ADORATION – Reflect on God’s Greatness
IMPASSABILITY OF GOD He is not overwhelmed by any emotion, he is not incapacitated or weakened or stifled by any event or any amount of grief or love. Rather, God is totally self-controlled. While God does grieve, and does passionately love, he does so completely on purpose.
God is also immutable meaning he does not change. He is also infinite, which means his love is endless. It seems at first glance that an impassible God, a God whose love does not grow is just a stoic. However an infinite unchanging God results in God’s wonderful impassibility. He is immeasurable love. He is limitless in joy and delight.
Malachi 3:6 For I the Lord do not change.
Psalm 147:5 Great is the Lord and abundant in power. His understanding is beyond measure.
Praise God for His Impassibility
Praise Him that He is not overwhelmed by emotion. He is love. He is infinite love and joy. Praise God that He is perfect in love and joy regardless of your actions or deeds. Praise Him that you can do nothing to diminish His love and perfection.
CONFESSION: Confess your sins to God and receive his continued mercy.
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9
THANKSGIVING: Giving thanks to God for his specific blessings in our lives.
“Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.” Psalm 100
SUPPLICATION: Bringing our requests to God.
- Bring your personal prayer requests to God.
- Pray for your friends who do not know Jesus. Ask God to strengthen your friendships and to give you opportunities for gospel conversations.
SCRIPTURE READING:
James 1:1-8 – New Living Translation
Greetings from James
1 This letter is from James, a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.
I am writing to the “twelve tribes”—Jewish believers scattered abroad.
Greetings!
Faith and Endurance
2 Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. 3 For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. 4 So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.
5 If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking. 6 But when you ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver, for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind. 7 Such people should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. 8 Their loyalty is divided between God and the world, and they are unstable in everything they do.
SCRIPTURE REFLECTION:
Perseverance is a word that means to “bear up under a load” and to do this for a long time. This sounds horrible. Who would want to do that? Actually, you do. Don’t think of this as an unnecessary or meaningless burden. Think of carrying water to a person who is thirsty. Think of carrying a friend who has fallen. Think of bearing under the load of exercise to gain physical health. Earning a degree, or gaining a vocational skill is a type of load to carry for self-improvement. We all have the experience in a variety of ways of the benefits of carrying a load of some type. The specific load here is the burden of trials, and the gain that comes from carrying this load is that we become, over time, mature and complete. The gain of this pain is spiritual development. We become more like Jesus as we respond well to trials of all kinds. We may not want the trials, but we certainly do want the growth that only trials can bring. Counting trials as pure joy is a goal to aim for. We are not going to arrive there in perfect fashion, and for most of us it is always going to be a huge challenge to see trials as opportunity. We can, however, choose to practice what we hope to become. We can, in many small ways, choose to move towards joy even in trials. This has to mean that joy is more than merely a feeling. Certainly joy is not void of feeling, otherwise the word becomes essentially meaningless. But to say it is more than feeling is not to say that it is less than feeling. Joy is a deep and abiding sense of well-being. It is nurtured through learning to trust God and his purposes. Joy is something that the Holy Spirit brings into our lives in ways we cannot manufacture. He does this as we focus our attention on the truth of God and learn to live in union with him. All this sounds rather complex, but the most important thing is to get started. Begin to learn by practicing how to “count it all joy when you face trials.” Practice is said to make perfect, perhaps this is true. Practice does make “permanent”…we “become” what we do over time. Start doing this today.