Prayer
Thank You Lord for the many ways You use other people to counsel me and help me grow… and yet that Christ Himself is the answer to my hang-ups, the one source who can meet my deepest needs. How I rejoice that He is wonderful in counsel and mighty in power, and that He heals from the inside out.
Bible Verses
Philipians 1:3
Every time I think of you, I give thanks to my God.
Father, I celebrate the fact that I have been crucified with Christ, and that now I am alive with Hs life… that through my new birth I died out of my old life, and that You resurrected me to a living relationship with You… and so I am dead to sin and alive to You!
Bible Verses
Galatians 2:20
I myself no longer live, but Christ lives in me. So I live my life in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
Galatians 6:14
As for me, God forbid that I should boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of that cross, my interest in this world died a long time ago, and the world’s interest in me is also long dead.
Prayer
Holy Spirit I thank You that You are within me, to strengthen me with power in my inner person… to make Christ real within me and flood my heart with His limitless love… to fill me with Your fullness… to enable me to know in personal experience the things You have so freely bestowed on me in Christ.
Bible Verses
Romans 8:9-10
God saved you by His special favor when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this, it is a gift from God. 9Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.
Ephesians 3:16-19
I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will give you mighty inner strength through His Holy Spirit. 17And I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts as you trust in Him. May your roots go down deep into the soil of God’s marvelous love. 18And may you have the power to understand how deep his love really is. 19May you experience the love of Christ, though it is so great you will never fully understand it. Then you will be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God.
Prayer
I greatly rejoice in You, Lord; my soul exalts in You; for You have clothed me with the garments of salvation,
You have wrapped me with a robe of righteousness and beauty, as a bridegroom dressed for his wedding, as a bride adorned with her jewels. What amazing grace! How wonderful that You ask me to do absolutely nothing to earn Your forgiveness.
Bible Verses
Isaiah 61:10
I am overwhelmed with joy in the Lord, my God! For He has dressed me with the clothing of salvation and draped me in a robe of righteousness. I am like a bridegroom in a wedding suit or a bride with her jewels.
Ephesians 2:8-9
God saved you by His special favor when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this, it is a gift from God. 9Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.
Prayer
I praise You God, that the things that happened in my past, both enjoyable and painful, are raw materials for blessings, both in my life and in the lives of others. I choose to look beyond my past and present troubles in this temporary life – and fix my eyes on the unseen things that will last forever. I praise You for the eternal glory these things are piling up for me as I choose to trust You.
Bible Verses
1 Thessalonians 5:18
No matter what happens, always be thankful, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.
Prayer
My gracious and sovereign God, thank You that You have been with me and carried me from the day of my birth until today. May You bless and use me, as You allow me to go through trials that many people go through in this fallen world. How encouraged I am to think that You are working all these things out for blessing!
Bible Verses
Psalm 139:16
You saw me before I was born. Everyday of my life was recorded in Your book.
1Peter 5:9
Take a firm stand against him (devil) and be strong in your faith. Remember that your Christian brothers and sisters all over the world are going through the same kind of suffering you are.
Genesis 37
1Jacob settled in the land where his father had stayed, the land of Canaan. 2This is his family history. When Joseph was seventeen years old, he was tending the flocks with his brothers; he was an assistant to the sons of his father's wives Bilhah and Zilpah, and he brought his father bad reports about them. 3Israel loved Joseph best of all his sons, for he was the child of his old age; and he had made him a long tunic. 4When his brothers saw that their father loved him best of all his sons, they hated him so much that they would not even greet him.
5Once Joseph had a dream, which he told to his brothers: 6"Listen to this dream I had. 7There we were, binding sheaves in the field, when suddenly my sheaf rose to an upright position, and your sheaves formed a ring around my sheaf and bowed down to it."
8"Are you really going to make yourself king over us?" his brothers asked him. "Or impose your rule on us?" So they hated him all the more because of his talk about his dreams.
