Restored: 2 Peter: Prayers and Poetry

                Restored 

                Lies can often

                hide within

                ourselves waiting

                for the opportunity

                to turn us from

                honesty into appearance

                need His light

                moment by moment

                and remember

                Truth.

Psalm 89:40: "Thou hast broken down all his walls; Thou hast brought his strongholds to ruin."

                

Reflection: Condemnation: 2 Peter: Prayers and Poetry

 Reflection Questions

        1. Has there been a season in your life where you only looked for your own desires? Why?

        2. How did that affect your relationship with others--especially those you loved?

        3. Where or how did you see God's offer to escape from soul destruction?

Share: When have you been lured into a lie that went against the Lord's truth? How did you be restored?

Condemnation: 2 Peter: Prayers and Poetry

2nd Peter 2:3-4: "They are only out for themselves, ready to exploit you for their own gain through their cunning arguments. Their condemnation has been a long time coming. But their destruction does not slumber or sit idly by, for it is sure to come. Now, don't forget, God has no pity for the angels when they sinned but threw them into the lowest, darkest dungeon of gloom and locked them in chains, where they are firmly held under the judgment of torment."

Condemnation

Often we are all too absorbed in ourselves instead of being centered in the Lord and seeing others through His truth and mercy.

Then we often 'use' others instead for our own benefits.

Yet the Holy Spirit recognizes when we have become self-centered and will help us to release it all through His cleansing presence. We can ask for guidance.

By His heart He will nudge us to see our selfishness and help us to let go and replace darkness with light and love and forgiveness instead.

Will we accept?

Please be Lord of all of us as each Your child and recognize Your gift of life daily.

Your thoughts,

Authority: Listen: Prayers and Poetry

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Reading: Romans 8:34

“Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us.”

We see condemnation through the eyes of penalty.

God sees it through the grace and redemption that Jesus paid on the Cross.

Even in our ongoing sin Jesus continues to pray for us. He stays with us side-by-side with His abundant mercy interceding, calling us to accept His boundaries. He continues to stay beside us through our failures and consequences until we are whole.

He takes our cold hearts and teaches us to lift up ourselves and others into His prayers for each of us. Because only He can truly see what to condemn and what to redeem.

He alone knows who we are meant to be and how we are to be made whole.

Will we accept His compassionate authority?

“We are invited to believe until the whole gospel of Christ is fully formed in us. The secret of a holy life is not in imitating Jesus, but in letting the perfection of Jesus be manifested in our mortal flesh.” Oswald Chambers

Lord, please give us the wisdom to receive Your condemnation and intercession by Your mercy.

Psalm of Worship: Proverbs 8:33

“Hear instruction and be wise, and do not neglect it.”

Reflection: Done: Listen: Prayers and Poetry

Reflection Questions

1.     How clearly do we understand that God has condemned and conquered sin?

2.     Do we accept it daily in our personal lives? Why or why not?

3.     What can acceptance look like in practical action?

4.     Are we willing to let go of our own methods and trust His?

Share: How has His gift given you the ability to stand firm in battle this week?

Done: Listen: Prayers and Poetry

Reading: Romans 8:3

“For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh.”

How many times have we become discouraged over our attitudes and actions, towards ourselves and others knowing they are not acceptable or kind or caring? Plus these daily struggles may not even come close to acknowledging the even deeper sins we keep buried from our own sight.

Even when we honestly take on the battles we recognize Psalm 127:1 reminds us that, “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.”

Yet how often do we trudge along on our own solutions expecting ongoing success? We may well win long and often and yet, since we cannot eradicate them, our sins continue to hibernate and wait for the opportunity to strike again.

And those are the ones we admit and recognize. How deep do our secret ones go—especially the ones we have never encountered.

No matter how many rules and intentions we set for ourselves they are useless apart from His condemnation of sin. We will still be in a battle but now we know there is true victory and relief in sight. Even if we experience external loss as a result, our hearts and souls belong to Christ. He enables us to stand firm.

