Category Archives: Devotional Studies Through the Bible

>Helping God?

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So Sarai said to Abram,
“Now behold, the Lord has prevented me
from bearing children.
Please go in to my maid;
perhaps I will obtain children through her.”
And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai.
Genesis 16:2
God had promised Abram descendants. Abram and Sarai had lived in the land of Canaan for ten years. They were both growing older and now were eighty-five and seventy-five years of age. I can understand their uncertainty, especially at this time in history.
I can see how Sarai might have felt as a failure to her husband, probably feeling that she was the problem, unable to conceive this promised descendant, but here is where she went wrong. Unfortunately, this is where a lot of us go wrong.
We let our feelings and our emotions override the promise that was given us by God. Sarai became impatient and decided that God needed a little help, and Abram, instead of reminding Sarai and himself of the reliability of God’s word, went along with Sarai’s suggestion of Abram conceiving with Hagar.
Hagar did conceive a son, but he was not, nor ever would be the son promised by God. When we step ahead of God and try to move forward in the power of our own flesh, we usually make matters worse. The consequences that come from our impatience rarely just affect us. They have the power to go on for generations to come.
From this point of Genesis 16:2 until today, consequences are still seen and experienced from this one choice. The impact of this is sobering. Our choices matter, not only to us, but to others, and possibly for years down the road. Our impatience—our allowing feelings and emotion to control us—can lead us down a path we may wish we didn’t have to travel.
Oh Father,
How often I have been impatient and tried to “help” You out. Each time I have reaped the consequences. How I pray that I would be stronger in my faith and that I would simply trust in You and in the power and certainty of Your Word. You have never let me down.
How easy it is to get caught up in the fear of uncertainty and to feel ignored when things are not moving at the speed at which I think they should be. Oh Father, forgive me for my lack of faith. Forgive me for not fully trusting in You. Forgive me for not being willing and able to trust in Your faithfulness. You are good, and everything You do is good. You are faithful, and I have no reason to ever doubt You. Strengthen me, my God, according to Your glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience (Colossians 1:11). You are my God and my king, and I trust in You.
My Jesus, it is in Your name I pray,
Amen.

>Saved By Faith

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“‘Do not fear, Abram,
I am a shield to you;
your reward shall be great.”
Abram said,
“O Lord God.”
Genesis 15:12
God is so good to us. Here He is revealing even more of Himself to Abram. God lets Abram know that He will be a shield to him, and Abram replies with “O Lord God.” Abram had come to recognize God as a God, and then he learned that He was the God, El Elyon, God Most High.
Now Abram calls Him Adonai Jehovah, his Master and God. Abram is finally before the Lord in total belief and submission that He is his God and Master, and Abram’s belief is reckoned to him as righteousness (Genesis 15:6). In the Hebrew the word believed is “aman,” and it means to render firm or faithful, to be true or certain.
Abram is saved by his faith in God, by his belief in His word. Abram has now put all his trust in the One he knows is faithful. Abram is justified by faith, and this salvation experience is recorded by God. It is recorded in His Word so that we may know that our relationship with our God comes through our faith in Him. In Romans 4:2324 we read, “Now not for his sake only was it written that it was credited to him, but for our sake also, to whom it will be credited, as those who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.”
In Genesis 12, God gave Abram a promise. When Abram had fully taken hold of that promise, God cut a covenant with him. This covenant is known as the Abrahamic Covenant. This covenant still stands today. It still holds true.
God made Himself the guarantee of this covenant. He passed through the pieces of flesh; Abram did not. This covenant was the gift of God and was God’s to keep. Before God passed through the pieces of flesh, He told Abram about the four hundred years his descendants would spend enslaved in a strange land, and He also told him that He, God, would bring them out. Isaiah 48:3 reads, “I declared the former things long ago and they went forth from My mouth, and I proclaimed them. Suddenly I acted, and they came to pass.” We know now on this side of history that God did exactly what He said He would, so we can trust that when God says something, He means it.
Oh Father,
You are an awesome God, totally trustworthy and in control. You are our faithful God. You know the beginning and the end. You determine our times and places. You raise up, and it is You who brings down. You alone are God, and You alone are worthy of all glory and honor and praise. Oh Father, what peace we have when we finally surrender to You in abandoned obedience and in complete confidence in Your sovereignty.
Oh Father, thank you for making the way of salvation by faith in You. If it were according to my deeds or according to my ability to keep Your command without fail, I know I would be forever lost from You. You have made it according to faith, according to my personal surrender to You. How I thank You. May I be able to say with truthfulness that You are my Master and my God.
In Jesus’ name I pray,
Amen.

