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Written by Laura Banning, a contemporary Bible teacher.

In Montana, we live right alongside a river, the Swan River. As I look out the window, I can see a beautiful analogy for how the Holy Spirit works in our lives …The river is constantly flowing; no matter what. Sometimes wind and high water bring huge trees along, even if they get lodged in one place for a time, it doesn’t stop the flow of the river. The river continues flowing around them, no matter what. Constant, nonstop, movement forward … And that’s the way He works in our lives. No matter what obstacles or challenges we face, even if they seem to be ‘lodged in place’ for a time, it doesn’t stop or block His working or His movement. He continues to flow in and around these things with constant forward movement. We have a choice though. We can choose to stay in the flow of His work or we can attempt to “swim against the current”, or even step out of it altogether. But Jesus calls us to ‘stay in the river’, He beckons us to stay in the flow of His working in our lives and we do that by abiding in Him, by staying in His Presence, by keeping our eyes fixed on Him. And the moment we sense we’ve stepped out of His Presence or that flow, we simply step back into it. And Jesus calls everyone who believes in Him to come and drink freely from His “rivers of living water”. We receive this living water from the indwelling Holy Spirit, as we meditate on His Word and listen to Him. And then He tells us that these rivers of living water will flow from our hearts. As we choose to stay in the flow of His working in our lives and to drink from the ‘River of His delights’, the Word of God, He will flow in and through us and touch the lives of those around us.

Prayer:

Written by James Goll, a contemporary evangelist and author.

Father, I am amazed at Your ways, and I purpose to unite myself with Your people as You lead me. I am grateful for all of the streams and tributaries that are joining together into a mighty river of life in this day. I pray to know and flow in that river of Your presence and power. I give all the glory to You. Send Your Spirit more powerfully, for Jesus Christ’s sake, as I offer thanksgiving and praise in His mighty name. Again, I say, Amen!

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Written by Ann Spangler, a contemporary author. This is an excerpt from her book “Praying the Names of God for 52 Weeks.”

Only once in the New Testament is Jesus described as a lion. The book of Revelation (named in part for what it reveals about Christ) portrays the risen Jesus as the only one worthy to open the scroll that contains the ultimate unfolding of God’s purposes for the world. The apostle John perceived Jesus as both Lion and Lamb, who through his death and resurrection becomes the ultimate victor and conqueror. When you pray to Jesus as the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, you are praying to the one with the power to banish all fear, to the one who watches over you with his fierce protecting love. You are also praying to the one who is judge of the living and the dead.

Prayer:

Written by Jeff Jones, a contemporary pastor.

Father, thank you for leading us and guiding us in the things you want us to learn from Jesus the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. Please give us a passion and desire to worship you in the way that those in Heaven worship you in Revelation 5. Lord, we ask you to challenge and change us as we continue to pursue You and grow in our relationship with You. Thank you God for your Word and your love. In Jesus’ mighty name, Amen! 

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Written by Warren Wiersbe (1929-2019), an American pastor, Bible teacher, speaker, and writer. This is an excerpt from his book “The Defining Verse.”

The disciplines of Joseph’s life, plus his faith in the Lord, transformed him into one of the most beloved characters in the Bible, a man who is very much like Jesus Christ. Like Jesus, Joseph was beloved by his father but hated by his brethren. He was illegally sold, he was falsely accused, and he was condemned and imprisoned. Joseph went from the prison to the throne, from suffering to glory, and he provided bread for the known world. (Joseph merely sustained life; Jesus gives life.) Joseph also gave forgiveness to his brethren and provided a home for them. There is much more, but I’m sure you get the point: it is only as we suffer for and with Jesus that we become more like Him. On the other side of Romans 8:28 is Romans 8:29, which says that God’s purpose is that we “be conformed to the likeness of His Son”… In the midst of pain and trouble, it takes faith for us to say, “God intends this for good,” but that’s just what we must do. To say that “everything is against me” when everything is working for me, is to rebel against the loving heart of God. To ask, “What is God doing?” when we know His purpose is to make us more like Jesus, is to make our situation worse.

