Depend on God and keep at it
because in the Lord God you have a sure thing. ~ Isaiah 26:4 (MSG)
Jesus said to his followers, “Where is your faith?” ~ Luke 8:25 (NCV)
KEY IDEA:
Persistent faith pays off.
PRAYER:
Lord, you are the solid rock -- the foundation worth trusting. It doesn't make sense that I'd put my ultimate trust in anything or anyone else. But it is so easy to slip into trusting in lesser foundations -- even when you're clearly present. I have no good explanation for that. Thank you for not giving up on me when I flake out.
Eventually, I will figure out that I need to trust you -- and you alone. Amen.
This is what the Lord says—
your Redeemer and Creator:
“I am the Lord, who made all things.
I alone stretched out the heavens.
Who was with me
when I made the earth? ~ Isaiah 44:24 (NLT)
The God who made the whole world and everything in it is the Lord of the land and the sky. He does not live in temples built by human hands. This God is the One who gives life, breath, and everything else to people. He does not need any help from them; he has everything he needs. ~ Isaiah 17:24-25 (NCV)
KEY IDEA:
Since God is the creator of all if he needs anything he just creates it. So we shouldn't think of ourselves as doing favors for God.
PRAYER:
Creator God, you are beyond need. I find that knowledge reassuring -- even though sometimes I think I'm doing you a favor when I'm generous or act according to your will. Adjust my thinking and my attitude. You don't need me. Yet you embrace me anyway. Your generosity is amazing. Amen.
With God’s help, I can do amazing things -- like leap tall buildings in a single bound. ~ Psalm 18:29 (ABP)
Every God-begotten person conquers the world’s ways. The conquering power that brings the world to its knees is our faith. ~ 1 John 5:4 (MSG)
KEY IDEA:
God's power is greater than we realize. We tap into it through faith.
PRAYER:
Thank you, God, for the victory of Christ Jesus who conquered sin and death at the cross and resurrection. Thank you for making his power available to us as we put our trust in him. Sometimes I'm afraid of the evil in this world. I get anxious that the power of evil is too great. Relieve me of my fears and help me to trust you so that I can face evil without fear. I'm expecting to win out over the world’s ways by using my faith to join Jesus' victory. He's the one! Amen.
And in one day I will take away the sin of this land. ~ Zechariah 3:9 (NCV)
Christ carried our sins in his body on the cross so we would stop living for sin and start living for what is right. ~ 1 Peter 2:24 (NCV)
KEY IDEA:
Through Christ, God wipes away sin so that we can start to live clean lives.
PRAYER:
Thank you, Lord Jesus, for dealing with our sin problem. You have rendered sin powerless -- except I somehow still manage to allow it to have power over me. Go figure. I need to have you align my life with the reality of the cross and the resurrection so that sin loses its grip on me and I can live a Christ-right life. Amen.
*ABOUT THE
DAILY TEXTS
The Daily Texts have been published by the Moravian Church since 1731. In 2015 I started posting these Bible verses for my spiritual formation students at Pacific Islands University. In the process of responding to the verses, I found the rhythm of looking for a common thread and writing a prayer based on that key idea to be helpful for my own soul. The prayers are more or less modeled on the TRIP method, which is what I ask my students to do in their journaling. ~ Brad Boydston
TRANSLATIONS
ABP = Authorized Boydston Paraphrase — my own freestyle biblical adaptation — somewhere between paraphrase, commentary, and sermon
CEB = Common English Bible (©2011, the Common English Bible)
CEV = Contemporary English Version (©1995, American Bible Society)
MSG = The Message (©1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson)
NIRV = New International Reader's Version (©1996, 1998, Biblica)
NIV = New International Version (©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011, Biblica)
NLT = New Living Translation (©1996, 2004, 2007, 2013, Tyndale House Foundation)
