Prayers of My Heart

I see it in his eyes. They are kind. His eyes say it all. His eyes tell me what’s in his heart. My husband, Keith, looks at me with kind eyes. My response? I feel the most tender of love for him.

The eyes tell us what fills the heart. And, so we wonder. What fills Jesus’s eyes?  What if you were in His presence and He looked deeply into your eyes. What if you couldn’t take your eyes away from His. What would you see in His eyes for you? You’d see kindness beyond anything you’d experienced. The kindness that causes you to love Him with every fiber of your being.  So, the apostle asks in Romans 2:4, “Or do you think lightly of the riches of His KINDNESS and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the KINDNESS of God leads you to repentance?”  What a question! Do we?  Do we think lightly of God’s KINDNESS and tolerance and patience toward us? In other words, are we going about our day hardly looking Christ’s way? When He convicts us of sin, do we look in Jesus’s eyes and sincerely apologize to Him? Do we pause during the day and look into His eyes and say thank you for the little gifts of life? Look in Jesus’s eyes today. Think deeply of the riches of His kindness.

Dear Savior, You are so kind and loving, and patient. Forgive me for sinning against You and one another.  Help me look deeply into Your eyes and reflect on Your kindness to others. 

Record Christ’s attribute, KIND, in Prayers of My Heart. Click to ORDER. 

Holding my finger to the gate opener, I edged toward the closed gate. Would it open this time, I wondered? It didn’t. Putting my car in reverse, I backed up and approached the gate a second time. Again, it failed to open. Determined, I gave it the ole “third time is the charm” approach. It worked! Have you been attempting to get through a closed door yet failing? Why not try a different approach? Psalm 145:18 tells us God is near to all who call on Him in truth. Have you called on your Heavenly Father and asked Him how to approach a closed door? Call on God. His door is always open. Then, listen to how He directs you. Act on God’s instruction. Journal God’s answers to your prayers and your praises in Prayers of My Heart, a journal designed with you in mind. 

The word “but” is an important word and has significance. In 1 Corinthians 11:1, the apostle Paul encourages believers to imitate him. However he is quick to follow his statement in 1 Corinthians 11:3 saying, “But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man,….”  In other words, Paul explains that he only tells us to imitate him because he is imitating Christ, who is the HEAD OF EVERY MAN. Christ is the One we are to follow. Isn’t it wonderful that we have Christ as our HEAD and He shows us and tells us how to live? Now to Paul’s point, to what degree do we imitate Christ in our daily lives?  I’m reminded of Peter’s words that we have the Divine Nature (2 Peter 1:4) once we become Christians. Are we living by Christ’s Divine Nature? Are we known to those closest to us as being like Christ because we imitate Christ and follow His lead? Ephesians 5 begins, “Be imitators of God…” I just reread the chapter and recorded in my journal ways I want to be mindful of imitating Christ and following His headship. Here’s a snapshot. (Sorry about the poor handwriting. I had Prayers of My Heart on my lap.) What about you? Would you want to also open Ephesians 5 and make your own list of ways you might better follow Christ, your Head? 

Lord Jesus, HEAD OF EVERY MAN, convict us of ways we need to better submit to Your headship and imitate You. Fill us with Your Spirit so we live by Your divine nature and bring glory to You. 

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Did you know there are health perks to having a pet? But what if your idea of a pet is a pet rock? Are there other ways to become healthier? Yes! Studies show that people who keep a journal of their prayers experience health benefits such as less anxiety and more positive moods. They also tolerated pain better. And, for those who are married, findings show that when people pray for the well-being of their spouse when they feel a negative emotion, both spouses—the one praying and the one being prayed for—report greater relationship satisfaction. Journaling our prayers increase our awareness of God’s faithfulness and therefore increases our peace. So, sure, take your pet for a walk, but also walk prayerfully with God. Prayers of My Heart journal will get you started.

