Daily Devotions: Wednesday 10th June

Here are Wednesday’s morning prayers and Bible meditations written by Heather. They are designed to be read in 5 to 10 minutes.

The theme for this week’s readings is that we are created to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.

Opening Prayer: Heavenly King, Comforter, the Spirit of Truth,
present in all places and filling all things,
the treasury of blessings and Giver of life:
come and abide in me.

Lord’s Prayer: Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
Your kingdom come,
Your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.

And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.
For yours is the kingdom, the power and the glory, forever and ever.

Amen

Text: ‘May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.’ (Romans 15:13)

Explanation: God wants us to be filled with joy, he longs to satisfy and nourish our souls, because when we find out deepest satisfaction in him we glorify him and fulfil our purpose.  This is great news.  Often we long for joy and fulfilment but we look for it in all the wrong places.  We long for something transcendent and ultimately good and everlasting, but we settle for something small and unable to satisfy.  As we trust in God and allow the Holy Spirit to work in our hearts, we will find joy and peace growing in us.  

Questions: Take a moment and give thanks for all that Jesus has done for you over the last day. Then ask: 1. Where do you most find joy in your life? 2. How does it make you feel to know that God wants you to be filled with joy? 3. What might trusting God to fill you with joy mean for your life?

Prayer: Father thank you that you long for my life to be filled with joy.  Help me to trust in you and to allow the Holy Spirit to work in my life that I might experience the peace and joy that you long for me to find.  May you be glorifying in my life today.  Amen.

Prayer for the Day: Lord, grant me to greet the coming day in peace.
Help me in all things to rely upon Your holy will.
In every hour of the day reveal Your will to me.
Bless my dealings with all who surround me.
 Teach me to treat all that come to me throughout the day with peace of soul and with firm conviction that Your will governs all.
In all my deeds and words guide my thoughts and feelings.
In unforeseen events let me not forget that all things are under Your care.
Teach me to act firmly and wisely, without embittering and embarrassing others.
Give me strength to bear the fatigue of the coming day with all that it shall bring.
Direct my will, teach me to pray, pray Yourself in me. Amen. 

Check out our talk about this week’s theme: 

Finding Joy During Lockdown

Here’s a guest post from Heather about how God can bring us joy even in the midst of trials. You can find Heather’s previous post about patience here.

Paul speaks a lot about rejoicing in trials.  We looked at some of these verses in my last blog post where I wrote down some thoughts on how God is teaching me patience through this time.

If last week could be described as thinking how to persevere in trials, then this week I have been thinking about how to go one further and actually rejoice in them. 

This last couple of weeks have probably been some of the hardest times I can remember for a while.  I have felt really low at some points and i’m not someone who generally gets low.  I am definitely more glass half full than half empty.  And it really hit me, that feeling of lethargy and lack of purpose and like I really didn’t want to do…anything. 

I think I started to feel like this a couple of weeks back when I reached the most stressful point of lockdown so far.  The kids were tetchy at the end of the Easter ‘holidays’ having hit maximum boredom.  I was struggling to know what my purpose was in all this (I am the sort of person who likes to keep busy and have a focus) and I found my self shouting more, losing my temper and being snappy with my family.  And that made me just feel even worse.  Because all of a sudden my sin was there slapping me full in the face and I just felt wretched.  It’s painful.  Really painful.

So that led to a period of what I can only describe as wallowing.  I was wallowing in my sin and feeling sorry for myself and guilty and just unable to really move past it.  And then I listened to this short video from Dave Holden who heads up the New Ground sphere of New Frontiers churches that we are involved with.  Dave was particularly addressing families about how to make the most of this season in terms of encouraging our own children in their faith.  And one of the things he spoke about was the uncovering of sin in us (our children included) and how it is this process that provides the way in for the gospel.  The whole point of the gospel, after all, is to proclaim salvation to sinners.  Jesus didn’t die so that all the perfect people could come and join his perfect people club.  He died so that sinners (that’s you, me and everyone else who has ever lived apart from Jesus!) could be reunited with God.  

Jesus said, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.’ – Mark 2:17.

So in order to receive the good news that Jesus died for our sins and has set us free from them to live in eternity with God, we first of all need to realise and accept that we are in fact sinners.  

And it was remembering this message that got me thinking about rejoicing in trials.  Today I went for a walk and found myself rejoicing and thanking God for allowing me to have a really rubbish couple of weeks and for allowing my sin to bubble once again to the surface.  Because if my sin doesn’t bubble to the surface now and again, then I can so easily forget my need for Jesus.  And right now, I really do need Jesus.  Because life is uncertain and challenging and death is around us staring us in the face and I need to be reminded of the hope and victory we have in him.  And so being freshly reminded that I am still a sinner who needs saving as much as the next person, I found my self praising God for allowing this rough season to happen.  Because the result is that it drives me ever deeper into Jesus.  It drives me closer to him in prayer and teaches me to rely more upon the Holy Spirit to continue his purifying work in my life, because I need him.  As the song goes, “Lord I need you, oh I need you, every hour I need you.”

And I want him to work in me, I really do.  I don’t want to be stuck in spirals of shouting and self loathing.  I want to be set free from it all.  I want to live the life that God intended me to live when he created me.  I know that’s not going to be a reality this side of eternity, but I also know that God has made it possible, through Jesus, to be set free from the grip of sin right now.  And that happens by releasing our lives into his hands – by saying, every day, ‘God I can’t do this, but you can, so take my life today and come live in me.’  

And so today I am rejoicing as I remember the incredible gift of new life and freedom from sin that I have been given in Jesus.  And I thank God that he is a good father who loves me enough to let me fall now and again, so that I learn just how much I need him and that he is right there to help me if I am willing to let him.  And I thank God that he loves me enough to remind me of this message for my parenting too and that as the reality of our sinful messy lives is revealed in this lockdown period, it is an incredible opportunity to share the grace and love of God with my children.  I want them to know the reality of sin, that they will mess up in life, but that Jesus forgives them and will heal and remake them and has a better plan for their lives.  We just to need to let him in.  

And so I find myself once again, being lifted out of the valley by my God who loves me more than I can possibly understand.