>El Elyon

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And Melchizedek king of Salem
brought out bread and wine;
now he was a priest of God Most High.
Genesis 14:18
Here we learn a new name for God, El Elyon, or God Most High. Abram, maybe for the first time, meets someone who knows God. Have you ever been somewhere where you were the only believer in Jesus Christ? At work? At school? At home even?
Have you ever experienced the lies of Satan, those fiery darts, whispering in your ear, saying that you are a fool for following Christ? Whispering that what you experienced isn’t even real. This Jesus isn’t real. This salvation isn’t real. This promise isn’t real. Have you heard them?
After these moments of persecution and attack, how does it feel to step into the presence of other believers in Christ? Do they confirm to you that what you feel in your heart, in your mind, is indeed the truth? Can you imagine the joy and breath of fresh air that filled Abram as he stepped into the presence of Melchizedek?
Through Melchizedek, Abram learns that the one he calls Lord is the possessor of heaven and earth. Abram learns that it was God who delivered him from all his enemies. Abram meets Melchizedek, a theophany of Jesus Christ, his name meaning “king of righteousness.” This king of righteousness was king of a city named Salem. In Hebrew, the word salem means “peace.” Melchizedek was the king of righteousness who was the king of peace. Melchizedek was not only king; he was also the priest of Salem.
This Melchizedek brings Abram bread and wine. Jesus tells us in John 6:48 that He is the bread of life. At the Last Supper, Jesus lifted up bread and said that it represented His body (Matthew 26:26), His body that was given for our redemption. Melchizedek also brought out the wine, representing the blood of Jesus, the blood of the covenant (Matthew 26:28), which was poured out for the forgiveness of our sins.
Melchizedek then blessed Abram. As great as Abram was and is, there remained one greater, for the greater always blesses the lesser (Hebrews 7:7). Abram then paid tithes to this Melchizedek. Hebrews 7:3 speaks of Melchizedek and says he was “without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like the Son of God, he remains a priest perpetually.”
Jesus Christ is King of kings and He is our Eternal High Priest. He is “a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek” (Hebrews 7:17). Jesus Christ is not like the Son of God; He is the Son of God. Jesus does not just tell us about God Most High; “He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature” (Hebrews 1:3). What a beautiful picture of our coming Christ can be seen through this king and priest of Salem.
Oh Father,
You have never left us without a witness. You have been unfolding Your glorious plan throughout history. Unfolding Your mystery to mankind, never leaving us without a reminder of who You are, our great and awesome Creator, possessor of heaven and earth, our El Elyon. Oh Father, the longer that Abram walked with You, the more of Yourself You revealed to him. My Jesus, reveal Yourself to me. As Abram bowed before Melchizedek, this king and priest, I bow before You. You are the King of kings, and You are my High Priest. Blessed be You, my God and Father of my Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ (Ephesians 1:3).
In Jesus’ name I pray,
Amen.

