©Shiloh Photography

Father, I praise your name, your goodness, your mercy which lead us to repentance. Thank you, because you draw us to you and in drawing us to you You change us. Thank you for your Word, a double-edge sword, that pierces into our soul dividing darkness from light. I praise your steadfast love, my Lord, the one that pursues us until we are transformed!

My God, help me not to walk in the futility of my mind only let your light, your Truth shine in me, into my mind and heart delivering me from a darkened understanding. Oh, Father, how I pray that you will give me a humble heart willing at all times to admit and repent from all sin and error in me so that I may not grow a hardened and callous heart. Deliver me from all sensuality, from a greedy desire to to practice sinful habits that I have welcomed many times as “part of my natural way of being.” Oh, that I may not forget, not for a moment, the way I have learned Christ! Father, I ask you today to help me put off daily my old self which is full of deceitful desires that draw me away from your Kingdom of Light. Give me discernment and a heart willing to obey what I know that the Holy Spirit is calling me to do; help me to be diligent in the habit of practicing discernment, first and foremost, within my own heart which is deceitful above all things. Create in me, day after day, a heart that is willing to put on the new self created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Yes, in true righteousness and holiness, not in the one that is deceitful, fake, and raises from a puffed-up heart filled with nothing but filthy self-righteousness.

Help me, today, Father of Truth, to put away all kinds of falsehood: lies, slander, deception, flattery, gossip, and to be diligent in pursuing truth. Lord, that I may be true to the Word, true to myself, true to my convictions. That I may be willing at all times to speak the truth with my brothers and sisters remembering that we are indeed members one of another. Help me remember that spoken truth should always be spoken with the goal in mind to help each other grow in every way into the likeness of Christ.

Oh God, give me a quiet and gentle spirit, one that has learned to overcome the kind of anger that makes me sin. Father, that I may always have a heart whose natural response is to forgive and forgive, and forgive. Transform me daily in the light of your Word, that I may be in all areas of my life, different than the one I used to be when I did not know you nor the Gospel who transforms and gives life.

Deliver me, Lord, from all corrupt talking which only brings death and kindles enormous fires. Help me day after day, situation after situation, to speak -and write- only those words that are good to build up others, words that give grace to those who hear them. Help me to fill my heart with your Word even more, so that out of the abundance of my heart I may always speak.

Oh, Lord, deliver me from grieving your Holy Spirit by whom I have been sealed for the day of redemption! Deliver me from having deaf ears and blind eyes that won’t let me hear and see where your Spirit is leading me. Deliver me, oh Lord! That all my life, even the deepest meditations of my heart may be pleasant to you.

God, only you, through the power of the resurrection and the power of the Holy Spirit within me can help me put away all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander, along with all malice. Only in you can I overcome sin, and I give you thanks for the provision you have made for us to conquer and not live in bondage of any kind of sin anymore. Let my life, Father, be characterized by kindness, by forgiveness never forgetting that God in Christ forgave me.

In Christ, my Redeemer who lives and reigns forever more,

Amen

Becky