Heavenly Father I praise and give You the glory for making a way for us to receive salvation. I praise You for laying out in the Bible who You are and what it takes for us to have a relationship with You. I praise You that this life is not the end and that it gives us hope. Help me today to take command of my morning and day and shake all evil out of it.
Holy Spirit, you inspired Paul to write: If I give all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profits me nothing. [1 Corinthians 13:3] We should learn to give out of love, whether toward the person or to God. True gifts are given because of love. We also need to learn to receive things with love, even criticism. This is not easy to do, but it is necessary if we want to grow.
This season as gifts are given, exchanged, or donated, look at what is behind the giving. Help me to learn to receive with grace and love for the effort and time the person has put into giving something to me. Let me learn to be grateful. Help me understand the lesson of sowing and reaping.
I pray and ask that I may be filled with the knowledge of Your will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that I may walk worthy of You, fully pleasing, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of You; strengthened with all might, according to Your glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; giving thanks to the Father who has qualified me to be a partaker of the inheritance of the saints in the light. You have delivered me from the power of darkness and conveyed me into the kingdom of the Son of Your love, in whom I have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins. You are the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by You, all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through You for You. And You are before all things, and in You, all things exist. And You are the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things You may have the preeminence. In Your blessed Son Jesus’ name, Amen. (Colossians 1:9-18)