For great and godly wisdom for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as she leads the State Department and seeks to strengthen our relationships with the nations of the world
Wisdom will save you from the ways of wicked men, from men whose words are perverse.
--Proverbs 2:12 (NIV)
Lord, there is no substitute for Your great wisdom. With it we can face any situation, any individual, with holy confidence that You will give us the correct thoughts and words to say, so as to bring praise and honor to You. We express appreciation this day, Lord, for Your wisdom and the role it has in our lives.
Mighty Lord, we also ask today that you give our nation�s top ambassador to the world, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Your great wisdom as she works diligently to improve and increase our country�s standing with other world leaders. Enable her, Lord, in this challenging task to pursue Your instructions and guidance as she serves. Protect her as well, God, in all of her travels, in Your precious name we ask, amen.
6 Remember your mercy, O Lord, and your steadfast love,
for they have been from of old.
7 Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions;
according to your steadfast love remember me,
for the sake of your goodness, O Lord!
"It is indeed true, in general, that men pray in a wrong way, and in vain, unless they begin by seeking the forgiveness of their sins.
"David here acknowledges, in explicit terms, that he cannot in any other way become a partaker of the grace of God than by having his sins blotted out."
While this may be true for David, it is my belief that, as believers in Christ, our sins have already been forgiven. However, there still seems to be some necessity to reconcile to God after succumbing to temptation. Not so much for forgiveness as for restoration. Confession=aggreement.
(Commentary from Heart Aflame: Daily Readings from Calvin on the Psalms)
Revelation 21:1-11
This passage begins the end. Revelation 21-22 are "the end of the book." I, along with, I'm sure, many other Christians, get great comfort from the vision presented to John in these final two chapters of Revelation.
There are two parts of this that stand out to me. The first is in verses 3-5. Look! Look! God has moved into the neighborhood, making his home with men and women! They're his people, he's their God. He'll wipe every tear from their eyes. Death is gone for good�tears gone, crying gone, pain gone�all the first order of things gone.
What a beautiful promise! Death gone! Tears gone! Crying gone! Pain gone! God will make his home right in the midst of us, his people!
The second part is in verses 6-8. It's happened. I'm A to Z. I'm the Beginning, I'm the Conclusion. From Water-of-Life Well I give freely to the thirsty. Conquerors inherit all this. I'll be God to them, they'll be sons and daughters to me.
Yes. I'm so very thirsty. I can't wait to drink from that Well!
It's really hard, sometimes, to believe that this will all be reality someday. The hardest thing for me to believe (not discussed in this passage, specifically) is that I won't have temptation any more. There will never again be any desire within me to do something that I shouldn't be doing! Is it surprising that I confess desire to sin? Why else would temptation have any power over us?? If we never had the desire, temptation would be completely powerless. And when we reach the completion of our journey, as described here in Revelation 21, we will have our "glorified" bodies. We will finally be perfected, and that desire will be gone forever.
My feeble little brain cannot fathom that. But I look forward to it. Amen!
Today was the last devotion with Scripture reading in this book. Tomorrow will be the last "God Encounters" session, and then the last day will kind of be a recap of the entire experience. I'm still not sure how I'm going to proceed after this book is finished. I will probably just begin reading through the Bible again, trying to employ the method of reading that I have begun to learn through this devotion and also through Peterson's and Foster's books on "Lectio Divina."
Grace and peace, friends!