Sunday, December 5, 2010

Psalm 5:3

"In the morning, O LORD, You will hear my voice... in the morning, I will order my prayer to You, and eagerly watch."

Thank You for the morning, Father.. for the refreshing effect of sleep.. for the protection You provide through the night, when we are most vulnerable...
Praise to Your Name that You never sleep, nor slumber... that we are always before You...
Amazing that You would commit Yourself to such as us.... providing Your Book filled with promises, as trustworthy as Your Name and character..
providing Your very presence in the Person of the Holy Spirit... expressing Himself through producing fruit by grace...
through bringing to our remembrance the things the Lord Jesus said...
through bearing witness with our spirit that we are Yours..
through faithful, needed conviction of sin...
through promptings in our inner man that speak to our spirit for direction and leading...
through speaking peace to our hearts...
through confirming by conversation with others Your will from Your Word...
and all because of the Lord Jesus, and His sinless death and blood atonement for satisfying Your just and righteous anger against sinners!

Father, grant that this would be a day in which our eyes are fixed upon You... for when we focus on ourselves and our walk, it leads to either despair or pride.
Forgive for ways we compare ourselves with others... for there, again, we are given to either introspection or self-satisfaction.. neither of which is pleasing to You. Only as our thoughts are filled with contemplations of You, Your blessed Word, Your faithful character, ways, and will, will our perspective be pleasing and our lives usable.
Forgive, too, for the love of ease that fills our days... we see so little sacrifice, know so little of the heaviness of heart You have for this lost world...
No one better than You knows the prayerlessness of our hearts... our thoughts so easily taken from You, and placed on the seen, the incidental, the transitory, the temporal, the inconsequential, the worldly.
Do a work of restoration, Father, that can be explained in no other way than that You did it.
Be pleased to call us back to Yourself... to the days when our love for You was fresh, clean, joyous, enamoured with You, yearning to know You, to tell others how wonderful You truly are.
You know perfectly how desperately we need a personal awakening... and how deeply our decadent nation needs awakening... instill in our hearts afresh... grant the desire anew... to pay the price of godliness, to become usable again, and used for Your glory....
and please move us from fine-sounding words and phrases, to actual obedience.
In the Lord Jesus' Name,
Amen.