My Father and my God, when you instructed Joshua to be strong and courageous as he led your people into the land of promise, you assured him that you would be with him. He would not be alone, and would not do battle in his own power. His strength and courage were to grow in his heart not because of his greatness, but because of yours.

Only a river separated him from a nation that, on paper, he could not defeat. Surely he would question his call to such a seemingly impossible task. Even as Peter looked at the waves and found himself sinking, so Joshua would be tempted to look at the enemy and lose heart. But you told him that you would be with him. Your presence and power would sustain him. And so he was commanded to be strong and courageous. A strength and courage that would have to flow from faith.

Father, as I consider your call on my life, I know that your Spirit is instructing me with the same command: be strong and courageous. I do not fact Philistines, but I do face other enemies and other challenges. And each one requires no less faith in your presence and power than it took Joshua to lead Israel over the river and to victory. You were with them. And you have promised to be with me—even in me. 

And yet the most significant aspect of Joshua’s command does not apply to me. The most direct analogy of Joshua’s life is not mine. It is your’s, Jesus. You are the ultimate Joshua. As Moses was used to deliver the Israelites from the enemy and as Joshua was to lead the people against another enemy, you have faced sin and death and proved faithful in victory. Jesus, it is your strength and courage in the cross that has saved me. Apart from your Spirit within me, I am all weakness and fear. 

How desperately I need your presence and power, and how I thank you that it is available in the gospel. Yes, having such a strong and courageous Savior gives me the faith from which my own weakness is turned into strength and in which my fear gives way to courage. Father, this day I will face people who will intimidate and circumstances that will overwhelm. May I know your presence and power. Your presence to fill me with a sense of your love and acceptance, and a power that gives me the ability to believe, to repent, to encourage, to listen, to confront, to love, to forgive, to persevere, to hope and to pray.

Yes, I am utterly dependent upon your grace. Your grace that saves and your grace that enables me now to follow where you lead. Because Jesus was forsaken in my place, I will never be forsaken. You will always be with me—wherever I go. Help me to be so mindful of that wonderful promise. Let me never feel alone, but always, and especially today, know your presence and your power.

Father in heaven, you love me. Yes, you love me. Though I confess that saying those words does not come easily for me, for I know how unlovely and unlovable I really am as a sinner. As your word says, I am ungodly. In my flesh, I am utterly unable, powerless to do anything that would cause a holy God to love me. And so it is so hard to believe that your love could possibly be steadfast, unchanging, and permanent. Yet this perspective comes from a heart that misunderstands love, and thus, has misunderstood you. 

When I love, it is usually in response to good behavior, beauty or some form of success or accomplishment. I lavish affection on those who are lovely and lovable. The result is that my love is not love at all. It is reward. And so I assume that you love in the same way.

How I thank you that you are teaching me that your love is not reward. It is grace. Your word tells me that you have loved me from before the foundation of the world. You knew that I would be an ungodly sinner, and yet you set your affection on me. I was not lovely, but you loved me. You have demonstrated your love for me in this: that while I was unloveable, you gave Jesus to died for me.  Peter says that Christ died for my sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring me to God.

You did not wait for me to become beautiful in your sight before you loved me. In fact, it is your love for me that now has made me beautiful. In the cross, Jesus has taken away my ugliness and has made me perfectly righteous in your sight. I am no longer defined by my sin but by your grace. How I worship you for such a transforming love! 

Father, I think it was Augustine who said that the cross of Christ did not secure the love of God, but that it was your love for sinners like me that secured the cross. You were not talked into loving me, or obligated because of the cross. The cross is that which tells me what lengths you went to to reconcile a wayward son and to bring him home so that I can know your love and be convinced of it. 

So my prayer today is that, with the apostle Paul, I would know the height, depth, width and breadth of your love for me in Jesus. Indeed, as the heaven’s surpass my ability to understand, so does the cross. And yet, Paul’s prayer is that I would have the supernatural ability to grasp it. So by the grace of your indwelling Spirit, flood my heart with an apprehension of your kindness, your mercy, and yes, your love for me, so that I will be able to love others, not as a reward, but as an act of grace.

