Week 28 Day 4
Pray:
Ask God to reorient you to Himself. Confess any known sin. Thank Him for His forgiveness. Be still and reflect on Jesus and His sacrifice for you. Ask the Holy Spirit to open your heart and mind to God’s Word. Pray for others in your life that they, too, would know and love God today.
Read:
Matt. 6:9-13 This, then, is how you should pray: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.”
Reflect:
“My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one” (John 17:15). Jesus prayed for us that we would be protected from the “evil one,” who is Satan. Satan is a word that means “adversary.” He opposes us because he opposes God. Why hasn’t God just “ended him?” For that matter, why hasn’t he just “ended sin” as well? God is in the process of ending both Satan and sin. That is why the time we live in is called the “last days.” We are living in the middle of the end. It might help if you consider that all time is “now” for God and that his “lifespan” is eternal. He is working his purposes out on his eternal time scale while we live out our lives in a cosmic microsecond. The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus marked the beginning of the end. Satan’s back has been broken and he is an adversary with an expiration date. Yet even so, Satan remains fierce and dangerous. Sin, likewise, has lost the war but continues to win many battles in our lives. So, we attempt to live for God’s glory, but remember that we do so in a world that remains in opposition to him. We must endeavor to demonstrate that the final victory is sure by living lives of daily victory. Our deliverance, in the end, is final and complete. Our deliverance in the meantime is trust-by-trust and choice-by-choice. You must not become complacent. Many have died from battle wounds even after the war has been declared over. Your enemy is defeated and yet he can still do you great harm. Pray today and pray every day, “deliver us from evil.” Then go into your day with confidence and with caution. Close the gap on your faith and on your humility. You do not have what it takes to stand up to Satan, but Jesus does. Lean into God today and pray throughout the day, “Deliver me from the evil one and deliver me to your liberty.”
Pray:
(Personalize this prayer today; make it specific to the circumstances that face you.)
Ask God to lead you through His Spirit as you go through your day. Ask Him to bring to mind the truth of the gospel and its implications for what you will encounter today. Tell Him “Yes” to His will and ask Him for His power and protection to live this “yes.” Ask God to create and reveal opportunities to proclaim the good news today.