>Forever

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The Lord said to Abram,
after Lot had separated from him,
“Now lift up your eyes
and look from the place where you are, northward and southward
and eastward and westward;
for all the land which you see,
I will give it to you
and to your descendants forever.”
Genesis 13:1415
Abram was seventy-five years old when he and Sarai and Lot set out from Haran and went toward the land of Canaan. There was a famine in the land of Canaan, and so Abram set out for Egypt. On the way, Abram looked at Sarai, his at-least-sixty-five-year-old wife, and instructed her to tell everyone that she was his sister and not his wife; of course, we discover in Genesis 20:12 that she actually was his half sister.
Today this conversation would go more like, “Sarai, it’s really not a lie; technically you are my sister.” Even a “half-lie” is a lie and brings consequences in its telling. Abram feared that his wife’s beauty would lead to his death, so that Pharoah would be able to claim Sarai as his own.
Sarai obeyed, and Pharoah took her in as his bride.
Let’s just stop and pause here for a moment in our day of plastic surgery and Botox and rest in the fact that this sixty-five-year-old woman, plastic-surgery free, was desired by the greatest ruler of that day. Ladies, let us wake up and remember that true beauty comes from the inside out: “Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised” (Proverbs 31:30).
God, of course, was not going to allow this lie to go far because it was through Sarai that Abram was to have Isaac, the one through whom the promised seed of redemption would carry. God sent plagues, and Pharoah released Sarai, and Abram knew that he had disobeyed God and acted out of fear. But Abram didn’t run from God; he ran to Him.
In Genesis 13:4 we read that Abram went to “the place of the altar which he had made there formerly; and there Abram called on the name of the Lord.” Abram went back to the altar he had built when he last called on the name of the Lord. There he sought forgiveness and direction.
Throughout their journeys, both Abram and Lot had increased in livestock and servants, and the time came for them to separate. Abram gave Lot the first choice and decided that he would take whatever was left. Abram had just experienced the sovereignty and provision of his God, so his faith had grown to know that God would give him all he needed, whatever the place might be.
Lot chose and headed off toward Sodom, and then God finally showed Abram the land that was to be his and his descendants’ forever. God waited until Lot was out of the picture before He revealed more of His promise to Abram.
In this revealing, He once again reminded Abram that he would have descendants; he would have a child. God also added the promise of forever. This land that God was giving to Abram would be his and his descendants’ forever.
Oh Father,
How many times have I made bad choices out of fear? Rash decisions usually come with serious consequences. How thankful I am that You love me unconditionally. How thankful I am that You are able to take my mistakes and turn them into something useful for Your glory. Oh Father, when I fail, when I am afraid, when I feel abandoned and alone, may I always run to You and not away from You. Father, when times come that lead to a separation from family and friends, may I be able to trust in Your sovereignty and know that You are in control. I see in Your Word that sometimes we have to be separated in order for You to bless us and bring us into spiritual maturity. However, we are never separated alone; we are separated unto You, and You are all we will ever need.
My Jesus, I love You, and it is in Your name that I pray,
Amen.

>Author and Perfector

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Now the Lord said to Abram,
Go forth from your country,
and from your relatives
and from your father’s house.
To the land which I will show you.
Genesis 12:1
From Adam to Noah we have nine generations, and from Shem to Abram we have nine generations. From father to son, the story of the garden, the story of the fall, the story of the flood, the story of the tower and the story of the redemption promise have been passed down.
Now God chooses an ordinary man, Abram, and separates him from all men on the earth. Abram was an idol worshiper in the land of the Chaldeans, a Gentile we might say; no one special in status or power. When God called him out, he would become a man forever changed. God’s call on people seems to have that effect.
God calls Abram out and tells him to leave his father’s house. God tells him that he will show him where to go. He tells him that He is going to make Abram’s name great and that he, Abram, will be a great nation and all other nations would be blessed through him.
Abram had done nothing to earn this call. It was a gift from God, a gift of God’s own choosing, set before Abram as an offer, as an opportunity. I am sure Abram had no clue as to the magnitude of this promise.
We know from the Scriptures that Abram took God at His word and that he set out as God had commanded well, almost as He had commanded.
Abram set out with his immediate family in tow, but they only got as far as Haran. This was only the first of many mistakes that Abram would make on his journey, but God remained faithful to His word. God had given a promise way back in the garden, and here we really start to see the fulfillment of this promise set into motion.
Abram, a man set apart by the word of God. Abram, a man God would use to bring a nation into existence—a nation that God would set apart to display his glory. A nation set apart to carry the seed, the promised seed of Genesis 3:15. A nation that has made mistakes, that has forsaken her God, but even as Abram’s mistakes did not negate God’s faithfulness, neither has Israel’s.
We too are set apart by God’s Word and by his call. Jesus tells us that we did not choose Him but that He chose us (John 15:16) and that He appointed us to go and bear fruit. God appointed Abram to go. Abram went, even though he stumbled along the way.
We too stumble along the way. Sometimes we feel as though we will never catch our balance or walk on steady feet, but this I know: just as He never forsook Abram, He will never forsake us.
God never took back His promise; Abram’s mistakes did not ever negate God’s Word. God could have simply ended his life and started over with someone else, but our God finishes what He starts. The work that He began in him in the Ur of the Chaldeans, He carried out all the way into the Promised Land. May this truth give you hope and bring you peace.
Oh Father,
I know that You began a good work in me, and though I may stumble and fall along the way, You will finish what you started in me (Philippians 1:6). You will pick me up and dust me off when I fall and put me back on the correct path. Yes, most of those stumbles and falls will come with grave consequences, but You will even supply me the strength to move on with and through those consequences. My Father, as Abram stopped so often along the way to worship You and to call upon Your name, may I too never forget that my first priority is my total devotion to You. You are worthy of all my worship and praise!
My Jesus, it is in Your name I pray,
Amen.