Prayer:

Written by Peter Hoytema, a contemporary pastor and author.

Lord, sometimes your will seems confusing; guide us to pray like Jesus. Help us to trust you, love you, and obey you. May your will be done in our lives. Amen.

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Written by Art Lindsley, a contemporary pastor, author and senior fellow at the C.S. Lewis Institute.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones (a Welsh preacher) maintained that almost all our problems come down to an ignorance of God. If we knew who God really is, that awareness would have a deep impact on our lives. Let us consider a specific example: God’s “omniscience.” Is the teaching that God is all-knowing merely a matter of intellectual interest, or does it have profound practical implications? What are the practical benefits of meditating on the nature of God’s knowledge? Do we really want God to know us? God’s exhaustive and constant knowledge of us could be regarded as either a threat or a comfort to us, depending on how you look at it…As we consider the vastness of God’s knowledge, it should lead us to praise him…God not only sees our sins but also the right intentions of our heart…God’s knowledge ought to lead to our humility…We must beware of attempting to usurp God’s omniscience. When someone asked Augustine what God was doing before He created the heavens and earth, he replied, “He was in Himself.” When another asked him the same question, he answered, “He was building hell for such idle, presumptuous, fluttering and inquisitive spirits as you” … The root temptation of Satan in the garden was not only to deity (“You shall be as gods,” Gen. 3:5) but to knowledge. Satan said to Eve that if she ate of the tree, she would “be like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:15). Let us by all means seek knowledge, but not into God’s secret counsels. God’s character and knowledge provide the philosophical basis for our knowledge. God is not contradictory, and His universe is knowable. Without this truth we could not trust our reason and science. There is much that is mysterious about God, but there is not contradiction in Him. He cannot be holy and not holy, good and not good, just and not just, and so on…this perhaps will stir us to consider more connections between God’s omniscience and our own personal and public lives, and thus lead us to a deeper knowledge of God and ourselves.

Prayer:

Written by Kristine Brown, a contemporary Christian author and speaker.

Dear Lord, I bow before you in reverence. You are the King of kings and Lord of lords. You have dominion over everything in the heavens and on earth. Yet you still care about even the smallest details of my life. That’s why I want to rejoice in you every day. You are worthy! Omnipotent Father, because of your mercy and grace you sent your son Jesus as a sacrifice for my sins. As a Father you demonstrated a love unlike anything this world has to offer. Because of that love, I will get to spend eternity with you. Lord, thank you for this ultimate gift. Without you I would have no hope. I love you with all my heart, soul, and mind! Thank you for your faithfulness that endures forever. In Jesus name, Amen.

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Written by Paul David Tripp, a contemporary pastor, author, and speaker. This is an excerpt from his book “New Morning Mercies.”

I don’t know how much you’ve thought about this, but faith isn’t natural for you and me. Doubt is natural. Fear is natural. Living on the basis of your collected experience is natural. Pushing the current catalog of personal “what ifs” through your mind before you go to sleep or when you wake up in the morning is natural. Envying the life of someone else and wondering why it isn’t your life is natural. Wishing that you were more sovereign over people, situations, and locations than you will ever be is natural. Manipulating your way into personal control so you can guarantee that you will get what you think you need is natural. Looking horizontally for the peace that you will only ever find vertically is natural. Anxiously wishing for change in things that you have no ability to change is natural. Giving way to despondency, discouragement, depression, or despair is natural. Numbing yourself with busyness, material things, media, food, or some other substance is natural. Lowering your standards to deal with your disappointment is natural. But faith simply isn’t natural to us. So, in grace, God grants us to believe. As Paul says in Ephesians 2:8, faith really is the gift of God. There is no more counterintuitive function to the average, sin-damaged human being than faith in God. Sure, we’ll put our faith in a lot of things, but not in a God we cannot see or hear, who makes promises so grand they seem impossible to keep. God gives us the power to first believe, but he doesn’t stop there. By grace, he works in the situations, locations, and relationships of our everyday lives to craft, hammer, bend, and mold us into people who build life based on the radical belief that he really does exist and he really does reward those who seek him (Hebrews 11:6). Next time you face the unexpected, a moment of difficulty you  really don’t want to go through, remember that such a moment doesn’t picture a God who has forgotten you, but one who is near to you and doing in you a very good thing. He is rescuing you from thinking that you can live the life you were meant to live while relying on the inadequate resources of your wisdom, experience, righteousness, and strength; and he is transforming you into a person who lives a life shaped by radical God-centered faith. He is the ultimate craftsman, and we are his clay. He will not take us off his wheel until his fingers have molded us into those who really do believe and do not doubt.

