ADORATION – Reflect on God’s Greatness
GOD IS OUR COMFORTER
Jesus called the Holy Spirit the “Comforter,” and the apostle Paul writes that the Lord is “the God of all comfort.”
2 Corinthians 1:3-4
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.
Praise God the Comforter
Praise God because He sees and understands our sorrows. Praise God because He comforts those in trouble. Praise Him because He is present and He cares. Praise Him because He brings comfort through His people.
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 and family who do not know Christ. Ask God to give you opportunities to have gospel conversations.
SCRIPTURE READING:
James 4:1-3 – New Living Translation
Drawing Close to God
4 What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Don’t they come from the evil desires at war within you? 2 You want what you don’t have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can’t get it, so you fight and wage war to take it away from them. Yet you don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God for it. 3 And even when you ask, you don’t get it because your motives are all wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure.
SCRIPTURE REFLECTION:
Evidently some of James’ readers were not asking God for what they wanted, and it was the reason they were not experiencing God’s answers to prayers. Maybe they were not asking God because they knew their hearts were full of selfish desire, and they had the good sense to refrain from taking those selfish desires to God. Maybe they were so far from God in their thinking that prayer was no longer something they thought of. Maybe they had become practical atheists, confessing belief in God but living their lives as if he does not exist. Some may have been asking God for what they wanted, but not receiving anything from God because their motives in asking were way off. It’s all worth thinking deeply about. What if you do pray and, as best you can tell, your heart is right with God. You truly do want what God wants, and you can ask God for his kingdom to come, his will to be done with a free heart. If so, you should pray often about everything. You should joyfully take everything to him in prayer knowing that somehow, he has designed the world such that your prayers have an impact on actual events. You should joyfully take everything to him in prayer knowing that his will, will be done. Feel free to try to figure out the mystery of all this, but just realize that you will not completely figure it out. Fortunately, we don’t have to figure out prayer to engage God in it and see God move through it.