Heavenly Father I praise You for today. I praise You for helping me through the storms I face in life. I praise You for helping grow my faith one challenge, setback, disappointment, and heartache at a time. I praise You for the hope that You have instilled in me since I accepted Christ’s offer of salvation in 1982 at a camp meeting in West Branch, Michigan. I praise You for teaching me to trust, listen and obey Your Spirit who dwells within in me and walks with me daily.
Holy Spirit, Christ told his disciples and all who would listen to taste and see, the Psalmist said the same thing in what we know as Psalm 34, help me to learn to possess and demonstrate the fruits of the Spirit so that people can learn to taste and see Christ in me. Let me demonstrate Your love to all despite my sense of justice or my sense of who should be loved or not. Help me to exemplify a love that will show the world Christ in this world where there is hate, anger, division, and murderous thoughts. Help me to not be like Cain when God said: “Why are you angry? Why is your countenance fallen? If you do well, shall you not be accepted? But sin is crouching at the door if you do not do well. It desires to dominate you, but you must rule over it.” [Genesis 4:6&7]
Holy Spirit help me to trust in and know joy, not necessarily happiness, but the joy that comes from deep within born out of the hope of eternal life and all that it will be. Let my joy be my strength and sustain me through, trials, tribulations, and heartache.
Holy Spirit I desire to have and cherish the peace only You can give me. I desire to bear the fruit of peace not division, adversity, or being argumentative to hurt or destroy anyone. Help me to be like Christ when confronted with the woman caught in adultery to stand, use reason and defuse the murderous hate by claiming, He who does not have sin may cast the first stone. For all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of You.
Holy Spirit I will not ask for patience, but I will ask that You strengthen my patience so that I am not irrational or reactive to all the conflict, sin, wars, and arguments around me. Help me to see people as Your creation needing salvation, not my aggravation or frustration with how I feel they should live or act. This is the hardest fruits for me and I need to head not looking at the speck in someone else’s eye when I have a log in mine.
Holy Spirit I am anything but gentle. This is a fruit that I will strive to be but will always be a struggle with who I am. Help me to demonstrate gentleness when appropriate so that I can represent You and build Your kingdom because people see the reflection of You in my life, not because of who I am.
Holy Spirit I accept the fruit of goodness in my life only because with You in my life am I good. Goodness in me is the confidence I have in my salvation and that at the appointed time I will either join Christ in the sky or be resurrected. My confidence that there is a heaven and hell and eternity for me with the heroes of the faith and family who stayed the course in serving You until they passed over is the confidence that I can have, possess and demonstrate goodness for others to know You.
Holy Spirit I will always need to learn to continue to grow in my faith and meekness. I understand that meekness is like a bridled war horse, ready to charge into any battle but restrained until the appropriate time. Moses was known to be a man of meekness, yet in no way was he known to be a weak man. Let me learn from Moses and others in Your word and mentors You have brought into my life to have faith to withstand any and all temptations, tribulations, failures, and challenges to my trust in You so that I can be known for my faith and my meekness when I leave this earth.
Holy Spirit I come to the last fruit that Paul talks about in Galatians 5:22&23, the fruit of self-control. To this fruit is the one hidden deepest within the thorns of life. I die out each day to You as a living sacrifice for You to use however You deem appropriate. This means that I give up my free will to You, my desires to You, my sense of justice, my “rights” and fully commit to doing Your will no matter what I want or feel when I face life head-on. Self-control also demands that I bridle my tongue from sarcasm, cursing, and saying inappropriate stuff when talking. I may demand that I remain silent instead of venting all that I feel or want someone to know and feel.
Holy Spirit help me to become fruitful and reflect Christ in my life all the time. My righteousness and faith rest on Your Spirit dwelling in me, through me, and for me. I can do nothing but for Christ living within me. In Jesus’ name, Amen.