May I Never Forget Your Word

I will study your commandments
    and reflect on your ways.

I will delight in your decrees
    and not forget your word.

—Psalm 119:15-16 (NLT)

Loving LORD,

May I forever study Your commandments and reflect on Your ways!  Let Your decrees be my delight and may I never forget Your Word!

Help me to study Your commands that I might know the Truth behind all that You have commanded us in Your Word—and rightly apply that Truth to my life and more perfectly live my life for You.

Teach me to know You, as I reflect on Your ways—so that in coming to know You more completely, I can better understand Your love for each one of us and so be compelled to share that love with others around me.

Show me how to take my highest delight in what You have decreed—knowing that Your love for us is the foundation upon which every decree is established, each one being framed for our benefit.

May I forever study Your commandments and reflect on Your ways!  Let Your decrees be my delight and may I never forget Your Word!

In the name of Jesus, Amen.

In Your Words I Find My Strength and Hope

When I discovered your words, I devoured them.
    They are my joy and my heart’s delight,
for I bear your name,
    O LORD God of Heaven’s Armies.

—Jeremiah 15:16 (NLT)

Dear LORD,

Keep me hungry—eager to receive and ready to apply every word that You would speak into my life.  Let my joy and my heart’s delight be in discovering the Truth that is found in Your Word, which is revealed by Your Spirit and proven through my personal experience of relationship with You.

Continue to speak to me through Your Holy Spirit, and by that same Spirit reveal and illuminate the words of the Bible to my spirit—that I might devour the fresh Truth that You have waiting there for me to discover.

Use that Truth to help me grow in obedience and faithfulness to You, so that I can live my life submitted to Truth and can become all that You have planned for me to be in Christ—for Your own glory and honor and praise.

For it is in Your words that I find my strength and hope!  And in them I discover the responsibilities of obedience that I carry, because I have been chosen—and I have chosen—to bear Your name, O LORD God of Heaven’s Armies!

Keep me hungry—eager to receive and ready to apply every word that You would speak into my life.  Let my joy and my heart’s delight be in discovering the Truth that is found in Your Word, which is revealed by Your Spirit and proven through my personal experience of relationship with You.

In the name of Jesus, Amen.

Don't Be Afraid. God is Here to Help You!

For I hold you by your right hand—
    I, the LORD your God.
And I say to you,
    ‘Don’t be afraid. I am here to help you.’

—Isaiah 41:13 (NLT)

Sovereign LORD my God,

What a comfort and a joy to know that I am never alone!  For it is You who holds me by the right hand and tells me not to be afraid—You who reminds me that You are always here to help me!

So help me to embrace whatever lies before me today, with the certain confidence that You are by my side—and with the understanding that my access to all that You are is only restricted by how willing I am to seek You out by faith.

Thank You for the compassionate love You show to me—that You comfort and keep me, holding fast to my right hand—so that in the times I stumble, You uphold me in Your strength and steady me, so that I don’t fall down completely.

Thank You for Your assurance to me that I have nothing to fear, because You are here to help me, to guide and direct me—no matter the situation or circumstance in which I may find myself—as You lead me forward down paths of righteousness, for love’s sake and for Your glory, in the fullness of Truth and Grace.

What a comfort and a joy to know that I am never alone!  For it is You who holds me by the right hand and tells me not to be afraid—You who reminds me that You are always here to help me!

In the name of Jesus, Amen.