A simple praise

I had a good week but a tiring week. Work is good as always but running around with kindergarteners gets tiring. And the emotional toll of the Hurricane Sandy has been pretty rough. Also, church brethren and some co-workers are going through some rough medical issues. Seems there is a lot to pray for each other, people are having a difficult time all around.

I am enjoying reading Jeremiah. I am up to chapter 6. It is the chapter where Jeremiah rails against the false prophets who say "peace, peace, when there is no peace." (Jer 6:14). That really resonates with me. So many "pastors" today are saying 'peace' and treating the wound lightly when what we need is a tourniquet.

Anyway, I was praying in the car this morning out loud, you know, just talking to the Lord, and the prayer below is kind of what I said. I can't reconstruct exactly what I prayed. When I'm alone it always comes out so perfectly, just rolling off the tongue but really coming from the soul. My sense of gratitude to the Lord has not diminished after almost 9 years. I can't believe that in just a few weeks it will have been 9 years since the dramatic moment when He came into my life and justified me, saving me from His well-deserved wrath. I hope that sense of gratitude never, ever fades. Because what He did for me will never fade. I am His trophy of grace.

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Thank you Lord for saving me. Thank you for justifying me although I don’t deserve it. I spent many decades in rebellion. I was clever in my sin. I was intelligent in my revolution. I was in a cesspool but I did not know it.

You looked at me and saw beyond that. You lifted me out of a sewer of my own making, and you cleaned me off with Your very Self. You loved me and forgave me. Then you installed me at Your table.

I am a trophy of your grace. How can I ever thank you? I cannot, except to honor your Name with my own life. Please, Holy Spirit convict me to only think or say or do things that will please and honor the Lord. Sin, once my deadly friend, is now my eternal enemy. Spirit, make me hate sin all the more, for to entertain it is a blight against the Holy Lord.

How can I do more for you? I can speak the truth to a dying and hostile world. The bible tells us the world will hate us, but You have overcome the world. Let me not say 'peace peace when there is no peace'. Let me say "war! war! against sin", 'fight, fight against the enemy'. 'Repent, repent of our sins!' Your Day is coming. It will be a day of wrath and terror. But then ... love. Love and peace forever and we will study war no more.

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"Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and earth is yours. Yours, O LORD, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all." (1 Chronicles 29:11)

"Therefore I will praise you among the nations, O LORD; I will sing praises to your name." (Psalms 18:49)

"Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;" (Ephesians 5:20)

"And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers." (1 Thessalonians 2:13)


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