Abba, Father, why should I need to be urged to offer myself to you as a living sacrifice? In view of your mercy, and yes, mercies, plural, why should I not be compelled to worship you with the totality of my being, in every moment and circumstance? As Jeremiah says, your mercies are new every morning—even in the face of the most horrific suffering and brokenness. Maybe especially in the face of suffering and brokenness. 

Someone has said that the problem with a living sacrifice is that it is always trying to get off of the altar. I suppose that is true. It is so hard to follow your ways. Humility. Repentance. Faith. Suffering. Trials. Ridicule. Peer pressure. It wasn’t even easy for you, Jesus. When faced with the physical, emotional and spiritual pain required by the cross, you asked if there was another way. But in the face of the calling to sacrifice yourself, you delighted in the will of the Father and gave yourself without regret to the hardest of all obediences. 

And there I discover your mercy. Whatever trial I am called to face, it will never be the ultimate trial. And so even as I share in your sufferings, I am not contributing to your sufferings. Every tear and wave of grief reminds me of the tribulation you endured on my behalf—to reconcile such an unloving sinner to a loving God. Mercy.

And so in view of that mercy, and the multifaceted mercies that surround my life every day, I do want to offer myself to you. Asking that you would fill me with your presence and power so that a weak and broken vessel like me might be a living testimony to your greatness and grace. I want to give you my eyes, that what I view will please you. And what I think about what I view will be in accord with your will, and your heart. How I want the eyes of Jesus!  And I desire the ears of Jesus.

I want to possess the gift of listening to others in a way that I enter into their story and am able to lead them to their heart’s true desire, which is to know and experience you.  But not only the eyes and ears, I long for the mouth of Jesus so that I would speak words of life, compassion, truth and grace.  Speaking not in a way that boasts in myself, but one that leads people to the same cross where I have found my life.

And I want the hands of Jesus. Hands that fulfill my vocation in a way that is done unto the Lord, and not merely unto man. Whether people see it or not; whether they praise it or not… may I give my work to you, since as an act of mercy, you have given it to me. 

And yet I confess that offering my life to you in these ways does not come naturally. This will require the supernatural work of your Spirit, to keep me on the altar when my flesh so desperately wants to escape. Let me find joy in submission and obedience, knowing that it is not only good for me, but pleases you. Then I will experience a life of worship. A life of honoring the God who gave life to a dead man and hope to the hopeless. This is the life of grace I crave, living in view of your mercy.

Abba, Father, and God of my salvation, Paul was not ashamed of the gospel. He knew it was powerful, and when ignited by your Spirit, would bring total, transforming change to those who received it—to those whom you enable to believe. He knew that the gospel is the message that brings people out of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of light, delivers people from death to life, and changes them positionally from condemned enemies to beloved sons and daughters.  

Your gospel is the message of your grace to sinners, telling people like me that, in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, you have done for me what I could not do for myself. Jesus has fulfilled the law in my place. He has endured the judgement that I deserved. He has given me life that I did not earn.  He came to serve me and to save me, opening the door for me to enjoy you as you intended from the beginning. All to magnify your glory as a God of grace. What a glorious gospel!

On one hand I am sure that Paul shared it because he had been commissioned. You called him to be an apostle—one who is sent with a message. He longed to be a faithful steward of the gospel. But I think there might have been a deeper level motive that compelled him to share the gospel so freely, and often, under very difficult circumstances, having been persecuted severely, and ultimately losing his physical life for not being ashamed of the gospel. 

In one of his letters, Paul says that it is the love of Jesus that compells him. Even though knew he possessed a message of spiritual dynamite that needed to be released, I think it was the powerful effect that the gospel had had on him that drove him to testify, even as a martyr, to your glory in the gospel. He had been saved by the same Jesus whom he proclaimed. As some have said, there is a propulsion to grace.

