Not Taking the Message of Christmas for Granted

Merry Christmas! Weekends in the month of December will be devoted to scripture and prayer! Weekly devotions will resume Mondays through Fridays. Join us in Word and Prayer!

Prayer: Our eternal Father in heaven we thank You again so very much for the truth and for Your Word which gives light to our hearts and our minds.  We are so prone to lean on our own understanding. Sometimes even we who have been raised up to places of influence sometimes we’ll say things according to our own understanding. Keep us faithful and true to the work.  Help us to understand things from Your perspective I pray that You will guard and watch over this flock with Your ever-present eye.  It is true to us and clear that the state of our hearts, the true state of it, the sincerity and genuineness of it, is balanced on the scale of your omniscience. You know everything, that what we are, and where we are is not hidden from You. We can fake, be phony, we can put on a show, but You are never fooled. You deal with us from the inside out and you cause us to deal with the realities of our spirituality as they are in us.

Father, as You examine our hearts today and as You put Your finger on those things that are not pleasing in Your sight, we ask, oh Lord, that You would stir our hearts in such a way that we would forsake those things. Those things that are like shackles, they are aligned with our personalities to the degree that we accept them, and we know that they’re not right.  They, many times, are keeping us from having freedom in our Spirit to become and do, to say and be used, because we won’t let go of that part of us that is unlike You.
 
So in the quietness of our hearts, we want to confess our sins. We want to be real with You as we are brought to the reality that You see us for what we are. Our inner sanctums, our little treasure holds of sin and iniquity are exposed before You and we want to be clean. We want to be free; we want to walk in the fullness of forgiveness; and we want to grow in the grace and in the knowledge of Your Son, the Lord Jesus. You haven’t made such a great investment that we can be what we are.  The giving of Your Son, Your only begotten Son, the eternal One who came to bear the sin of the world.  The iniquity of us all was laid on Him, and that level of investment, so that we could become saved people, who live in the state of eternal life.

Oh God, we don’t want things to hold us back.  We want to walk in the freedom of the Spirit. We want to walk in the fullness of the Spirit. We want to live the resurrection life to the fullest degree.  So while our heads are bowed, as we come to the end of another year, Lord God, set us free. Strengthen our hearts, to break these bondages. Give us wisdom to use the power that You put in us that we will be free. There are some people that we need to turn away from-give us strength to turn.   Give us strength to abstain, give us wisdom and discernment as You send godly people to replace.

This is what we desire to be, Christian in every sense of our existence, to know the fullness of the life of Christ. To walk as He walked, to have the same kind of relationship that He had, a connectedness, a purposeful agenda daily. This is our desire. So I ask that You would bless this branch of the body, called Genesis.  Watch over us and re-energize us, renew us, and refocus us, wash us, cause us to rise above that miry pit that keeps reaching back, trying to pull us in and we always know to give you praise. There is no greater state to walk with You, to be in fellowship with You, to have our hearts opened to You. No greater state!   In Jesus name, Amen!
Pastor Wayne Cockrell