Author: Lisa Groen
Category: Christian prayer aiming for true Christian growth
Dear Heavenly Father, we come to you today seeking your face, seeking to lift up your name and to ask your will to be done. We surrender our hearts. You have taken us your people through some painful times. At times we have faced insurmountable odds, extreme situations that seemed to press on our hearts as much as an olive press would press the olives in Bible times, and found your grace pulling us through tricky situations that show us that your ways are not our ways but are keeping us ever so dependent upon you. We praise you that we have seen your hand of love move on our behalf. We give you praise for your unmerited favor. We praise you for bringing us through fire, deep waters, things like hailstorms, windstorms and spiritual earthquakes. We give you praise for taking our brokenness, our inabilities, our failure, our weakness, our griefs and doing something with them we could never do that point to your shaping ability, shaping our lives to praise you through our pains and suffering. We praise you Lord for how excellent you are at getting your will done, and we get to go along for the ride, and you are placing your fingerprints more deeply into our lives. We praise you for showing your goodwill toward men, and for somehow making something of us that we never could have become without you, till something else in our lives points to your glory and goodness. We praise you for the fact that it is you alone who sustains us, provides for us, grants hope to us, for putting into us personality characteristics, gifts, talents, potential and limitations that you are somehow sovereignly shaping by your goodness to shape us into the image of your Son, and for giving us the Holy Spirit Comforter to bear with us in our weaknesses and to somehow bring something through our lives that will reflect your light, bear witness of you, and spark hope, endurance, perseverance, virtue and the stamina of your Spirit by your heavenly power. We praise you for the Comforter, who cries with groaning that words cannot express to bring or birth something into our lives, or out of us for a witness to the world that will in hope make us vessels fit for your use, and endue us with your heavenly garments, as we are sown a mortal body, and one day we believe we will be raised a spiritual body. We are sown in dishonor, but one day we will be raised in honor, we are sown in weakness, one day we will be raised in power, we are sown in corruption, and one day we will be raised in incorruption… I believe the following passage will greatly encourage those of us who are going through the pains of the death of the flesh, so let us consider carefully the words that Paul has written, and stay encouraged, friends.
1 Corinthians 15:37-58 reads, “And as for what you sow—you are not sowing the body that will be, but only a seed, perhaps of wheat or another grain. 38 But God gives it a body as he wants, and to each of the seeds its own body. 39 Not all flesh is the same flesh; there is one flesh for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. 40 There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is different from that of the earthly ones. 41 There is a splendor of the sun, another of the moon, and another of the stars; in fact, one star differs from another star in splendor. 42 So it is with the resurrection of the dead: Sown in corruption, raised in incorruption; 43 sown in dishonor, raised in glory; sown in weakness, raised in power; 44 sown a natural body, raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45 So it is written, The first man Adam became a living being; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46 However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, then the spiritual. 47 The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. 48 Like the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; like the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. 49 And just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the image of the man of heaven. 50 What I am saying, brothers and sisters, is this: Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor can corruption inherit incorruption. 51 Listen, I am telling you a mystery: We will not all fall asleep, but we will all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we will be changed. 53 For this corruptible body must be clothed with incorruptibility, and this mortal body must be clothed with immortality. 54 When this corruptible body is clothed with incorruptibility, and this mortal body is clothed with immortality, then the saying that is written will take place: Death has been swallowed up in victory. 55 Where, death, is your victory? Where, death, is your sting? 56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ! 58 Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the Lord’s work, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” Amen!
Keep on growing in the Word! LG
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