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40 Days of Prayer, Day 24

Day 24, Tuesday, September 13
To You, O LORD, I lift up my soul. O my God, in You I trust…Make me know Your ways, O LORD; teach me Your paths. Lead me in Your truth and teach me, for You are the God of my salvation…Good and upright is the LORD; Therefore, He instructs sinners in the way. He leads the humble in justice, And He teaches the humble His way. Psalm 25:1-9

The Contrite Heart: A Review
Over the last three weeks we have explored some of the attributes of those with contrite heart. 1. Those with a contrite heart are brokenhearted over their sin. They mourn their brokenness. They are devastated over their violation of God’s character and the ache over their loss of relationship with their Creator. God is a God of relationships. He has created us for the purposes of being in a relationship with Him. Those with a contrite heart feel the weight of losing the very purpose of their existence. Those with a contrite heart grieve the separation and alienation from God that their own sin yields. When a person is truly contrite they see God as infinitely holy but also as infinitely merciful. 2. A contrite person throws themselves on the mercy of God. “Be gracious to me oh God.” In contrition we see the severity of our sin but we also see the grace of God who is waiting to forgive any who will plead with Him and His merciful character. The contrite experience the loving patience of their merciful God. The contrite know that God, all on the work of His divine will, has forgiven and restored. 3. Those with a contrite heart are thankful. Gratitude flows from the hearts that are filled with the merciful forgiveness of God. Thanksgiving and worship fill the heart of the forgiven. We praise Him for He has restored our purpose for being. He has removed His justifiable anger and replaced it with unimaginable grace. 4. The contrite love God’s revelation of His infinite power and beauty through His creation. Having been forgiven and brought into a relationship with God, those with a contrite heart cling to the relationship that God has restored. We love the God of creation, seeing His glory on display in the heavens and in the creative beauty we see all around us every day. God did that for the purpose of allowing us to enjoy the world we inhabit. He also did this for the purpose of continually pointing our hearts and minds back to the One who created all of this beauty. 5. Those with a contrite heart love God’s revelation of His character and His plans through His Word. God reveals His character, plans and holy standards through the Bible. God is a God of relationships and is therefore a God of revelation. The contrite hearted love learning about the God who created them. Those with a contrite heart, having been forgiven and restored, seek to know the forgiving, gracious and merciful God. God’s mercy extends beyond forgiveness. God’s mercy is on display in His willingness to self-disclose. He has no obligation to us to reveal His nature or His plans. He has no requirement to disclose His character to sinners. But in His mercy He forgives and restores and then takes the next amazing next step by allowing us to see Him as He really is. Those with a contrite heart love God and love the Word of God for it opens our hearts and minds to see, know, experience and adore the God of our salvation. That leads us to the next feature of the heart of those who are contrite. 6. The contrite hearted is one that is humble toward God and others. We will spend the next few days exploring this aspect of those who have had their hearts broken by their own sin. When we have been broken by our own sin in light of God’s holiness, humility must flow naturally out of our restored relationship with God. “He teaches the humble His ways,” as David says in this psalm. Today, as with any day of our lives, there is a need for humility. When we see ourselves as broken and forgiven, we feel compassion for others who are also broken. We are humbled before the God who forgave, but we are also humble toward others who also need the restorative work of God. As He has done for us, we long for Him to do for others. When we see sin all around us, in arrogance, we may slide toward judgment and condemnation. But when we remember the mercy of God on our own lives, humility protects us from harboring condemnation and bitterness toward others. Those with a contrite heart are humble.

Prayer Focus
God, give me a Christ like attitude, humble like the King of Kings. You have done so much to reveal Yourself to me. You have done infinitely precious things to restore my broken heart and cover me in Your mercy. Let me meditate on Your grace. Give me humility toward others. Amen.

Matthew Road Family: Please continue to ask God to send workers into the harvest as we head into the second night of AWANA tomorrow night.