9Then he had another dream, and this one, too, he told to his brothers. "I had another dream," he said; "this time, the sun and the moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me."
10When he also told it to his father, his father reproved him. "What is the meaning of this dream of yours?" he asked. "Can it be that I and your mother and your brothers are to come and bow to the ground before you?" 11So his brothers were wrought up against him but his father pondered the matter.
12One day, when his brothers had gone to pasture their father's flocks at Shechem, 13Israel said to Joseph, "Your brothers, you know, are tending our flocks at Shechem. Get ready; I will send you to them." "I am ready," Joseph answered.
14"Go then," he replied; "see if all is well with your brothers and the flocks, and bring back word." So he sent him off from the valley of Hebron. When Joseph reached Shechem,
15a man met him as he was wandering about in the fields. "What are you looking for?" the man asked him.
16"I am looking for my brothers," he answered. "Could you please tell me where they are tending the flocks?"
17The man told him, "They have moved on from here; in fact, I heard them say, 'Let us go on to Dothan.'" So Joseph went after his brothers and caught up with them in Dothan.
Joseph Sold into Slavery
18They noticed him from a distance, and before he came up to them, they plotted to kill him. 19They said to one another: "Here comes that master dreamer! 20Come on, let us kill him and throw him into one of the cisterns here; we could say that a wild beast devoured him. We shall then see what comes of his dreams."
21When Reuben heard this, he tried to save him from their hands, saying: "We must not take his life. 22Instead of shedding blood," he continued, "just throw him into that cistern there in the desert; but don't kill him outright." His purpose was to rescue him from their hands and restore him to his father.
23So when Joseph came up to them, they stripped him of the long tunic he had on; 24then they took him and threw him into the cistern, which was empty and dry. 25They then sat down to their meal. Looking up, they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, their camels laden with gum, balm and resin to be taken down to Egypt.
26Judah said to his brothers: "What is to be gained by killing our brother and concealing his blood? 27Rather, let us sell him to these Ishmaelites, instead of doing away with him ourselves. After all, he is our brother, our own flesh." His brothers agreed. 28They sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver. Some Midianite traders passed by, and they pulled Joseph up out of the cistern and took him to Egypt.
29When Reuben went back to the cistern and saw that Joseph was not in it, he tore his clothes, 30and returning to his brothers, he exclaimed: "The boy is gone! And I--where can I turn?"
31They took Joseph's tunic, and after slaughtering a goat, dipped the tunic in its blood. 32Then they sent someone to bring the long tunic to their father, with the message: "We found this. See whether it is your son's tunic or not."
33He recognized it and exclaimed: "My son's tunic! A wild beast has devoured him! Joseph has been torn to pieces!" 34Then Jacob rent his clothes, put sackcloth on his loins, and mourned his son many days. 35Though his sons and daughters tried to console him, he refused all consolation, saying, "No, I will go down mourning to my son in the nether world." Thus did his father lament him.
36The Midianites, meanwhile, sold Joseph in Egypt to Potiphar, a courtier of Pharaoh and his chief steward.
Prayer
Lord God, I choose to thank You for my weaknesses, my infirmities, my inadequacies (physical, mental, emotional, relational)… for the ways I fall short of what people view as ideal… for my feelings of helplessness and inferiority, and even my pain and distresses. Your grace is sufficient for me, for Your strength is made perfect in my weakness.
Bible Verses
Hebrews 4:15
This High Priest (Jesus) of ours understan
ds our weaknesses, for He faced all of the same temptations we do, yet he did not sin.
2Corinthians 12:7-10
7 even though I have received wonderful revelations from God. But to keep me from being puffed up, I was given a thorn in the flesh, a messenger from Satan to torment me and keep me from getting proud. 8Three different times I beg the Lord to take it away.
9Each time He said, “My gracious power is all you need. My power works best in your weakness”
. So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may work through me. 10Since I know it is all for Christ’s good, I am quite content with my weaknesses and with insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