If that is true, and if I claim to have experienced the saving power of the gospel in my own life… then why do I appear to be ashamed of it? Why am I so slow to speak of the gospel? And when I do, why am I sharing from the intellectual surface of my heart and not the emotional depths?  Why am I more impassioned to speak about my favorite sports team, a current event or even my computer’s new operating system than I am to speak about the grace of Jesus?

Father, I confess that I have felt ashamed, and I am so sorry. But I don’t want to be ashamed. I want to have the passion of the apostle, who knew himself to be the worst of sinners and an example to others concerning what it meant for God to justify the ungodly—those who turn either to irreligion or religion for the salvation. Ungodly people like me, who turn to anything and everything apart from Jesus to save us. 

And so what I need is not more commitment.  In order to not be ashamed of the gospel and to share the gospel freely and with passion, I need to personally re-experience your grace at a depth level—at a level that will ignite my soul with a desire for others to experience your grace so that you will become the object of their joy.

Gracious Father, will you enable me this day to be so filled with your love that I overflow with a desire to share it. Then you will be glorified, by one who is compelled by your love to extend your love to the maximizing of your glory on the earth. 

“And can it be that I should gain an interest in the Savior’s blood? Died he for me, who caused his pain? For me to whom his death pursued? Amazing love, how can it be that Christ, my God, should die for me!” 

~ Wesley

Father of grace, I pray that the sadness in my heart would be godly rather than worldly sorrow. A sadness for seeking my joy and life in other things beside yourself. As you challenged the people of Israel through Jeremia so long ago, you also challenge me, that I have dug cisterns that can hold no water. I have sought to find my joy in reputation, success, physical comfort, and so many other shallow resources.

Jesus, you tell me that you are the river of living water. It is deep and wide, and thoroughly satisfying. And yet I dig wells in the desert, hoping, even straining, to discover a taste of satisfaction and joy in other, lesser joys. Sometimes it appears as if I have found it, but it is always a temporary pleasure, unlike the eternal joy that is found simply in knowing you and experiencing your presence.  

By your grace, you rescue me from myself as your Holy Spirit brings godly sorrow into my heart—a sorrow from God and unto God. A sorrow that you create in my heart that longs to be reconciled to you, Father, to follow you and to glorify you. And so I come to repent, to be honest about the reality of my sin nature and my propensity to follow it away from you, the source of life, to dig wells. I confess my cold heartedness. How I want to be on fire, and experience a passion for your presence!

And that is where repentance leads, isn’t it. Repentance takes me to the cross, where my Savior bears the burden of justice for my well-digging, coldheartedness, and every other conceivable diviation that my life has taken from your will and your ways. He says, “It is finished,” and you call me your beloved son. Forgiven. Accepted. Treasured. Never to be forsaken. 

My heart begins to understand that the gospel is not religion. It is not about what I can do for you, but what you have done for me. It is about the Gift. The undeserved, unearned gift of knowing you and experiencing your presence as my Father. Perfect love casts out fear. And so when I can so fully embrace, and be embraced by the truth of your gospel for me, I can begin warm, and grow in a passion for your presence. To know you. To love you. To glorify you. That is the goal of my salvation, and why the grace of godly sorrow leads to it. And that is why, Father, there is no regret in the pain of repentance. Because I learn that through Jesus’ pain, I am redeemed and adoped, forgiven and loved. Treasured, not tolerated.

Father, I pray that I would experience this godly sorrow, and be wise not to mistake it for wordly sorrow—the sorrow that is not from the conviction of the Spirit, but is the condemnation of the flesh.  Worldly sorrow is the sorrow of Judas, whose sin nature cast him into despair, condemning him and convincing him that there was no hope. 

And so Father, when I see my sin (and I want to see it), enable me not to fix my eyes on it, but rather on the blood of Jesus. That I may not despair, but enter in to the hope of the gospel. Experiencing afresh a taste of such a great salvation, that I may be drawn back to you with a new desire to love, follow and glorify you, Father, Son and Spirit. To that end, my repentance will never have any regret.

