A prayer based on Judges 1.

<aside> 🙏🏻 Sovereign God, Every day we face a choice. Will we look to You as our Lord or will we follow the ways of the world surrounding us. It’s not a new choice. It is the same choice that the people of Israel, Your people of old, faced after they entered the Promised Land. Living among the Canaanites and their idols, they felt the temptation to follow their ways. And so often they did. They turned from knowing, and loving, and obeying You to doing what they thought was right in their own eyes. And we confess that we are no different. We are not careful to obey Your laws and to meditate on them. We act as those who do not trust Your promises or believe that You will keep them. We rely on ourselves and rather than in Your strength and are so often overwhelmed by the circumstances of life. We lack excitement over entering, settling in, and enjoying the blessings of the Promised Land that Jesus is preparing for His followers. Please forgive us we pray.

Lord Jesus, we thank You that where we have failed, You did not. That the joy of seeing Your people with You in the new heavens and new earth led You to willingly come to earth to save them. Thank you that You always obeyed the law. Thank you that You always trusted God’s promises. Thank you that You always depended on the Spirit’s power. And You did so in our place so that we can be righteous in Your sight. Not only that. Thank you that You went to the cross to pay the penalty we deserve. That Your blood has washed away all our sins. That You completely satisfied your Father’s wrath that was directed at us. That we are now accepted, loved, and forgiven because of all that You have done. What love. What grace. What mercy You have shown to us. What hope we now have because Christ has defeated sin and Satan and death through His death and resurrection. And Lord God, we ask that You would give us more grace by forming Christ in us.

Holy Spirit, change us from one degree of glory to the next so that we are more and more like Him. Help us to believe that God will do all that He has said He will. That every promise made will be kept. Empower us to live lives of obedience as we are taught to obey everything Jesus has commanded. Give us a desire to please Him daily by all our attitudes and actions and bring glory to Your Holy Name.

Amen.

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