moments of peace and contentment. For you are my faithful love and my fortress, my stronghold and my deliverer. Your are my shield, and I take refuge in you; you are working in me daily, in every circumstance, to subdue my hard heart, my selfish pride, and my impatient discontent and lack of gratitude. Thank you for caring for me! Reach down and set me free to be with you with my whole heart, mind and body! A Prayer from Today's Psalms // June 14, 2025 // A Prayer from Psalms 14, 44, 74, 104, and 134 // Milt Reynolds // Photo by NEOM on Unsplash // https://unsplash.com/photos/a-person-standing-on-top-of-a-sandy-hill-2gVgVf5CNAE">unsplash.com...

Contentment in Giving

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Contentment in Giving How did Paul describe stewardship? Paul devoted the entire ninth chapter of 2 Corinthians to the subject of giving and generosity, ending it by describing giving to others as a gift from God: "Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift!" 2 Corinthians 9:15 (ESV) The wonderful goodness of giving to others was a gift that exceeded Paul's ability to adequately describe . Today, I want to focus on four elements that makes giving to others a wonderful gift of God. The four elements rest upon each other, forming a triangle with four layers . Our study in God's Word today will explore this triangle, beginning at the top and digging deeper and deeper into God's Word, uncovering what lies beneath, until we see God's grace supporting it all. At the top of the triangle is cheerfulness: "Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver." 2 Corinthians...

Doing Good Works versus Undeserved Grace

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Doing Good Works versus Undeserved Grace How would you communicate the concept of undeserving grace to someone who is hung up with doing good works to get into heaven? How could you relate this truth from your own application in life? There are hundreds of laws, commands and parables in both the Old and New Testaments that require obedience. They can be summed up in just two: "Which is the great commandment in the Law? You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets." Matthew 22:36-40 (ESV) There is absolutely no doubt that the Bible teaches that people are to obey God's commands by living a life of good works. We are to treat God, and other people, with love . LOVE: agapao (to love in a social or moral sense, to have a strong personal atta...

A Psalm of Gratitude

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A Psalm of Gratitude For my sin, O God, You have not of me required payment. All of Your justice and sovereignty demand that I be punished to death for my sin against You. Yet upon me You place no punishment. I have been ignorant, willfully ignorant of Your sovereignty over me. I have rejected and quenched Your Spirit as You offered comfort and guidance and knowledge. Yet from me You exact no revenge. God, I have used my hands and eyes and ears and mind to worship myself and my concerns. I have ignored You. I have been satisfied with worshipping and adoring temporary, fleshly, impure pleasure, rejecting the pleasure of intimacy with You. Lord, my mind is double, my heart divided, still loving what the Old Man loves, yet aware of Your greatness and Your superiority. And still You forgive me and withhold your righteous anger. Because of Your Son. Jesus suffered Your angry, righteous judgement and punishment for my sin. For my selfish lust, content to exchange worship of...