Abba, Father, why is it that you adopted me? I know it was not my goodness or moral purity. It was not my intellect or ability to serve in some great capacity in your kingdom. When I reflect upon who I am in relation to your majesty, I am overwhelmed with how utterly unworthy I am to be associated with Jesus.

And yet he is pleased to call me his brother. And you, Father, are delighted to call me your son. This is because you chose to adopt me as a son as an act of mercy, “to the praise of your glorious grace!” Yes, I am unworthy. Your kindness to me is undeserved. But you have set your love upon me before the creation of the world, and proven it by sending Jesus to pay the adoption price on the cross. 

Like a Romanian orphan, I have been rescued from the kingdom of darkness and delivered unto the kingdom of light. I am now a citizen of heaven with the full rights of a son of God. Full rights! Amazing! As a child of a king has access to the epicenter of power and rule over a nation, so I have access to the King of all creation. 

And so why do I live on so many days as if I were a spiritual orphan with no Abba? Why am I so insecure? Why do I crave approval and praise and need affirmation from peers and those of significance so badly? Me, a son of the King, concerned about what others think of me. How can it be?

And how can I worry like I do? How can a son of the King live in fear of the future or with regret over the past, knowing that his Father-King oversees the lives of his sons and daughters, guiding them and working in and through them for their good. Not so much so that they get what they want, but that they get what they need—the One thing needful, which is more of Jesus.

When I am unaware that being near to you in your presence, Jesus, is my great need, I forget the gospel, and begin seeking a name for myself, rather than magnifying your name as my Savior, Friend and Brother. Forgive me of such self-oriented sin that causes an orphan spirit to grow within my heart.

But you have given me your Spirit, so that I may cry out, “Abba, Father.” He is the Spirit of adoption who enables me to remember who I am, and whose I am. I have been declared by the King to be his holy, blameless, and dearly loved, child—from before the creation of the world. No, it was not about me that I was adopted. It was all about you, Father. Your love. Your grace. Your will. So help me cry out even today for more more of your Spirit to indwell me and to show me Jesus— to the praise of your glorious grace.

Abba, Father, the Spirit within me rejoices in your sovereign rule over all people, places, and events. The wisdom with which you execute your providence is perfect. To know that you are not only in control, but also actively are guiding the flow history with knowledge and purpose is a resource that you intend to provide peace and hope in my life.

However, Father, I confess that I struggle to embrace your ways. In my foolish finiteness, I believe that I have a better plan for my life and your world. Yet even you, Jesus, understand. Not the foolishness or finiteness, but the struggle. In the garden of Gethsemane, you knew the pathway of pain that lay before you in the cross, and asked the Father is there was another way. You knew the answer, but in your humanity, you manifested that you can empathize with having to willingly submit to the ways of the Father.

Willingly submit. That is a lesson that I need to learn. I need to believe that your ways are wise, full of eternal knowledge, and are perfect. Even if they involve the sins of others, pain, and suffering. Even if I do not understand. Even if I think my ways would reflect a greater wisdom. Forgive me for such arrogance and shortsightedness. I simply cannot fathom the contingencies surrounding every event, wind, tide and circumstance. It is a burden to great for me to bear, and is likely the cause of much of my stress and anxiety. I am trying to be my own Lord and wear a crown that only you can rightly and effectively wear. 

You tell me that your thoughts and ways are far beyond my understanding. In fact, Paul asks the rhetorical question, “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” I confess that I have wanted to provide my counsel. I have a plan for my life in my mind. A plan that is free of suffering and challenge. A life that is comfortable. A life that is free of having to believe, follow and rest in the ways of another.

So, Father, I thank you that the “another” is not a distant, capricious God of fate, but rather is my Abba, the God of grace. Yes, you are my Lord, my master. But you are also my Father. So my prayer today is that you would enable me know you so deeply that I am able to trust you more fully.  Empower me to rest in you as my Savior God to such a degree that I will be able to rest in you as my sovereign God as well.

