Daily Prayer 11/12/07

1 John 4:15-5:4 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. We love, because He first loved us. If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also. Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and whoever loves the Father loves the {child} born of Him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome. For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world--our faith.


Father....What a priviledge that we could call You "Father"! As John writes above we can have confidence at the judgment because of our adoption as children by faith and because You have begun a work in us that the Holy Spirit will keep working until the day we meet. What a message that there is NO FEAR IN LOVE. This is not to say that some will not be judged and this is not to say that some have been deceived and have a false assurance, but Lord fear involves punishment. My Savior took ALL my punishment on the cross. I have no penance, He has served it....He is all I have. All I can do is bow low and say I am sorry for my sin Lord. I am truly sorry for it, but I can not fear a punishment that has already been paid in full. Truly one might claim to belong to You but they may still worry about the day they will face You because Christ is not their Savior who has paid in full their debt, so they still fear the possibility of punishment. Our lives are the evidence of the truth. Sure we still sin Lord, but do we claim one thing and live another? Convict us is we have fooled ourselves, bother our conscience. True faith that has brought us into obedience to Your word produces a natural fruit in our lives that is evidence that we are truly free from the penalty of sin and we love and we obey. The hypocrite claims to love You, but their actions say otherwise. What is our victory? Not our work, our faithfulness, our avoiding punishment, but FAITH is the victory. Faith in that death that came by Love to grant us freedom and eternal life.

Father we all would like to offer prayers of thanks to You. We also pray that You would meet our needs and cause us to grow in our spiritual lives.

We a like trees Father. Some types grow quickly, others grow slowly. Some of us sway in the wind and nearly break, others are strong as oak. Some of us are planted by streams of water and are well fed and watered and grow well. Others are far from good water and so survive only by Your grace.

I do not try to place us all in this race running at the same pace. We all must find our own speed. I just pray that we first truly have eternal life by faith in Christ's death alone. I pray that we are at least in the race and that we perform only for You. May we run according to the strength You have given us and our desire to serve You well. Father, Keep the tall trees strong, keep the young trees alive, protect the seedlings from the wicked heat of the day, and may we all bear good fruit. A good tree can not produce bad fruit as Your word says, speaking of our lives. I don't care about the size of the tree, only that we would examine our fruit we are bearing as we judge our own performance. I pray we would desire to do well for You who first loved us and died for us, and called us to believe. A gift we don't deserve.....humbly we give You all our thanks! Lord Jesus You are our life!