Prayer:

Written by Polycarp of Smyrna (68-155), a Christian bishop of Smyrna who died as a martyr.

May God the Father, and the Eternal High Priest Jesus Christ, build us up in faith and truth and love, and grant to us our portion among the saints with all those who believe in our Lord Jesus Christ. We pray for all saints, for kings and rulers, for the enemies of the Cross of Christ, and for ourselves we pray that our fruit may abound and we many be made perfect in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

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Written by Lewis and Sarah Allen. Lewis is a contemporary pastor and Sarah a teacher and women’s ministry leader. This is an excerpt from their work: “Resilient Faith: Learning to Rely on Jesus in the Struggles of Life.”

We are all called to worship. None of us are passengers, spectators, or critics. So sing wholeheartedly, pray with focus, listen with care. Worship is an act of mind, heart, and body. Yes, body too. Stay focused—raise your voice. If you want to raise your hands, raise your hands. But for your sake, and for your Master’s honor, don’t be a half-hearted worshiper. Worship is Christians delighting in God’s love in Christ, and bringing all that we are, with our thanks, our praise, as well as our struggles and needs, and eagerly coming into God’s presence to find his love and strength for us. Wholehearted worshipers encourage and spur on others. It makes no difference if you’re not at the front, this week or any week. We are all sharers. We all come to encourage, to welcome, to help, and to serve. No one comes without something to share. We come to praise; we also come to get to know others and share burdens. Where else do we want to be? This is our family. This is the church of the living God.

Prayer:

Written by Ryan Cook, a contemporary pastor and professor of theology.

Our God is an awesome God! Fill us with Your joy, Father. Stir our hearts and minds with the power of Your might; may we be too overwhelmed with You to keep silent.

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Written by L. B. Cowman (1870-1960), a missionary and author.

Two painters each painted a picture to illustrate his conception of rest. The first chose for his scene a still, lone lake among the far-off mountains. The second threw on his canvas a thundering waterfall, with a fragile birch tree bending over the foam; and at the fork of the branch, almost wet with the cataract’s spray, sat a robin on its nest. The first was only stagnation; the last was rest. Christ’s life outwardly was one of the most troubled lives that ever lived: tempest and tumult, tumult and tempest, the waves breaking over it all the time until the worn body was laid in the grave. But the inner life was a sea of glass. The great calm was always there. At any moment you might have gone to Him and found rest. And even when the human bloodhounds were dogging Him in the streets of Jerusalem, He turned to His disciples and offered them, as a last legacy, “My peace.”    

Prayer:

Written by Janet Thompson, a contemporary speaker and author.

Oh Lord, I admit that I’m often not living in peace. I let the outside world invade my private world and worry about things that only you have domain over. Help me learn to take my concerns to you in prayer and rest in the knowledge that you are in charge, not me. Amen.

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Written by Dallas Willard (1935-2013), an American philosopher known for his works on Christian spiritual formation. This is an excerpt from his book “The Spirit of the Disciplines.”