Allow me to experience the gift of humility and submission. Let me confess the ignorance of my ways and embrace the wisdom of yours. Give me eyes to see you as the King, ruling and working all things for your glory and for my good, and ultimate joy. Let all things be means of grace in my life. All things. So that you might be glorified through all seasons of my life, whether that of sining and dancing or sadness and pain.

“I am not skilled to understand what God has willed, what God has planned. I only know at His right hand stands one who is my Savior.” ~ Aaron Shust

My God and refuge, who has paid the debt of my sin. You tell me that the blessed life is the forgiven life. It is the blessing of having a God express his grace by sending his own son to atone—to cover—the sins of his people. Father, how I thank you for being that God, and Jesus, for being such a Savior who has made atonement for my willful and wicked transgression. 

Lord Jesus, the Scriptures describe what you did on the cross as the bearing of a curse. You received my justice. You served my sentence. You paid my debt. You have blessed me with an eternal grace that flows from your eternal love. Let me never take such blessing for granted or consider it in any way secondary to what my flesh considers blessing.

For my flesh sees the blessed life as the wealthy life. The successful life. The life filled with many possessions. And when others appear to have more, my heart grows jealous and filled with discontent. I covet and become cold to the spiritual blessings of the gospel. Why do I so often translate blessing in material and financial terms, when your word warns against the love of money. “It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.” 

So may I remember that you were pierced for me! May I prize as priceless your precious, efficacious blood. You are the pearl of great price, and the gospel is my great possession. Promises for now and eternity. An inheritance kept in heaven that can never spoil or fade. Riches of grace to be bestowed forever. I am wealthy beyond the wildest imagination! Thank you Jesus! Give me eyes to see the practical significance of the blessed life that is covered by your atoning sacrifice, that has reconciled me to God and guaranteed blessing upon blessing, now and forever.  

And Father, as one who has been forgiven, enable me, as one of the blessed, to be a blessing to others. I want to be one who forgives—one who pays down the debts of others against me. How I desire the ability to set others free, living as a conduit of grace for the praise of your glory. But this can only come from your indwelling Spirit. My flesh is still so strong in my heart. I find myself harboring grudges and growing in bitterness toward those who are my debtors. Yet Jesus, the prayer you taught me assumes that I, having been blessed with forgiven, will be one who blesses others with forgiveness. 

How I need more grace. I thank you that your blood has even covered every sin, especially the hardened places in my heart that are still slow to forgive. As you demonstrated on the cross, Jesus, forgiveness involves pain. It is not easy to forgive. The price is high. It may be free for the recipient, but the cost is steep for the one who pays it down. That is why it is so hard, and why I think it is a supernaturally empowered gift that you give in order to let your grace flow from the cross, to me, and through me. But when the grace comes, there is joy in the blessing, as there was Jesus when you, for the joy set before you, endured the cross.

So Father, my prayer today is that, in being so richly, overwhelmingly blessed, that I would be supernaturally empowered by your Holy Spirit to be a blessing—for my joy and to the praise of your glorious grace.

Abba, Father, can it really be true that I am a new creation? Is the significance of your Spirit in me that profound—I’m a new person? Totally new? When I reflect upon the years, I realize that once I was blind to my need of a Savior, but now I see. I once was deaf to voice of my shepherd, but now I hear. I once was dead to a love for my God, but now I have new affections. I once was condemned in my sin, but now I have been set free through the cross. I once lived without hope, but now have an eternal inheritance of glory to experience and enjoy. New, yes. New eyes. New ears. New affections. New hope. New peace. All is new! Oh, how I praise and worship you for the gift of the new creation! “The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”

Yet, Father, as I reflect upon this verse, I have a question. Could it be that Paul is weaving together several aspects of the new creation? Or might there be various strands to unweave in order to understand why the old has passed but still wreaks havoc in my life?  Is is possible that Paul is speaking of regeneration, justification and sanctification in one bundle?

