Written by Chuck Swindoll, these encouraging devotional thoughts are published seven days per week.
Father, we pray that You will turn reproof into restoration and thereby change us so that we become like Christ—and unlike the Pharisees who were so impressed with themselves. May we instead be so impressed with You that we lose sight of ourselves.
Heavenly Father, it is our deep desire to glorify Your name. We want to honour Your Word, even when it squares off against our own feelings or experiences. We thank You for being kind enough to teach us the basic things about grace. And we pray that teaching might result in freedom from the bondage that has held captive some of Your people far too long.
Thank You, dear Lord, for the beautiful way You teach us. Thank You for Your patience when we fail. Thank You for Your understanding in the midst of all our own confusion. Thank You for reaching down to us when we would never have reached up to You.
May Your grace keep us from a judgmental spirit toward others, Lord. Give us the encouragement we need to be all You have called us to be as Your obedient children, so that we, like David with the sheep, might guide others skilfully and well. In the strong name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Lord, because You don't save us and then suddenly take us home to heaven but leave us here on earth, hear us as we ask You to bring to our attention those things that will assist us in staying clean in a corrupt world.
We are grateful, Father, that Your Son did not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. By Your grace, You have invited people who are imperfect, who are sinful, who have every reason to be ashamed of themselves, who are failures, who are guilty of wrong, to come to You and to find in You relief from their burdens, hope beyond the present, and relief from shame.
Refresh us with frequent flashbacks from Your inerrant and reliable Word. "If God is for us, who is against us?... Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?... But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us."
Teach us in these tender days the value of genuine humility—of a self-forgetful life. We ask this so that we might become for You messengers whose message makes sense because our lives are like Your Son's life—the One who is gentle and humble of heart.
Lord, words of hope from others can fall flat if things aren't right in our own lives. When we're consumed by rage and resentment, somehow words about joy and purpose sound hollow...they seem meaningless. But when our hearts are right with You, we have ears to hear the message of hope.
Sovereign God, all of us would be quick to say that we do need to be relieved of our anxieties—they are too many and too frequent. And because we want to call our own shots, we need to be levelled and removed from the realm of pride.
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