All our brokenness can be brought into healing light. We are no longer left helpless. He lifts us up out of sin’s grasp into new life.

Lord, by Your power, please enable us to stand firm in Your truth and face our sin with boldness, especially in our weaknesses.

Psalm of Worship: Proverbs 8:2

“On the heights, beside the way, at the crossroads she takes her stand;”

Redeems: Listen: Prayers and Poetry

                       Redeems

                        No condemnation.

                        Not a concept we often comprehend

                        as wounds sear our own hearts

                        as well as ours towards others

                        cheat, liar, ingrate

                        carnal, loser, imbecile

                        we toss out labels spoken or not

                        words true or not

                        to ease our own discomfort

                        to ignore our own limitations

                        by conceit and false control

                        bury our sins.

                        Yet He sees our stain

                        yearns to set us free.

                        In Him grace,

                        In Him forgiveness.

                       

                        He paid our debt,

                        He redeems our lives.

                        No condemnation.

                       

Reflection: Condemnation: Listen: Prayers and Poetry

Reflection Questions

1. How do you discern between condemnation and accountability?

2. What condemning words seared your heart as a child?

3. What condemning words do you still use against yourself?

4. Toward others?

Share: What word of grace has the Lord given you to remove your condemnation?

Condemnation: Listen: Prayers and Poetry

Reading: Romans 8:1

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

No Condemnation!

How is that possible? Every day we mess up somewhere. Even if others don’t see our failures we do. And depending on the chastising voices we carry around within us, or repeatedly hear from others around us, we know when we falter.

Factual—measurable—life consequences.

When Job’s life dissolved around him, his friends tried to help him discover the sins that had caused such disaster. Someone had to be at fault they immediately assumed. Our instinctive response is to punish. God chooses to offer each of us redemption.

It’s a difficult concept for our hearts and minds to adjust to and accept as a reality because we each know the reprimand we personally deserve on so many levels.

Yet, God says He does not condemn. When we listen to His words and His voice we hear forgiveness and mercy undergirding the accountability we still need to acknowledge. His love and grace restore us from a life lived within the sins.

So why can we not stop condemning ourselves, and others, with the same words of grace and understanding too? Instead, we often allow the accountability to become ongoing judgment that grows distrust and fear and suspicion and often hatred. We only recognize the outward stain of sin and, from our viewpoint. We see hearts as stained forever expanding the brokenness.

God’s words. His love. His river of grace sweeps all our prejudices of blame away like shattered glass. Instead we see through His eyes and the mirror reflects back hope. New life. New beginnings. We can take baby steps of comprehension of outstanding compassion.

Because of Jesus’ life sacrifice. He paid our debts. He opens a bold path to a new understanding. To now be able to truly listen to His words and hear their possibilities.

Lives that listen to an everlasting truth.

In Faith’s Check Book, author Charles Spurgeon says, “He who has purified us with the blood of Jesus will so cleanse us by the water of the Holy Spirit. … Cleansing is a covenant blessing and the covenant is ordered in all things and sure.”

To be cleansed, led, and refined by the Spirit’s discerning grace requires a whole new perspective from our human interpretations. It’s an inside-out comprehension that can often enable us to make bold steps of faith and insight. Towards lives that encourage us to walk with listening hearts.

Lord, today, whenever a word of condemnation forms against myself or another please remind me to change it to a word of prayer by Your grace.

Psalm of Worship: Isaiah 55:8

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways, says the Lord.”

Through this study Listen, of Romans chapter eight, we will pause to hear the Spirit’s discerning words. Powerful words that too often get buried under daily stress. Do we trust in the Lord? Are we willing to be challenged and changed? Even in seasons of silence? Job never did receive answers. When he met with God all his questions dissolved. Being with Him alone gave Job a new foundation.

Mondays we will reflect on a Scripture passage. Wednesdays consider meditative questions. Fridays respond with poetry.

Thank you for sharing in our journey. Please share as you discover your own questions and insights, prose and prayers.