“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God...
…whatever things are true, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report;
If there be any virtue, and if there be any praise…
think on these…” Philippians 4:6,8 AKJV
Father, as we look around us, pressing in on all sides, there is much to be anxious about. It’s not hard to be anxious, to look into the future and be concerned even suffer a sense of foreboding.
The world, our country, our institutions… in our communities, homes, and families there is a falling away, a rebelling against and turning away from Your laws and rulings, in some cases imperceptibly, in others with lightning speed. So, at varying degrees, we find ourselves to be slipping into sin, doing wrongly and acting wickedly.
It’s scary Father. The troubles we face, in all their many forms, are real and in our own “strength” and “wisdom” we feel weak and don’t see how anything we do will make a difference. And maybe this is a very true assessment on our part. Maybe the deception we have to overcome in order to do something effective is that in our own “strength” and “wisdom” we cannot.
So, Father if we look to the moral code You have established for us to order our lives by, and use it for the standard of all our decisions and actions in our individual lives, we can be strong.
We can “…labor on in weakness and rejoicing…
for in (our) need, (Your) power is displayed”.
All that is needed has by heaven been given us…
The grace You have given in the person of Yeshua…
If our focus is on Yeshua, the embodiment of Your Word, the living moral code, we will know truth and justice, purity, and loveliness, what is good to say, what is virtuous and praiseworthy, things we can think on and apply to our lives, things that will enable us to live at peace within ourselves no matter the circumstances and to be vessels through whom You touch the lives of others around us.
Father, that this might be what we hold to always.
In Yeshua’s name we pray.
Amen,
Some thoughts and words from:
“Yet Not I but Through Christ in Me”
Jonny Robinson, Michael Farren & Rich Thompson