From Bunyan’s The Acceptable Sacrifice
The broken-hearted is a sorrowful man; for that he finds his depravity of nature strong in him, to the putting forth itself to oppose and overthrow what his changed mind prompts him to; 'When I would do good, ' Paul says, 'evil is present with me' (Rom 7:21). Evil is present to oppose and to resist, against the desires of my soul. The man that has his bones broken, may have a mind to be occupied in a lawful and honest calling; but he finds, by experience, that his infirmity resists his good endeavors; and at this he shakes his head, makes complaints, and with sorrow of heart he sighs and says, I 'cannot do the thing that I would' (Rom 7:15; Gal 5:17). I am weak, I am feeble; I am not only depraved, but by that depravity deprived of the ability to put good intentions and desires into execution; O says he, I am ready to quit, my sorrow is continually before me! You must know that the broken-hearted loves God, loves his soul, loves good, and hates evil. Now, for such a one to find in himself an opposition and continual contradiction to this holy passion, it must cause sorrow, godly sorrow, as the apostle Paul calls it. For such are made sorrowful after a godly sort. To be sorry for your own sin depraved nature, and that through this depravity you are deprived of ability to do what the Word and your holy mind prompts you to do, is to be sorry of a godly sort of sorrow. For this sorrow works in you in a way which will cause you to repent.

40 Days of Prayer, Day 23

A special prayer request for today for the church…We need workers for AWANA.  Please pray that the God of the harvest will send workers into the harvest.  We need another five or six individuals who can give us even just 1 hour on Wednesday evenings to help kids memorize the Scripture.  We had 130 kids for the first night of AWANA.  What an incredible responsibility to be entrusted with so many young hearts and minds.  Pray for them as we encourage them on their spiritual journey to know God through faith in Christ and to follow Him.  God bless you on this Monday morning.  In Christ, Daniel

Day 23, Monday, September 12

(NLT) “⁹ How can a young person stay pure? By obeying your word. ¹⁰I have tried hard to find you—don’t let me wander from your commands. ¹¹I have hidden your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you. ¹²I praise you, O Lord; teach me your decrees. ¹³I have recited aloud all the regulations you have given us. ¹⁴I have rejoiced in your laws as much as in riches. ¹⁵I will study your commandments and reflect on your ways.  ¹⁶I will delight in your decrees and not forget your word.”

Delighting in the Word of God

Often times children weary of the boundaries provided by parents and teachers.  As a young person, rules are often treated as a necessary evil, at best.  This is not just a youthful problem.  A call to obedience causes many of us to recoil.  It seems that the loss of freedom, the loss of the freedom to choice whatever I wish to do and whenever I wish to do it, can create a rebellious heart.  Instead of loving our parents, teachers, police and other authorities in our lives, we treat them and their rules with distain.  The same is true at times of our attitude toward God.  There is no greater authority in our lives than God Himself.  He communicates His authority through the scripture.  For many people, they instinctively reject His authority and hate both the law and Law Giver.  Not so for this psalmist.  He says, “I delight in your decrees.”  Elsewhere in Psalm 119 he says, “O how I love Your law.  It is my meditation all the day.” (Psalm 119:97) 

A half-hearted submission to the Bible will never get us the purity of life promised in this Psalm.  Reading, studying and even memorizing are good, but not enough to bring corrective changes to our behavior.  We must love God by loving His law.  When we love God and His law our attitudes change and we seek to read, study, memorize and follow what He says in His law.  A love for the Law of God is an expression of our love for God as the Law Giver.  We cannot separate the person of God from His law.  We cannot separate the character of God from His standards communicated in the Bible.  John says it this way in I John 5:2-3, “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome.”  John provides us a New Testament version of this psalm.  “I delight in your decrees.”  “Oh how I love Your law.” From Psalm 119.  “His commandments are not a burden.”  From I John.  An external observance of the law without the heart engaged is not full obedience.  Obedience transcends the external down to the attitude of the follower of the law. 

Prayer Focus

O How we love Your Word!  You have so graciously granted it to reveal Yourself to us.  You have also granted Your Word to us to protect us from temptations.  Please give me a pure heart.  Help me to submit my heart to You and Your law.  Amen.

From Bunyan’s The Acceptable Sacrifice

The broken-hearted smell what others cannot scent. Alas! sin never smelled so to any man alive as it smells to the broken-hearted. You know wounds will stink: but [there is] no stink like that of sin to the broken-hearted man. His own sins stink, and so does the sins of all the world to him. Sin has the worst of smells; however, some men like it (Psa 38:5). But none are offended with the scent thereof but God and the broken-hearted sinner. 'My wounds stink, and are corrupt, ' he says, both in God's nostrils and mine own. But, alas! who smells the stink of sin? None of the carnal world; they, like carrion-crows, seek it, love it, and eat it as the child eats bread. 'They eat up the sin of my people, ' God says, 'and they set their heart on their iniquity' (Hosea 4:8). This, I say, they do, because they do not smell the nauseous scent of sin. You know, that what is nauseous to the smell cannot be palatable to the taste. The broken-hearted man doth find that sin is nauseous, and therefore cries out it stinks. They also think at times the smell of fire, of fire and brimstone, is upon them, they are so sensible of the wages due to sin.

