A Reason For Hope

📖 For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you. For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.
-Romans 12:3-5

🙏 Dear God,
In this word from Paul, I see two ditches in which I can fall. On the one hand, I can think that I am so gifted that I can do more than the rest, and so I will try to control every task in the family or the church.

I could think I am just too smart to not exert my influence and help. On the other hand, I could believe that I am so below average in my gifts that I do not believe I have the need to offer any help in important matters.

Instead, I will think I have permission to waste valuable time entertaining myself and playing through life. Either ditch is foolish thinking, and it keeps from living in the truth.

I see that you have gifted me with some gifts for the good of others and have also given them some gifts for my benefit. I want to fit together happily with each one.

Help me to accept my gifts and responsibly serve others while I also graciously let them serve and shine with their gifts.
Amen.

✝ The grace of God gives us hope, enough to turn ourselves in before his throne.

🙏 Dear Lord,
You are quick to forgive, even when you must let us endure the consequences of our actions as discipline. Your grace makes me quicker to return to you in apology.

Help me to trust that if I share your forgiveness with people, they will have the courage to repent also. You are the God who pardons.

Make me the Christian who tells sinners the truth about your prodigal love.
Amen.

✝ God is worthy of our love and trust, even when we cannot make any sense out of our lives under his heaven.

📖 How Long Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me?
-Psalm 13:1-2

"There is an old verse that says, “only one life to live, and soon it will pass. Only what is done for Jesus will last.”

You are saved by grace, not by anything you have done or could ever do. And because of that grace, you are free to be exactly what God made you to be: his poem, written in Christ, for the good of the world around you..."

Read more of this week's blog post based on Sunday's sermon.

What Makes a Real Christian? — A Reason for Hope with Don Patterson God’s gift of grace opens up a special type of freedom for a Christian. It empowers us to live by grace, because an immeasurable amount of undeserved grace has been given to us first.

📖 For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven.

And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.
-Philippians 3:18-21

🙏 Dear Jesus,
I'm in a constant battle within to not let my life be about things, places, entertainment, and pleasure. These all perish with the using. They are blessings in life, but like icing on a cake or cotton candy, their sweetness soon fades, and sometimes they even put unwanted weight on my life.

Give me the divine perspective that guides me to gratefully use the blessings in my life for the betterment of others and myself so we both live by faith for heaven. Also, give me spiritual eyes to see earthly setbacks and failures as creative blessings from your hand.

Fill me with hope that laughs at disappointments because of your promises to work good behind them for the greatest blessings forever.
Amen.

✝ I don't want to win. I just want to finish as a friend of God.

🙏 Dear Heavenly Father,
I sometimes get so weary of enduring life in my situation and with the people you have wedged me in between. I know they get weary of enduring me too. I am even less enduring with my worldly generation that is rushing headlong into hedonism and selfishness, but you are the God who gives endurance, and I need a heavy dose from you now.

Please give me the encouragement that I need to take one more step and complete one more day of service to you and them. Make me an instrument of your peace and unity. Help me to make the most abrasive soul feel loved and connected.

I will not have to endure this forever, but you will still be here, enduring people after my departure to your glory in heaven. So, reach down into your storehouse of love and pour it on me so I can finish this race.
Amen.