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Peace between people. Is it a dream? Is it a far-fetched wish? Is it an impossibility? It seems to be. Why? Because although we aren’t perfect, we expect others be perfect. Now, think about something with me. What if that’s how Jesus related to us? What if the Father, Son, and Spirit demanded our perfection 24/7? What if when we didn’t live up to their expectations, we were out the door, banned forever, with no path of reconciliation? I hope and pray that each of us can in at the least the tiniest of ways have a deep appreciation that God treats us differently than some people treat one another. In fact, not only does our Lord not hold our sins over our heads, it’s important to Him that we live free of condemnation. Remember when the Jews were itching to stone a woman caught in adultery? They had the rocks in their hands. Their self-righteous arms were wound for throw. But when Jesus confronted them, when He invited the one who was sin free to use his rock to pellet her, the self-righteous slunk away. What did the Lord of Lords then do? If you said, pellet her with rocks because she was guilty and deserving of punishment, you’re right and you’re wrong. You’re correct in saying she was deserving of death according to the Law. You are incorrect, however about Jesus’s response. He told her He didn’t condemn her and for her to go and sin no more. Jesus wants the same for us. He is our Advocate, as 1 John 2:1 explains,

My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.

There it is.  The Bible is our guide on how not to sin and hopefully, we’re asking Jesus to help us walk in His steps. When we have mis-steps, which we will, what a blessing that we have the full assurance Jesus is our Advocate just as He was for the adulterous woman. Only when we arrive in heaven will we fully appreciate the magnitude of Jesus winning our court case by taking our guilt on Himself.  

Lord Jesus, thank You for being our Advocate. Help us be mindful of Your Word. Help us walk according to it.

Your character trait of God to record in Prayers of My Heart and for which to praise Him: Advocate.

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One day while writing, I wondered in anticipation what words the Lord would give to me next. How ready are you for God to work in your life? What are you doing that shows your readiness and your anticipation? Knowing that God sees us and responds to our drawing near to Him should encourage us to live anticipatory lives. We anticipate Christmas. We anticipate Easter. Why not anticipate God? I believe the disciples lived anticipatory lives. They had seen Jesus do miracles so why should He not continue them? If you want to live a more anticipatory life where you see God working, begin recording the daily praise from my email devotional, “365 Days of Praise” in Prayers of My Heart.  Ask God to make His character more real to you. Watch for how He’s working in your life. Go through your day in anticipation of what God is going to do.

Happy New Year! By the way, who was it that decided time would be marked by years? Hmmm – have you ever thought about that and that when we celebrate a new year, we’re celebrating what our Almighty Creator established?  Yes, Genesis 1:14 states that at the creation of the world, God said,

Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years. 

“Year” and “years” are mentioned over 800 times in the Bible. The Bible records the number or years people lived, the years people were in captivity, the number of years rulers reigned, and on and on. In God’s eyes, the first day of a new year is not simply another day. It has past, present, and future value.  Consider a sampling of how God keeps note of years:

Genesis 7:11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the same day all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the floodgates of the sky were opened.

Genesis 18:14 Is anything too difficult for the LORD? At the appointed time I will return to you, at this time next year, and Sarah will have a son.”

Leviticus 27:24 ‘In the year of jubilee the field shall return to the one from whom he bought it,

Numbers 10:11 Now in the second year, in the second month, on the twentieth of the month, the cloud was lifted from over the tabernacle of the testimony

2 Kings 25:27 Now it came about in the thirty-seventh year of the exile of Jehoiachin king of Judah

1 Samuel 27:7 The number of days that David lived in the country of thePhilistines was a year and four months.

Isaiah 6:1 In the year of King Uzziah’s death I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, …with the train of His robe filling the temple.

Years have significance to our Heavenly Father. He ordains events for certain years. He marks them. He takes note of them and uses people who are sensitive to His call. Rather than letting today come and go with perhaps some passing thoughts about resolutions, let’s pray to our Heavenly Father with anticipation about what He has in store for this year and how we can be a part of what He is accomplishing.

Heavenly Father, how exciting that You, Creator God, set years, months, and days in which to accomplish Your will. Use us! Let us be a part of the unfolding of Your eternal plan.  

Prayers of My Heart

Do you ever wonder who you can believe? One person says one thing and another claims the opposite. Yes, it can sometimes be difficult to know who to believe, but not in the case of Jesus’s words.  Revelation 1:5 describes Jesus Christ as “the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To Him who loves us and released us from our sins by His blood-” Jesus is a faithful witness. A witness of what? He witnessed to us about heaven, His Father, about angels, crowns of righteousness awaiting believers, resurrection bodies, thrones, powers, kingdoms, the judgment seat, forgiveness, redemption, His Father’s house, and about Satan. Jesus testified about the fact that Abraham, Noah, Moses, and Jonah were real people and the Old Testament is true. Our confidence in the Bible and its teachings solidly rests on Christ because He is a faithful witness to us that they are true.

Lord Jesus, we praise You, the faithful WITNESS! Thank You for the confidence we have in the Bible and You because of Your word.

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