Good Morning Focused on, Listening to and Standing on God's Word Servants of the Lord! Jesus said, "I am the Way..." He is called the Living Word of God. The Bible is all about Him and how to follow in His ways. We best hear God when opening and meditating on His Word. We battle Satan like Jesus did with Scripture. When's the last time you opened your Bibles while sitting at the Father's feet? When's the last time you asked the Holy Spirit to speak to and lead you through God's Word. When's the last time you wielded the Sword against Satan. There's power in the Word and it informs our choices and prayers. Be still and know He is God as you open and dwell in His Word and make it a daily habit. That does bear good fruit! Amen and thanks Lord! Bring Your Word alive and fill us with Your Living Word as you inform our steps and prayers. help us to always stand firm in Your Word too. Thanks Daddy! Amen! Meditate on Isaiah 53:1-6 below talking about Jesus and our relationship with Him. Then check out the Scriptures in our devotionals and meditate on them. I'm praying for His Word to come alive to and through you and us . Jesus is the Word of Life and the Way! be still and know, prepare and go with Him! Amen
Isaiah 53:1-6
53 Who has believed our message To whom has the Lord revealed his powerful arm?
2 My servant grew up in the Lord’s presence like a tender green shoot,
like a root in dry ground.
There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance,
nothing to attract us to him.
3 He was despised and rejected—
a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief.
We turned our backs on him and looked the other way.
He was despised, and we did not care.
4 Yet it was our weaknesses he carried;
it was our sorrows[a] that weighed him down.
And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God,
a punishment for his own sins!
5 But he was pierced for our rebellion,
crushed for our sins.
He was beaten so we could be whole.
He was whipped so we could be healed.
6 All of us, like sheep, have strayed away.
We have left God’s paths to follow our own.
Yet the Lord laid on him
the sins of us all.
ODB:
Missing the Divine
Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. Isaiah 53:3
Most people avoided George Chase. He lived in a twelve-foot square shack in the woods where New England’s Pawcatuck River meets Little Narragansett Bay. To the locals, it was obvious George didn’t have a bathtub. They could smell the evidence.
One day a hurricane brought the Atlantic Ocean rushing over the seacoast, washing away the beachfront with its attractive homes. Survivors pulled themselves from the bay and began searching for refuge. Eleven of them, soaked and shivering, found it in George’s cabin. He gave them everything he had: water, milk, ginger tea, and shelter. After the hurricane of 1938, the townsfolk had a far different opinion of George Chase.
It’s sad when we make superficial judgments about others, yet it’s our nature to do so. We do that with Jesus too. We might picture Him as He’s portrayed in old paintings, serenely handsome. But the prophet Isaiah said of the Messiah, “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him . . . . like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem” (Isaiah 53:2-3). Yet this man gave us everything He had. “He took up our pain and bore our suffering” (v. 4). He offered His life for ours.
It’s tragic when we miss the humanity of our fellow human beings. How much more tragic to miss the divinity of the One we despised!
By Tim Gustafson
REFLECT & PRAY
How might you look past outward appearances to see the humanity of others? When you think of Jesus, how do you picture Him?
Dear Jesus, please help me to see others as beautiful beings created in Your image.
SCRIPTURE INSIGHT
When Christ taught in the temple during the Jewish Festival of Tabernacles, some asked, “How did this man get such learning without having been taught?” He answered, “My teaching is not my own. It comes from the one who sent me” (John 7:15-16). He warned them to “stop judging by mere appearances” (v. 24). A similar episode happened in His hometown of Nazareth. The people asked, “What’s this wisdom that has been given him? . . . Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon?” (Mark 6:2-3). They missed the fact that Jesus stood among them and later willingly died for humanity’s sin (Isaiah 53:2-4). He offered His life for us and will help us to love others made in God’s image (Genesis 1:27).
Alyson Kieda
UR: God's Word
If we know that [God] listens to whatever we ask, we know that we have received what we asked from him. - 1 John 5:15 (CEB)
Doña Bertitha had already lost several children. Now she looked at her tiny infant daughter — born at six months gestation, anemic, suffering from a heart condition, and having already received a blood transfusion. Doctors told Bertitha that if her daughter survived, she would have serious health challenges. But Bertitha’s father-in-law Don Rafael shared the word of God with her and said: “Believe, and it shall be done!” Holding hands, they prayed on their knees. Bertitha held fast to the promise of a miracle.
Day by day that miracle began to unfold, much to the surprise of the medical staff.
This is my life story. I was that child. I grew up and became a faithful follower of Christ. Later, I cared for my parents and my own children, and now I rejoice at seeing my grandchildren thrive. Throughout my life I have experienced many miracles and continue to believe in God’s word.
Imagine the possibilities if we all opened our hearts and minds to God’s promises and miracles!
's Prayer
Thank you, loving God, for all the unexpected gifts you give us. Strengthen us through your word, and inspire us with your promises. Amen.
TWFYT:
Connection Blogs
- God in the Center
"This, then, is how you should pray: 'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us our daily bread” (Matthew 6:9-11).
Why are our legitimate human needs put into the third line of the Lord’s Prayer? It is because God would fill us with himself first and foremost, instead of with our goods and needs. God would direct us to the purpose of His kingdom’s advance instead of the advancement of our own goals and purposes. God would call us to Himself and beyond ourselves!
God has called us to the true focus of our lives—the pleasure of the Father, heaven as our true home, God’s kingly rule over all creation, God’s righteousness in our lives, and the rebuke of worry over issues of necessary earthly existence—eating, drinking, clothing. The whole point of the Lord’s Prayer and His teaching on daily bread is that God knows our needs; our greatest need is that He be the center of our existence.
Put need in the center and need becomes the god of our existence.
Put God in the center, and God takes care of the needs of our existence.
Father in heaven, You know my needs before I even ask them because You care for me. Teach me how to love You more deeply than any of my physical needs because You are the center of my existence. Show me how so many of the things I think are important are often superfluous things that do nothing for the sake of Your kingdom. Give me a vision for Your plans and purposes so that I might jump into the flow of Your river instead of my own little stream.
--Taken from Power Praying by David Chotka.
Prayer Points
Praise God as the one who can wash every part of your life clean from the stain of sin.
Thank him for offering his only Son as a sacrifice for you (Jn. 3:16).
Confess those times when you have listened to Satan’s accusations of guilt even after confessing your sin to God.
Commit yourself to receiving God’s forgiveness and acceptance of you with a free and joyful heart.
Ask the Lord to help you see yourself through his eyes—clean, holy, and dearly loved (Eph. 1:3-8).
Pray that your love and forgiveness for your critics and opponents will attract them to the same God that you love and serve (Lk. 6:27-29, 35-36).
Prayer Points taken from Patterns for Prayer by Alvin VanderGriend. This book is available at prayerleader.com. Use the code CONPSP3 at checkout to receive an additional 10% discount.
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