Day 136
Thank you, Lord Jesus, for your kind and constant working when I am not faithful, for your unceasing love and goodness in spite of my rebellion and unbelief. I praise you that you never give up on us and will pursue us to the end.
Thank you for your wide, comprehensive and complete plan for our lives: you miss no detail, your timing is perfect and your grace is more than sufficient.
Thank you for the powerful and perceptive work of your Spirit in and for us: teaching, convicting, rebuking and leading. Help us to be more and more wholeheartedly obedient to the Spirit’s leading.
To you belongs all honor and glory, Lord Jesus. Your great and deep love, shared with the Father and Spirit, is now shared with us. It is so good to be in your kingdom, in your family, in your warm embrace.
I praise you for the power of your affection–that you can and do love all those who are your enemies, who seek to bring you harm, who are destructive and dangerous to your cause.
I thank you that you love me, naturally a man of unbelief, of fear, of rebellion, of selfishness and laziness, of pride and criticalness–in spite of what I am, you love me. Your love is beyond comprehension, flowing without regard to the response or lack of it in the objects of your love.
You loved all in the world so much that you took upon yourself every sin of every person from the beginning of creation to the end of history (“He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.” 1 John 2:2)—even though you knew that the majority would not choose for you! That is agape love: full, faithful, unlimited, ever flowing, unquenchable and unending.
I praise you, Lord Jesus, for the great privilege of being one whom you love, to live in the warmth and protection, the goodness and grace of your compassion which surpasses understanding. Thank you that we don’t have to understand your love to live in it.
We can bask in it, revel in it, rejoice in it and rest in it–while being transformed by it. “As we gaze upon him with unveiled faces, we are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” (2 Cor. 3:18)
What a wonder: you call us to your love, you give us joy in it, and as we see more and more of it, we are being changed to be like you—able to love the unlovely, to be wise and useful for you, to bring you more and more honor.
I praise you, Lord Jesus, for your great and wonderful grace, your rich and deep character, your persistent and patient working in our lives. You are more wonderful than anyone can adequately express. Truly you are the One “who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us,” (Eph 3:20). To you be honor and glory in my life today, as you shine the light of your love on us.