By virtue of the Spirit’s regenerating grace, I am a new creation who has been given new eyes and ears—eyes and ears that lead me to repentance and faith. Then, having confessed my sins and received your forgiveness, I am justified. Legally, the old man has been crucified and condemned at the cross, and by virtue of your gospel declaration, I am now counted as righteous in your sight because of the merits of Jesus credited to me.

Father, this is where I think that the sanctification part comes in. Definitively, you have pronounced me holy. However, you have told me through  the same apostle that I am continually to put off the old self and put on the new. On one hand it is a declaration (my justification) and on the other it is a process (my sanctification). That explains why the old self sometimes seems to be so alive and destructive in my life. It blinds my eyes to the truth and covers my ears to your voice. It deceives me with alternate affections, and when I fall, it condemns, seeking to convince me that I could never be a beloved son of the Father. 

That is why I pray for ears that will be able to listen to your word, which tells me that the old self was crucified with Jesus in order that my sinful nature might be brought to nothing, so that I will not be enslaved to sin. So that is what I need. Ears to hear the gospel. Eyes to see the cross- the bronze serpent who has healed my wounds and forgiven my sin. There is no more condemnation! Then, in believing my justification I will be free to pursue sanctification by abiding in the righteousness of Jesus and, by the grace and power of the Holy Spirit, manifesting his fruit.

So Father, as your new creation, let my eyes see, my ears hear, my heart beat and my feet walk to the praise of your glorious grace.

My God and giver of life, that is what I must do in order to be your child. I must receive. I cannot work, earn or merit my adoption. It is a gift that must be received through faith. What a priceless grace it is to know that I am one of those who have received Jesus. I have received the forgiveness of sins and the imputed righteousness of the Savior!

Father, I delight that this is all of grace. As your word says so clearly: I was dead in my sins and an object of wrath. But because of the greatness of your love, you, who are full of mercy, made me alive. You sovereignly, not as a duty or obligation to any merit in me, but out of sheer grace, you gave me new life. Regeneration. Spiritual resurrection.

And that resurrection of spiritual life has enabled me to have new eyes and ears. Now, I can hear your Spirit call. I hear him convict, and I hear him convince me that the gospel is true. Father, I am learning that regeneration is even the source of my repentance and faith. For how would I have seen myself to be a wretched sinner in need of mercy without the new eyes that your Spirit has given?

Yes, my being a child of God is all of grace. And so why do I grow proud? Why do I live so often as if I have been born in the kingdom as the result of my own spiritual, intellectual or moral merits? Why do I act as if there were something commendable in me that caused you to choose me? Why do I look down upon those who are blind and deaf to spiritual things? It is my flesh. I confess its arrogance. I confess that in my sinful nature, I am blind to your grace and deaf to your kindness. 

And so I pray that you would convict me afresh of the indwelling sin that refuses to live in the humble place—the sin that wants to be king of the hill. Remind me that the ground is level at the foot of the cross, where all kinds of sinners gather, as in the same sinking boat, to receive the gift of rescue and salvation in the person of Jesus. 

Your word says that all fall short of your glory, and that all are saved in the same way, with the same need for the propitiation of Jesus’ blood. Jesus, forgive me for being the Pharisee. Rather, may I be the man who went away from the temple justified. Not because his prayer was so good or life so exemplary, but because he knew himself to be the sinner, not just a sinner. He knew that he needed the gospel personally, not just theoretically.

Today, I want to experience the gospel personally. I want to remember that I have been born again as a result of your will and not my own. I am a son by sheer grace. My rights as a son have been granted as a gift. But they are rights nonetheless. Rights to rest in the work of Jesus. Rights to come before you as my Abba. Rights to trust you as my King. Rights to share the good news to other sinners, who by grace, will come into the family because you have set your eternal, fatherly love upon them, too. Thank you, Abba, Father, for being such a saving, rescuing, adopting, loving God.