>Rebels Without A Cause

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They said,
“Come let us build for ourselves a city,
and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad
over the face of the whole earth.”
Genesis 11:4
God had just recently destroyed the earth because of the wickedness of man’s heart, and here, only three generations after the flood, man again rose in rebellion to the Creator. God specifically told Noah and his three sons to “be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth” (Genesis 9:1), and now mankind refused to obey.
Those who built the tower of Babel had the same spirit of rebellion in them that was within Satan himself—the spirit, the attitude, that says “I will be my own God.” Can we ever really grasp the wickedness of our own hearts, the spirit of rebellion that lives within us?
I believe we do when we are in Christ. There was a time in my life when I said in my heart that I would be my own God. I would make my own choices, and I would make them with no regard as to how they affected others.
I said this in my heart while with my mouth I said I loved God. I honored God with my lips but my heart was far from him (Matthew 15:8). I never really saw the deep-rooted wickedness within me until I came to know my Savior. When I saw myself through His eyes, I finally understood how much I needed Him.
Still, every day I see more clearly how I could never measure up on my own. My sin was and is great. I still struggle with rebellion—rebellion against authority. I pray that I shall never shake my fist in the face of God again.
I have lifted my voice up to my Father, and I pray that He would remove me from this earth before I blasphemed His name (Romans 2:24) among the lost again. I know that there will be many times that I am slow to obey and will question my God because I am still in this flesh and in this world, but as for bold-face, open rebellion, I pray that by His grace, I never take that route again.
Oh Father,
I am so grateful for Your forgiveness. I am thankful that You chose me to be Yours. I am forever humbled by Your mercy and grace and Your love for me. Oh, how I worship You. You are all that I need. You are my everything. As the psalmist cried out, oh God, please do not take your word from me (Psalm 119:43). I would perish without it. How I hold on to Your promises. They are my strength. My Jesus, teach me to walk in Your ways and obey Your words. May I scatter when you say scatter. May I be fruitful and be a part of multiplying Your kingdom upon this earth.
My Jesus, I love You.
It is in Your name I pray,
Amen.

