When I Need A New Attitude #3
Dear God, I pray You would give me a cheerful heart that is reflected in my face, especially when other people see me. Please keep me far from having a heart of sorrow or a broken spirit. Where my heart has been broken in the past, I pray that You would heal it completely. I want to live in Your joy of heart and the wholeness of spirit You have for me. Help me make choices each day to maintain the positive, uplifting, and hopeful attitude I need to have in order to glorify You and see Your will done in my life.
A merry heart makes a cheerful countenance, but by sorrow of the heart the spirit is broken. - Proverbs 15:13
When I Need A New Attitude #2
Dear Lord, I pray that You will help me to not grow weary in well doing. Keep me from giving up when times of discouragement happen and it seems as if doing the right thing isn’t working. Help me to continue on in what I know of You and Your ways and not take matters into my own hands and try to do things my way. Help me to refuse to be discouraged, for I know by faith that there will be a reaping of good things because I have sowed good seed.
Let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. - Galatians 6:8
When I Need Greater Faith #2
Lord, I pray You would take away all fear of failure from me. Take away any plaguing doubt that says I can never be good enough to do things right. When I hear the voice of the enemy telling me that what You have made me to be is not enough, help me to resist him with Your truth. Take away any nagging doubts and fears I have that I will eventually do something terribly wrong and suffer because of it. Help me to rely on You in greater faith and not be tossed up and down like a ship in a storm. Thank You that You are my anchor on all kinds of weather.
Let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. - James 1:6
When I Need A New Attitude #1
Dear God, I thank You that You make all things new. Thank You that there will be a time when You will make everything so new that there will be no more crying or sorrow, no more pain or death. I pray that today You will make me and my attitude new. Help me to get rid of any mind-set that would keep me from becoming more like You and receiving the blessings You have for me. If I have a negative attitude about anything, help me to throw it off and put on a positive new one. Make me more and more into the image of Christ.
God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away. Then He who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” - Revelation 21:4-5
When I Need Greater Faith #1
Lord, I ask that You would give me greater faith. Help me to trust You for the things I can’t see. Help me to believe You for the things I hope for. I thank You in advance for hearing and answering my prayers, even though I may not see those answers manifest for some time. Help me to not lose hope when the answer to my prayers is delayed. Help me to grow ever stronger in faith as I wait on You. Thank You for my healing and wholeness that is yet to come.
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. - Hebrews 11:1
First let Him treasure you.
Jed Brewer replied:
Thanks for your question. It’s a good one, and, you know, when I was growing up in church, I thought the exact same thing.
Here’s the verse we’re talking about:
“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.” (Matthew 13:44, NIV)
So, is this a story about how God feels about us? Or, is it a story about how we feel about God? The answer is that it’s both. The story is about both of those things. But one of them comes first, and the order is critically important.
The Bible says, “We love because He first loved us.” (1 John 4:19) This Christian life does not begin with us beholding God, deciding He’s important, and trying to be made right with him. Nope. This Christian life begins with us as sinners, separated from God, and helpless to do anything about it, and a God who “demonstrates his own love us in this: while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)
See, God saw you, and, when everybody else saw an empty field, a vacant lot, filled with overgrown weeds, broken beer bottles, and discarded trash, God saw something else. He saw someone He loved, a lost child that he would adopt and make his own, and that makes you a treasure he would – and did – give up anything and everything to have.
God found you, saw you, desired you, and paid the cost to have you. That’s what this story is about.
But, see, when we receive God’s love for us – when it seeps into the deep places in our hearts – a funny thing happens. We begin to love God in return. And we begin to realize that, compared to God’s love for us, nothing else matters all that much.
Here’s what Paul said:
“Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ.” (Philippians 3:8, NLT)
When I was younger, I read verses like that one from Philippians, and thought that was the way I was supposed to feel. And then I would feel guilty, because I didn’t feel that way. And if that’s something you’ve experienced, I’m sorry.
But, see, what Paul is describing here is a love for God that only comes out of knowing how desperately God loves him. Paul had experienced God’s love in a way that had changed him to his very core. That’s why he knew it was a treasure.
Each of us have to experience that Love for ourselves. We cannot – and should not – try to skip ahead to just thinking God’s super duper amazing without having our own personal experience of God’s love. And when we do have our own, personal experience of God’s love, we realize that we don’t need to manufacture anything. Love overflows. That’s it’s nature. God’s love in our hearts bubbles up inside of us until we can’t contain it, and we just have to love God in return, and the people around us.
The truth, Liz, is that you are God’s treasure. And the only way for you to truly treasure God is to first let him treasure you.
(Source: jedbrewer)
