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January 1 - December 31, 2019
Only when you see Jesus dying on the cross for your sins can you lay down the ultimate burden, of trying to prove and justify yourself, of trying to earn your self-worth and salvation. The gospel of the cross is the only true wisdom that will give you this rest.
Lord, I am weary, and I blame how hard I’m working, but it is more of an inward, spiritual condition. I am working to prove myself, to win approval, to make a name for myself. I am ready to lay down that burden and receive the deep rest that comes from the gospel. Help me to do that. Amen.
Lord Jesus, there is a part of my heart that desires a king to guide and protect me, and another part that fears and resents such authority over me. But you are the true King my soul desires, one altogether trustworthy and lovely because of your sacrifice for me. I kneel to you. Command my heart. Amen.
Lord Jesus, I have so little idea of what it really means to “contemplate [your] glory” (2 Corinthians 3:18), but I now ask you to teach me. I will try to do it, but I feel like a child learning to speak his first words. I pray Moses’s prayer: “Show me your glory.” Amen.
Salvation by the cross is the gospel, but the default mode of the human heart is to want to earn our own salvation. Proverbs, taken out of the context of the whole Bible, could be read as a way to do that.
But the cross shows the upside-down nature of divine wisdom. The way up is down. The way to lead is to serve. The way to get happiness is to seek happiness not for yourself but for others. The way to be truly rich is to give wealth away. To the world all these practices seem foolish, but the cross shows them to be ultimate reality. When applied to daily life, they are consummate wisdom.
Lord, how wise you were in your creation of the world. But, if possible, the wisdom of your redemption is even more stunning, as the cross made it possible for you to be perfectly holy yet love us—to be both just and justifier of those who believe (Romans 3:26). Who can praise your wisdom enough? Amen.
God deliberately chooses people the world dismisses to show how his salvation works.
Your family of origin may be great, or not so great, but the family you have been adopted into, with God as your Father and Jesus as your older brother, is the greatest.
Father, I praise you that the one who made the whole universe and upholds it by a Word of your power—would be my Father. Your infinite majesty and might are all now in service of your gentle, fatherly love. Give me the endless rest and joy that should come from knowing this. Amen.
Either you worship God or you will be worshipping something else—there is not the alternative of not worshipping.
Lord, I live in a society that loudly proclaims its concern for the poor and oppressed, but few of us become personally involved with their plight or give much more than a token of time and money. Give me the grace to be different, in light of your love for those who do not have the world’s goods. Amen.
Lord, I don’t want suffering in my life, and I know you don’t want me to have its pain either. Yet the various comforts you give me in my trials change me in ways I would never want to lose. I don’t thank you for the evils that have hurt me, but I praise you with the ways you make me more happy and holy through them. Amen.
When I realize that through Jesus I’m already accepted, that changes my motivation for righteous living. Now I don’t obey God merely because I have to, in order to get things from him. I obey also because I want to, to please, know, and resemble the one who gave me a free salvation.
Lord, once I tried to serve you only out of duty. Later I lived to serve myself. Both were paths filled with thorns. Only now, in small ways, am I experiencing the unique motivation of serving you out of love and gratitude for a free salvation. It is an energy that does not exhaust me. Grow it in my heart! Amen.