40 Days of Prayer, Day 22

Day 22, Sunday, September 11

(NLT) “9 How can a young person stay pure? By obeying your word. 10I have tried hard to find you—don’t let me wander from your commands. 11I have hidden your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you. 12I praise you, O LORD; teach me your decrees. 13I have recited aloud all the regulations you have given us. 14I have rejoiced in your laws as much as in riches. 15I will study your commandments and reflect on your ways. 16I will delight in your decrees and not forget your word.”

The Lamp of God’s Word
Attempting to navigate unfamiliar places in the dark is always a challenge. It’s has become a regular occurrence lately for me to get up in the middle of the night to let the dog out. Bossier is getting older and eight hours is longer than it used to be for his bladder. Not wishing to wake the rest of the house, I grab my cell phone in order to have a light in order to navigate the journey to the back door and the return journey back to my bed. Darkness paralyzes our ability to function. If we are unable to see, almost every attempt at basic living is hindered. In addition, the risk of bodily injury increases dramatically. For those with preschoolers, a walk at night through the house is incredibly dangerous as toys with sharp edges and annoying music seem to jump under the feet of every nearly comatose parent. All of this modern world inconveniences help us to understand this psalm, but in reality these minor inconveniences mute the weight of this verse when we contemplate the world of the writer of Psalm 119.

In the ancient Israel, a lamp provided life-giving resources. From the shepherd watching his herd, to the traveler attempting to arrive at the next safe city just as night falls, a lack of light in David’s day could prove deadly. One misstep could plunge the traveler to his death. No light and the surprise of a wild animal attack could prove deadly. That is the world into which this psalm was crafted, in the world where “a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path” was the difference between life and death. Applying this in the spiritual world, the psalmist reflected on the impact of the Bible. In the realm of moral purity, the Word of God functions as a light in a dark world. In a world where the culture all around us is antithetical to God’s causes, the Word of God functions as a light of truth and righteousness. There is a path that leads to life. Though it is narrow, and seemingly grows more narrow every day in our broken world, there is a way that God has given for us to travel. That pathway provides for the hearer the reality of God’s standards: proper thinking about Him along with a right understanding about our own failings, a check of the purity of our heart, a careful analysis of our motives, a scrutiny of our words and actions. We cannot trust our own thinking in determining the rightness of our path. We dare not trust our own intuition or emotions for there is no light within our own hearts and minds. We must allow God’s Word to provide for us what we cannot provide for ourselves, light.

Prayer Focus
O Lord, let Your Word be a light to my path today. I know You have provided Your Word as a guide to lead me safely through the pitfalls and challenges of this life. Lead me in the paths of truth and righteousness. Let Your Word guide my thinking and my actions. Though I cannot trust my own instincts, I can trust You. Thank You for Your love for me. Amen.

From Bunyan’s The Acceptable Sacrifice
A broken-hearted man is a sensible man; he is brought to the exercise of all the senses of his soul. All others are dead, senseless, and without true feeling of what the broken-hearted man is sensible of. He sees himself to be what others are ignorant of; that is, he sees himself to be not only a sinful man, but a man by nature in the bond of sin. “In the bond of sin” is Peter's expression to Simon in the Book of Acts, and it is a saying common to all men: for every man in a state of nature is in the bond of sin; he was conceived in it; it has also possession of, and by that possession infected the whole of his soul and body (Psa 51:5; Acts 8:23). This he sees, this he understands; every professor does not see this, because the blessing of a broken heart is not bestowed on every one. David says, 'There is no soundness in my flesh'; and Solomon suggest that a plague is in the very heart. But not everyone perceives this (Psa 38:3; 1 Kings 8:38). He says again, that his 'wounds were corrupted': that his 'sore ran, and did not cease' (Psa 38:5, 77:2). But these things the brutish man, the man whose heart was never broken, has no understanding of. But the broken-hearted, the man that has a broken spirit, he sees, as the prophet has it, he sees his sickness, he sees his wound: 'When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah saw his wound'; he sees it to his grief, he sees it to his sorrow (Hosea 5:13).