Mark 1:40-42 (NASB)
40 And a leper *came to Jesus, beseeching Him and falling on his knees before Him, and saying, “If You are willing, You can make me clean.”
41 Moved with compassion, Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him, and *said to him, “I am willing; be cleansed.”
42 Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cleansed.

It is very difficult to describe how out of character it was for Jesus as a Jew to touch an unclean person. Jewish law was especially strict with regard to how lepers were to be treated. They were to be kept completely separate. In fact the word quarantine comes from the Jewish practice, which was not something that was done in other parts of the world. It was a slow death, with no treatment available. Depending on the type of leprosy, the person infected could expect to live anywhere from 9 to 30 years, all of it in isolation, cut off from the rest of society and in constant pain. Rabbis would throw stones at them and run away if a leper came within visible distance.

The news of the compassion of Jesus must have touched the heart of the leper in Mark 1. He saw something different about Jesus. And so, he took the extraordinary step and approached Jesus with a prayer asking for healing. And Jesus responded as only the Son of God could do. He reached out and touched the leper and healed him.

As I read this passage today, it made me realize that I am that leper. Only Jesus can heal me. Only Jesus can save me. For I am as unclean as that leper. And yet He touched me.

Father, Jesus is the only path to salvation and I praise You for sending Him to save a sinner like me. I thank you that my heart that was unclean is now alive through the mercy and grace that You provided when You touch it. I pray that Your gospel will spread throughout the world and cleanse it from the disease of sin. Amen.

Always praying for the glory of God,

Luke 6:41 (NASB)
41 Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?

Matthew 5:44-48 (NASB)
44 But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?
47 If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?
48 Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

The line separating the belief that someone is evil and simply disagreeing with them about a topic seems to be growing ever smaller. With the availability of 24 hour news and social media, we seem to be turning our differences of opinion into positions of good versus evil. For when we do that, the other side can be condemned because of their evil nature and we can be justified because of our righteous beliefs. I guess that makes us feel good. But lately, I’ve been convicted by God that it doesn’t bring Him any glory.

Don’t get me wrong, there is true evil in the world. There is right and wrong. But when we extend that to positions of opinion, there is no path to loving our neighbors as ourselves. It also creates the self-righteousness and pride in ourselves that is the primary sin that I battle.

So how do we combat this ever escalating noise in our society? Jesus has the answer.

• Look at the sin in our life before we look for evil in others. If I do just that, there won’t be time left to look for their sin.
• Make the primary source of our knowledge the word of God rather than the views of others. Feeding on the truth of God is always better than alternate sources.
• Pray for those that we disagree with. We might find that they really aren’t our enemy.
• Then, when we are actually faced with true evil, we will be prepared to do battle.

Father, forgive me for my pride of life and self-righteous attitudes. Help me to love others even when their views don’t coincide with mine. Keep me alert to the true evil in this world. I pray that the Holy Spirit would expose my sin and bring about true repentance in my heart. Amen.

Always praying for the glory of God,

Acts 1:7-8 (NASB)
7 He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority;
8 but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.”

It must have been quite confusing to the disciples as Jesus speaks the last words of instruction to them just before He ascended into heaven. They had followed Him thinking He would overthrow the Roman Empire, but instead He was crucified. Then, amazing as it might seem, He returned to them just as He predicted in three days. Jesus was back again in their midst. But then, just as suddenly, He was gone once again. They must have been full of questions about when, where, how all of this was going to turn out. Jesus, in His last words tells them that this is not something that they are to know. The future is all under the authority of the Father.

But He tells them something quite wonderful. The helper He had described to them would come in a few days and would fill them with its power! They would be His witnesses throughout the earth. They were to share the Good News. And they did.

Heavenly Father, blessings and honor and glory to You, my King. I pray for your Holy Spirit to fill the chambers of my heart each and every day. I don’t need to know the when or the where, but only that I will be your witness of the Good News that Jesus brought to all. It is in His matchless name that I pray. Amen.

Always praying for the glory of God,

Psalm 146:1-6 (NASB)
1 Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord, O my soul!
2 I will praise the Lord while I live; I will sing praises to my God while I have my being.
3 Do not trust in princes, In mortal man, in whom there is no salvation.
4 His spirit departs, he returns to the earth; In that very day his thoughts perish.
5 How blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, Whose hope is in the Lord his God,
6 Who made heaven and earth, The sea and all that is in them; Who keeps faith forever;

The modern agnostic scoffs at the idea of faith in God. They rely on science to tell them about the reality of our existence. In the book, “Assurance of Immortality” by Harry Emerson Fosdick, the author challenges that even science requires faith. In it he writes:

“The fundamental assumption of all science is that the universe is truly a universe, consistent in its regularity of procedure, not erratic and whimsical, but uniform, dependable and law abiding. Without this faith, which never has been and never can be fully demonstrated, science would be impossible. Huxley (author is referring to Thomas Henry Huxley, 1825-1895, biologist and advocate of Charles Darwin) calls himself an agnostic with reference to God’s being and character, but in regard to the consistency and regularity of the universe he could not be agnostic and still be a scientist. He must make that leap of faith, and he makes it with gladness and confidence.”

The psalmist demonstrates faith in God. It is a faith born out of the general and special revelation of God. It is a faith gifted to us by God.

Hebrews 11:1-2 (NASB)
1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
2 For by it the men of old gained approval.