>Significance in Every Begot

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Now these are the records of the generations
of Shem, Ham, and Japheth,
the sons of Noah;
and sons were born to them
after the flood.
Genesis 10:1
Before I studied the Word of God and before I knew God, I thought the seemingly endless list of genealogies with names I could not read, much less pronounce, was purposeless.
What I have learned is how very wrong I was for that view. Now that I am a student of the Scriptures and a follower of Christ, I see the importance of this record. These lists of genealogies are important on many levels.
It shows us that God cares about us, the individual us. He knows our names, our days of birth, our day of new birth, our day of death. After all it was he who knit us in our mother’s womb (Psalm 139).
In these lists, we see the origins of the nations. In these lists we see where we came from. Acts 17:26 declares, “And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitations.” We see that we are not accidents; our place in history is not by chance, but by design.
Most importantly, we see how the promise God made Adam and Eve back in the garden has been carried out down through history, until its fulfillment in the one who came from his mother’s womb both fully man and fully God, our Lord Jesus Christ.
Oh Father,
I worship You. My Jesus, my heart falls at Your feet. I praise Your name. I thank You for my life and for my place in Your story. How honored I am to be Yours; to know that You see me as an individual and not just one of many, like a man looking down on an ant bed. My God, You know me by name. You know the number of every hair on my head. You know when I get up and when I fall asleep. You know my thoughts. You know my heart. You brought me forth at this time, in this day, in this place, for Your purpose.
Oh Father, that Your will would be accomplished in me. My Jesus, I am thankful for Your life, for Your death, for Your resurrection. How amazing you are!
My Jesus, I love You.
In Your name I pray,
Amen.

>Love Cover

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Ham, the father of Canaan,
saw the nakedness of his father,
and told his two brothers outside.
Genesis 9:22
Noah, the one man God had found favor with on the earth—the one who was righteous, blameless in his time, the one who walked with God—drank of the wine and became drunk. Noah, a righteous man, stumbled in his walk.
How are we to respond when fellow believers, those credited as righteous because of their faith in Christ, stumble in their walk?
We are to respond as Shem and Japheth responded. Shem and Japheth took a garment and walked in backward and covered their father. They did not excuse what he had done, yet they did not blast it for the world to see and hear. They did not make his stumble a topic of conversation and run out to point his sin out to everyone they knew. Proverbs 17:9 says, “He who conceals a transgression seeks love, but he who repeats a matter separates intimate friends.”
How many believers no longer attend church because they have been hurt by the gossip of those inside the walls? When our fellow believers stumble in their walk, we need not give the enemy any help in his condemnation and mocking whispers. We are, however, to take them in and cover them in our compassion, confront their sin in love, and help them regain their step.
We as a church have much to learn from this portion of Scripture.
We are justified by our faith in Christ, and we are sanctified and are being sanctified. We do not become immediately perfect at salvation; perfection is a process. We are saved, but we remain in this flesh, we groan in it, because we still fight its desires. Through the power of the Holy Spirit within us, we can be victorious, but still we stumble along the way, even as we grow.
When we see our brothers and sisters in Christ stumbling, we are not to finish pushing them down, but we are to grab their hands and help them steady their feet: “Strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble, and make straight paths for your feet, so that the limb which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed” (Hebrews 12:1213). We can do this without ignoring their stumble and without broadcasting it to the world.
Oh Father,
Forgive me for the times my words have hurt instead of encouraged. Forgive me for the times that I whispered behind backs instead of confronting face-to-face with the love of Christ in order to turn one back to You. Oh Father, help me to be one who seeks love and not division. Give me the courage to confront, the compassion to conceal, and the wisdom of conviction to share the truth that will strengthen and heal.
Oh Father, the body of Christ is to build each other up, not tear each other down. Help me to be one who builds, one who strengthens, one who encourages, yet at the same time, one who does not turn a blind eye to someone who is stumbling along the way. Oh Father, Your Word says that “love covers all transgressions” (Proverbs 10:12), and my Jesus, Your love covered all my transgressions. Thank You for this amazing love. Help me to love others the way You have loved me.
My Jesus, it is in Your name I pray,
Amen.

