Friday Morning Prayer:)… August 16, 2018

O Lord, help me to appreciate, value, cherish more and more in great awe, humble, with reverential fear, your great redemption.  Forever grateful for God’s amazing grace!   As we grow in our understanding of God’s redemptive love we stand in wonder and amazement.  “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”[3]  In Christ, and Christ in you, you are justified before our most holy, holy, holy God by the shed blood of Jesus.  Moreover, “Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!”[4]   Beloved!  Find complete fulfillment in Christ alone!  “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”[5]  “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.”[6]

This week, I sadly heard of a loved one seeking answers through a psychic, medium, or what is really demonic spiritual forces that are real and hate every human being created in the image of God.  Professing believers seeking answers through demons have failed to grasp the power of God through the gospel of redemption in Christ alone.   Be reconciled to God!  Our Lord Jesus has all the necessary answers related to life and death.  He is above all things and is worthy to be praised, adored, honored, respected, feared, and reverenced.

Be drawn to the supernatural that God intended to save your soul, that supernatural power that forms you into the likeness of Jesus.  The Holy Spirit, the third person of the triune Godhead, is our Counselor, Helper, and Guide to convict the world of guilt in relation to sin, righteousness, and judgment.[7]  Beloved, I pray you too desire to grow in grace and totally rely on the Spirit of truth to guide you into all truth as revealed in the God-inspired Scriptures.

The Holy Spirit convicts the heart to the degree of realizing our sin and helplessness before a holy God.  Repentance is the only right response.  The blood of Christ cleanses our sin and deems us righteous by faith before our Creator.   In the context of John 16:8, Tenney (1981) suggested that “judgment refers to the condemnation of satanic self-willed and rebellion by the obedience and love toward the Father exhibited by Jesus.  The Cross was the utter condemnation and defeat of the ‘prince of this world.’ “[8]

As we are cleansed by the blood, sin-stains are lost in its life-giving flow, through God’s indwelling power we pursue our gracious God, resist evil, and pray unceasingly.  O the precious hymns to sing praise and overflow…. For my pardon this I see, nothing but the blood of Jesus!  “I’ve been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, saved and sanctified I am.  All my sins are washed away, I’ve been redeemed!”[9]

Would you be whiter, much whiter than snow?
There’s pow’r in the blood, pow’r in the blood;
Sin-stains are lost in its life-giving flow;
There’s wonderful pow’r in the blood.

Would you do service for Jesus your King?
There’s pow’r in the blood, pow’r in the blood;
Would you live daily His praises to sing?
There’s wonderful pow’r in the blood.