Heavenly Father, praises to You for your gift of faith. Thank you that your gift gives us assurance of You; that we are convicted that You are our God and that we are Your children. In faith, I pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Always praying for the glory of God,

Hebrews 2:16 (NASB)
16 For assuredly He does not give help to angels, but He gives help to the descendant of Abraham.

We are told in scripture that man was not the first to rebel against God. The first rebellion was in heaven when angels, out of pride, turned away from God. God, in His infinite wisdom permitted this evil, so that He might bring forth good. So, it was with the second rebellion. Evil was allowed, so that God would bring forth the salvation of those He called.

The author of Hebrews tells us that there is no help for the fallen angels. They are doomed to eternal hell. And yet, God’s mercy and grace has been extended to us. It isn’t because we are more deserving than others, that we are more religious, or that we read our Bibles more. It is only that He chose us of His own free will. The angels are given no second chance. Knowing that, makes this gift to us even more precious. It makes me love Jesus even more.

Heavenly Father, I sing praises to You for your gift of salvation. I praise You that Christ has visited my soul and given life to my heart of stone. You have extended this mercy to me, a sinner. There is no good in me, except what You provide by Your Holy Spirit. All righteousness comes from Christ Jesus. I will praise You throughout eternity. Amen.

Always praying for the glory of God,

John 14.1 (NASB)
1 “Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me.”
Jesus had just told the disciples in John 13 all the things that were going to happen to Him and they were understandably a mess. They were confused, they didn’t understand, and their whole world was turning out much differently than what they expected from their Savior.

Then, as described by Robert Murray M’Cheyne, “Surely such words of confiding tenderness were never whispered in this cold world before…”, Jesus told them to not let their hearts be troubled. Important words to remember when our world is turned upside down. When our envisioned future turns out to be different than what we thought it would be.

Heavenly Father, I thank Jesus that when valleys present themselves in our lives, we can depend on You. When we are a mess, You are there to protect, to comfort and love us. Your mercy always abounds when we need it the most. You are the truth, the life, and the way. I pray that Your words would take away the times of our troubled hearts and that we would trust in You always and completely. Amen.

Always praying for the glory of God,

Hebrews 5:7 (NLT)
7 While Jesus was here on earth, he offered prayers and pleadings, with a loud cry and tears, to the one who could rescue him from death. And God heard his prayers because of his deep reverence for God.

You sometimes hear that people reject praying out loud in a group setting because of what Jesus said of the Pharisees, telling them that because of how they prayed in public, they had already received their reward on earth. And yet, we see in Hebrews, Jesus offered prayers out loud, even emotional prayers of pleading and tears.

So we see that it isn’t so much how the prayer is offered (out loud or silently), but the heart behind it that is important.

Heavenly Father, I pray that my words to You would be true and from the heart.  Don’t let me sugar coat my feelings, my longings and my thoughts.  May I give you an accurate reflection of my heart.  And may Your Holy Spirit use that honesty to change my heart, so that it only wants to please You as only Jesus could.  I pray this in Jesus name.  Amen.

Always praying for the glory of God,

I ran across a quote from a 19th Century Catholic priest who said, “Pray as you can, not as you can’t”. It reminded me of a couple of things.

First, because prayer is one of the things that God uses to change us, we can’t wait until we’ve got it right to pray. I listen to prayer warriors who can bring me to tears with their wonderful prayers and once thought that I couldn’t pray until I was able to do like that. However, God’s grace is absolutely sufficient to cover us in prayer. We can be sure that in this world, we will never be able to master prayer.

Second, we can’t wait until our motives are right, or we would never pray. We are a tangled mass of motives, both good and bad. It is much like children coming to their father with crazy requests. Fathers want to hear from their children, even if we don’t make sense all the time. Fathers are simply happy that their children come, mixed motives and all.

I can remember thinking that God wouldn’t want to hear from me because I might say something that had the wrong motive and because He is God, He would know it.

The prayers in scripture are mostly simple prayers – heartfelt and earnest, exposing deep desires. It is only when we do pray simply that God can begin to work in us. He wants to hear about our day, the things that encouraged us, the problems that hurt us, the family member that is lost, the disappointments that we feel, the longings to be closer to Him. C.S. Lewis once said, “lay before Him what is in us, not what ought to be in us.” Simple prayers should be genuine prayers – telling God like it is. Then as we listen to Him, he can comfort, counsel, encourage, and grow us.

As I learn each day how to communicate with the Father, I am encouraged by the faithfulness of those like you that simply want to share their hearts with God.

Always praying for the glory of God,

Science declares that nature abhors a vacuum. It should be happy knowledge to us, then, that the same principle is true in the kingdom of God-when you empty yourself, God Almighty rushes in!
A.W. Tozer Sermon: Pour Yourself Out

Philippians 2:5-7 (NASB)
5 Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus,
6 who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,
7 but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.

If I start thinking that I know God because I read scripture and what He has revealed to us, I must remind myself that I am only getting a shadow of Him. If I hunger and thirst for His righteousness and I try to absorb it by myself, it turns into pride and self-righteousness. If I mourn my sin and then try to deal with it myself, I somehow end up clinging to the sin instead. If I want to grow in holiness, I can only do that by emptying myself of myself and let Him in. That’s the only way I can catch a glimpse of the glorious, almighty, loving, and living God.

Heavenly Father, empty me of myself. Give me a glimpse of You by changing me into the likeness of Your Son. Jesus is the only one that can do that. I must step aside and let You in. I pray this all in the perfect name of Jesus. Amen.

Always praying for the glory of God,