We must at some point stop looking for new information or social arrangements or religious experiences that will draw off the evil in the world at large, abolish war, hunger, oppression, and so forth, while letting us continue to be and to live as we have since Adam. This is the illusion of our age, the Holy Grail of modernity, a pleasant dream in the sleep of secularism. The monstrous evils we deplore are in fact the strict causal consequences of the spirit and behavior of “normal” human beings following generally acceptable patterns of life. They are not the result of strange flukes, accidental circumstances, or certain especially mad or bad individuals. The tyrants, satanic forces, and oppressive practices of this world play upon our “merely decent” lives as a master organist dominates his or her instrument but is wholly powerless without it … Establishing the rights of labor and of the various ethnic groups, shifting ownership of the means of production from private to public hands, outlawing various types of discrimination, governmental outlays for welfare and education, and so on, will certainly make a difference – good or bad—but they will not eliminate greed, loneliness, resentment, sexual misery and harm, disappointment with one’s lot in life, hunger for meaning and recognition, fear of sickness, pain, old age and death, or hatred of those of other cultures. They will not bring us to love and accept ourselves and our neighbors or enable us to enjoy our lives with peace of mind …The highest education, as well as the strictest doctrinal views and religious practice, often leave untouched the heart of darkness from which the demons come to perch upon the lacerated back of humankind. Fine laws of the highest social intent and widespread confession of the new birth or of firsthand contact with God still leave an awesome lack in national and international affairs or in the quality of community and family life…We have one hope for dealing with the world’s problems. That is the person and gospel of Jesus Christ, living here and now, in people who are his by total identification found through the spiritual disciplines.     

Prayer:

Today’s prayer is from an ancient collect (short general prayers used in Christian liturgy) from the 5^th century.

Almighty God, you fill all things with your presence. In your great love, keep us near you this day. Grant that in all our ways and doings we may remember that you see us, and may always have the grace to know and perceive what things you would have us do, and give us strength to do the same; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

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Written by Oscar Hardman (1880-1964), English priest and author. This is an excerpt from his book “The Ideals of Asceticism.”

True social progress can never be effected solely by programs of reform, organized demand, and legislative action. High wages and abundant leisure, good housing, and improved sanitation, are not able of themselves to guarantee progress or even to check deterioration. It is of far greater importance that people should be clean and sober in their habits, and thrifty in their use of time and money, and that all the relationships of the members of a community should be inspired by love rather than controlled by principles of legal justice and economic equality: and these things are most surely promoted by the presence of earnest Christian living ascetically in the midst of society under various types of organization.

Prayer:

Written by Victoria Riollano, a contemporary author, speaker, and professor.

Dear Lord,  thank you for being a loving and forgiving God. I thank you for your example of how to live and walk in peace and forgiveness. I look forward to opportunities to live at peace with everyone. Although the world may teach me to hold a grudge, I choose to follow your way instead. Lord, search my heart and show me any person that I may have negative feelings towards. I ask for wisdom on how to cultivate peace and walk free from bitterness. Give me a heart for those that I don’t understand and help me to always walk in your love. Help me to do my part in living at peace with everyone.  In Jesus Name. Amen.

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Written by Bart Millard, a contemporary musician, author, and leader of the band Mercy Me. This is an excerpt from his book “I Can Only Imagine: A Memoir.”

I can make a mess of my life all day long, but I cannot mess up my relationship with Christ. To be clear, I’m not saying it is okay to sin. But when I do sin—and I most certainly will—everything is going to be okay because of my relationship with Christ. The power of sin creates a horrible wake that affects me as well as those around me. But even that cannot separate me from Christ. Even when I’m at my worst, my relationship with Christ is unchanged. He still sees me as someone He loves and adores…My identity is not in my guilt and shame, or in the most noble of deeds I could do. My identity is sealed in what Christ has already done on the cross. Christ has chosen to offer this gife, and we must choose to receive it. Every day, I will say yes to Him as well as thank Him…On my absolute worst day, Christ still loves me. I am not a bad person now trying to be good. I’m just me, and Christ always loves me. My identity is wrapped up in the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead and now lives inside of me. I can rest in the balance of knowing I live in a love than can never be broken.

Prayer:

Written by Richard Foster, a contemporary author and leader in the spiritual formation movement.

Loving Lord Jesus, I humbly ask that you would…

Purify my heart,

Renew my mind,

Sanctify my imagination, and Enlarge my soul. Amen.

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