>Life After The Flood

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Every moving thing that is alive
shall be food for you;
I give all to you,
as I gave the green plant.
Genesis 9:3
When God created man, He created him a vegetarian. Genesis 1:29 tells us that God had given man every tree that had fruit yielding seed and every plant yielding seed as food. Genesis 1:30 also lets us know that God created all the beasts of the earth and every bird and everything that moved on the earth as a herbivore.
The fall of man changed this.
In the beginning, death was not to reign. Men did not kill men and animals did not kill animals, but when sin entered the world after the fall, death entered with it. Here after the flood, we see God giving man permission to eat animals, possibly because in this new environment he would have to, to be able to survive, to not be overtaken by the beasts of the earth.
The relationship between man and beast would be forever altered. The relationship between man and man had already been; we saw this with Cain and Abel in Genesis 4.
God tells Noah that He has given the beast of the earth as food for him, but also He reminds Noah that life is precious and that life is in the blood (Genesis 9:4).
When we are sick and doctors are searching for the reason, they check our blood. When we have been wounded and blood leaves our body, we have blood banks available to replace that blood. We have learned that God’s words are true, that life is in the blood. God is the creator of all life, and it is all important to Him, no matter how big or small that life may be.
What God also institutes after the flood is capital punishment. “Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed” (Genesis 9:6). What is interesting here is that God is letting us know that this judgment, this flood, has not changed the nature of man’s heart. God institutes capital punishment because He knows that unredeemed man will continue to hate and will continue to murder. He wants us to know that He counts our lives as precious and that we are to count the lives of others as precious. But we also are not to allow those who take this precious life through murder to go unpunished.
Oh Father,
Life is precious in Your sight. You tell us that the life is in the blood. How true Your words ring in my ears. Sometimes it takes the gift of blood from another to give us life. It is the blood of Christ that gives us life—not just sustaining life, but eternal, everlasting life. Yes, there is life in the blood: “My blood has eternal life” (John 6:54).
My Jesus, thank You for the gift of life that You have made available to all who will receive by Your shed blood on the cross of Calvary. Your blood is precious, true, and pure, and by it I am justified, and so are all who will believe. Oh that many would believe!
My Jesus, it is in Your name I pray,
Amen.

>The Original Rainbow

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The Lord smelled the soothing aroma;
and the Lord said to Himself,
“I will never again curse the ground
on account of man,
for the intent of man’s heart
is evil from his youth;
and I will never again destroy
every living thing, as I have done.”
Genesis 8:21
God was sorry that He had made man, and He sent the flood. What we see here is that even though God had to judge the earth, His heart still broke over the judgment
It reminds me of when I have had to discipline my own children. I knew it had to be done, but still it broke my heart to have to do it.
God promises here that He will never again destroy every living thing because of the wickedness of man’s heart. He promised that while the earth remained, so would hot and cold, seedtime and harvest, and day and night.
The earth was forever changed after the flood. Rain, once never seen, would now be a regular occurrence, a needed regular occurrence. What I love about God is that He knows the heart of man. God knew that the experience that Noah and his family had just been through was overwhelming, and He also knew that fear would grip them at every rainfall and every storm. Fear that somehow they had finally sinned badly enough that God had changed his mind and sent another flood.
So therefore, God, in His infinite mercy and grace, gave Noah a sign. He set His bow in the cloud. I love that. God didn’t say “a bow”; He said, “My bow.” This bow would be seen by every generation, by every nation, a reminder forever that God keeps His word.
God always gives us a sign. He never leaves us without hope. As believers in God and partakers of Christ, there will be times in our lives that we feel we have messed up so bad that God would remove us from Him, that we have lost our salvation.
Fear can grip us that we could be forsaken, but that is not the promise that Jesus gave us. Jesus promised that he would never leave us or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5). He promised that nothing could snatch us out of the Father’s hands ( John 10:29).
Jesus made us this promise and he gave us a sign to remind us of this truth. Just as God places His bow in the sky, He also places His Spirit in us as a sign that we belong to Him and as an ever-present reminder that He is with us.
Oh Father,
How thankful I am that You are who You are. How thankful I am that You are not a man, that You would lie or change Your mind. How thankful I am that You keep Your word. The true feeling of peace does not come when all is right with the world. The true feeling of peace comes in knowing that in spite of what is wrong with the world and what is wrong with me, You love me. You love me and You are with me.
Even though I stumble, even though I fall, You do not leave me in my failings. You might have to discipline me, allow me to fall, but You are always there to pick me up, wash me off, and assure me that You are still there with me, always with me.
My Father in heaven, great and awesome and holy is Your name. Thank You for Your longsuffering, for Your grace upon grace.
My Jesus, I love You, and it is in Your name I pray,
To You be the glory forever,
Amen.