Author: Lisa Groen
Lord, you are building the believers together into a holy temple in the Lord. When we were saved, we were given the new language of worship. Before we were saved our language was pointing to the things of the world because our attention was on the things of the world. But in Christ we were given a new language because our attention should be upon Christ. God leads our worship. And God our Father is growing us now as part of his worshipping family. We worship God more than with our songs and music, but with our lives, our plans, our decisions and actions, and thoughts. Listen to the passage in Ephesians 2:18-22. It reads “for through Him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father. 19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, 20 having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, 21in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, 22 in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.” As I read this, I am reminded today that “Unless the Lord builds the house the workers labor in vain who build it.” What we try to build ourselves in our own strength will not last. The word of God lasts and what is started by God will last because His fruit will last. I want to have lasting fruit and that is your desire for your people. What fruits you chose to be lasting coming out of our lives are fruits that get their life from you Lord. Take us into the place of more fruitfulness. Lord we ask that our hearts would be pliable moldable and our mouths yours and yours alone. My prayer is Lord, show me what I don’t see about myself that is keeping me from serving you more fully—wholeheartedly. Show me if I have any hidden sins that I need to surrender. Help us to count the cost that it takes to serve you at the level you have called us to so far, and Lord please forgive us for any way we have been lagging behind the leading of your Spirit.
By nature we are worshippers. Our hearts were designed by You Lord to long for something or someone to worship. Help us Lord to not make the false assumptions that what I long for in the here and now is as good or better than the goal Paul speaks of to lay hold of that which Christ calls me heavenward Phi 3:14. Lord, may we pursue as our goal the prize promised by God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus. Help us not to worship the goal of something that is just spiritual looking activity. Help us to have the substance of the fruits of Christ in our devotional time toward you Lord. We truly have relationship with you Lord as we put our faith in you and you change our hearts. Because of your life in us, we know you are bringing forth fruits from the life of your Spirit. We worship You Lord, the Living God, and though this living relationship we are doing something other than worshiping the “practice” of worship. We sense and believe in Your Lordship and in the community you create through our worship time in our churches Oh Lord, and we believe you have given us a family of love—our Christian brothers and sisters. We find we are being built by you, built together by your spirit, and we have more than just “awesome friends”—we have a family born from above by your love Lord! We worship You Lord and are drawing closer to you in that worship. We are living for you, not just seeking to have “great ministries” or even having some spiritual mileage under our belts. We think, taste, see, and in many ways experience Lord that you are alive and well and real and able to communicate with us and somehow satisfy something within us as we worship you! We are not trying to show that we “know our way around the mountain” so to speak spiritually because it is only by your amazing grace that we can see anything at all in your spiritual truth and among our relationship with you and with our spiritual family members! Lord, may we not lean toward presumptions about our fitness to be ministers, because it is by your grace alone that we are saved, and not of ourselves. Free us from clouding our own vision with egocentrism, and self-sufficiency, and secondly may we never hold back from you how you would have us to surrender to the very work we trust is being done “by your Spirit” Oh God! To be built together by your Spirit into a holy temple in the Lord with fruit that will last!
Keep growing in the Word! LG
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