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Hey All,

This week we are going to wrap up on prayer. Not that it’s an area that we shouldn’t continually focus on, but we have covered a lot of information over the last several months. My hope is that everyone has strengthened their “Up” relationship with the Father, and will continue to do so on a daily, weekly basis. Psalm 139 has some encouraging words about our relationship with the Father, so let’s dig into it a little deeper.

Psalm 139:1-4

O Lord, you have searched me and know me. You know when I sit down and rise up; You understand my thoughts from afar. You scrutinize my path and my lying down, and you are intimately acquainted with all my ways. Even before there is a word on my tongue, behold O Lord, You know it all.

We know that Jesus gave us the Holy Spirit and He lives and breathes within us. This Psalm is so reassuring that He knows my inner thoughts. He convicts me to follow the “narrow path” Matthew 7:13 says: Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad leads to destruction.

Psalm 139:13-16

You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to You; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works, and my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth; Your eyes saw my unformed substance; and in Your book were written all the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them.

The thought that God knew me before I was conceived and He knit my DNA together through my parents is simply amazing. Ephesians 2:10 says: we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. God knows All of what we will accomplish in life for His kingdom. We just have to listen to and follow his prompting.

Psalm 139: 17-18 & 23-24

How precious are Your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I could count them they would outnumber the sand. When I awake, I am still with You!………….vs 23 Search Me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my anxious thoughts; see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the  everlasting way.

God is so much smarter than I am, and yet how many times do I passively say “let’s try it my way”.  I think of how many times I try to figure out all the options and get frustrated when I cannot because, as it says in this Psalm, His thoughts outnumber the grains of sand. He doesn’t need to search my heart as He already knows our thoughts, but when we turn it all over to Him, we ask for correction if our ways our not pure to lead us through the narrow gate.

So to wrap up

God is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. He knows our every thought and wants only the best for us if we will build a relationship with Him, but He never promised us an easy life. I look at the pain and suffering His Son Jesus had to endure for me, or all of the disciples that died as martyrs to spread the Word of the gospel and know that my life does not even come close. John 15:13 says: Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.……and Jesus goes on to call us friends. Yet all God requires of us is to submit our lives to Him, to simply love one another.

Father I pray that each day we can shake off the old to start fresh and new to be outspoken disciples of your Word. Make us bold, give us confidence, and continually put us in areas that will stretch us to spread Your love toward others. You know us, our strengths, our weaknesses, our gifts and our passions for the ministry. Help us to use those gifts daily for it is only by Your grace that we all inherit the kingdom of heaven. Amen? AMEN!

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