Morning Focus: Growth in Godliness
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. - Galatians 5:22-23
• Pray through Galatians 5:22-23 asking God to work these attributes into your life • Consider which of these areas of you need most development • Find a brother or sister that models well an attribute above where you are most weak
• Spend some time with that person to learn from them and pray with them • Jesus Christ is the perfect embodiment of each of these characteristics • Thank God that he forgives us where we fail and is committed to our growth • Have an expectant heart. He will conform you to the image of Christ
Prayer:
Spirit of the Most High, the Comforter and Sanctifier of Your chosen, come in with all Your glorious train, all Your courtly attendants—Your fruits and graces. Let me be Your habitation. I can give You but what is Your own already; but here with the widow I give my two mites, my soul and my body, into Your treasury, fully resigning them up to You, to be sanctified by You, to be servants to You. They shall be Your patients—cure their maladies. They shall be Your agents—govern You their actions. Too long have I served the world; too long have I hearkened to Satan; but now I renounce them all, and will be ruled by Your dictates and directions, and guided by Your counsel. O blessed Trinity, O glorious Unity, I deliver myself up to You. Receive me: write Your name, O Lord, upon me, and upon all that I have, as Your proper goods. Set Your mark upon me, upon every member of my body, and every faculty of my soul. I have chosen Your precepts. Your law will I lay before me; this shall be the copy which I will keep in my eye, and study to write after. According to this rule do I resolve by Your grace to walk: after this law shall my whole man be governed. And though I cannot perfectly keep one of Your commandments—yet I will allow myself in the breach of none. I know my flesh will hang back: but I resolve, in the power of Your grace, to cleave to You and Your holy ways, whatever it cost me. In Jesus name, Amen - Joseph Alleine, Piercing Heaven, Prayers of the Puritans 8
Afternoon Focus: Priority and Purpose
“But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” - Matthew 6:33
• What does it mean to seek FIRST God’s kingdom • What does it mean to seek FIRST God’s righteous? • Consider what things (other than God) have become too important in your life • Consider where and how you need to reorder your priorities to honor Matt 6:33
• Pray for an insatiable appetite to know God and make him known
Hymn: Take my life and let it be
Consecrated Lord to Thee Take my moments and my days
Let them flow in ceaseless praise
Take my hands and let them move
At the impulse of Thy love Take my feet and let them be
Swift and beautiful for Thee
Take my voice and let me sing
Always, only, for my King
Take my lips and let them be
Filled with messages for Thee
Take my silver and my gold Not a mite would I withhold Take my intellect and use Every power as Thou shalt choose
Take my will and make it Thine
It shall be no longer mine
Take my heart, it is Thine own
It shall be Thy royal throne
Take my love my Lord, I pour
At Thy feet its treasure store
Take myself and I will be
Ever only all for Thee
- Frances Ridley Havergal, 1874
Evening Focus: Devotion
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. - Mathew 22:37-38
Your hearts therefore shall be wholly devoted to the Lord our God, to walk in His statutes and to keep His commandments, as at this day. – 1 Kings 8:61
• What things are competing for supremacy in your heart other than God? • Ask God to reorder your affections so love and obedience to him are first in your heart • Ask God to help you develop (not only the hunger) but the spiritual disciple you need to seek him in this way
Prayer:
Blessed God! You are the great fountain of being and of happiness. Just as my being came from you, so my happiness flows directly from you. And the closer I am to you, the purer and more delicious the stream. With you is the fountain of life; In your light may I see light, (Psalm 36:9)! The great object of my final hope is to dwell forever with you. Give me now a foretaste of that delight. Help me to experience the blessedness of one who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in his commandments.
Warm my heart by your grace, so that I may live in the fear of the Lord all day long. I direct my thoughts to you, Lord. And with the first ray of light that visits my opening eyes, lift up the light of your countenance upon me. May my first actions when I awake be consecrated to you, O God. You are the one who gives me light, life, and a new reason to live.
Enable my heart to pour itself out before you as your child, with reverence, freedom, and endearment. And may I listen to you, as I desire that you would listen to me. May I read your word with attention and pleasure. Shape my soul into its mold, and may I hide it in my heart that I may not sin against you (Psalm 119:111). Help me to renew my dedication to you each morning, through Jesus Christ your beloved son- and from him receive new supplies of your blessed Spirit, whose influence is the life of my soul.
So let me spend my days, ending them always in the fear of God and under a sense of your gracious presence. Meet me in the evening, Lord. Help me to choose the best time for regular reading and prayer and to look at my devotion as you do. Let my prayer come before you as incense, and let the lifting up of my hands be like the morning and the evening sacrifice. May I fall asleep and sweet peace, knowing that I have lived to God this day, convinced that I am accepted in Christ Jesus my Lord, and humbly trusting in your mercy through him- whether I live many more years or not. To him be glory forever and ever! Amen.
– Phillip Doddridge, Piercing Heaven, Prayers of the Puritans