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Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me. — Psalm 51:12 Thoughts on Today's Verse... In the face of sin and separation from God, grace is God's refreshing stream that restores our salvation - making it existentially real to us. In our struggles with suffering, grief, and loss, only God's grace and his Holy Spirit ministering to our spirits can help us find a sustaining and willing spirit. This ongoing joy of salvation comes only when we realize and accept the forgiveness, grace, restoration, and Spirit-inspired refreshment God has given us - in other words, we get to drink from the stream of grace as the Holy Spirit wells up within us with heaven's living water to refresh us ( John 7:37-39 ). So we can say with confidence that God will restore to us the joy of our salvation, and he will grant us a willing spirit to sustain us!* * Psalm 51 is written as David's confessional response for his grievous and multiple sins in hi...

Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart. — Psalm 37:4 Thoughts on Today's Verse... Rather than seeing this as a way to get our wish list granted, let's see it for what it really is - an invitation to seek a loving, dependent relationship with God above all other things and to find our delight in him. In finding him, in delighting in him, we will find our priorities properly aligned and our hearts tuned to desire what is really valuable and what he longs to give to us. Then we will see that what we have in him is our heart's greatest desire. This is not a promise to get all the stuff we want; it's a promise to find in God all that we need, and then we find our delight in what pleases him. My Prayer... Awesome and Gracious Father, we confess to you that too often our hearts are full of selfish desires. Today, however, we recognize, dear Father, that you are the one we most need, and your will is what our hearts most desire. Please kindl...

Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD. — Psalm 27:14 Thoughts on Today's Verse... If there is anything we don’t like to do, it is to wait. Maybe that is why God is so interested in us learning to do it - to learn to prayerfully wait on him. There is something purifying about remaining strong in tough times and remaining faithful when ill winds blow. So God gives us times to wait on him to see whether our search is really about him or merely looking for an easy way out of our messes. I don't know about you, but I am going to wait on the LORD because that's where my future, my hope, and my strength will come from. My Prayer... Loving Father, I know you have waited patiently for me so many times - for me to show my faith, repent of my sins, grow in holiness, come to you in prayer, act more maturely, give to those who cannot return my grace and care, and you have waited on me for so many other things and in so many other times. Thank you! Thank you f...

The LORD confides in those who fear him; he makes his covenant known to them. My eyes are ever on the LORD, for only he will release my feet from the snare. — Psalm 25:14-15 Thoughts on Today's Verse... Where does true deliverance come from? Only from God. Deliverance is found in God through deep reverential respect for his holiness and strength, through living faithfully in covenant relationship with him, and through maintaining our focus and dependence upon him. Any other roads to deliverance are false shortcuts that ultimately prove themselves to be a snare. Like the tightrope walker whose eyes are not on the ground or the surroundings, but on the rope in front of him where he will walk, so too our eyes must be on the LORD. Only by looking to him will he lead us to safety and from the snares of the one who longs to have us and destroy us. Our eyes must be ever on the LORD because we trust that he will lead us away from "temptation" and "deliver us from the evil...

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O LORD, my Rock and my Redeemer. — Psalm 19:14 Thoughts on Today's Verse... God does so much for us. He is the Rock and Redeemer that undergirds our lives. He is the One who has saved us from sin and death. Our worship comes from our gratitude for what he has done, recognition of who he is, and anticipation of what he is going to do. But worship can never be compartmentalized to just fit into church places or quiet times ( Colossians 3:16-17 ). Worship involves every aspect of life ( Hebrews 12:28-13:16 ). That is why it is so important to tune our hearts so the words of our mouths and the motives of our hearts align with God's will and work. Then our private worship, whether alone in quiet or in a group with fellow believers, becomes the tuning fork for our hearts and lives so that our public worship, our lives lived out in the world, will play the song of God to a world that has not yet heard ...

How great you are, O Sovereign LORD! There is no one like you, and there is no God but you, as we have heard with our own ears. — 2 Samuel 7:22 Thoughts on Today's Verse... Remember how the Ten Commandments began? "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me" ( Exodus 20:2-3 ). Our God is the Sovereign LORD! No one is like him, and no false god rivals him. So we, Jesus' disciples and children of God today, need to join King David in his praise: "How great you are, O Sovereign LORD! There is no one like you...!" Some truths are better acknowledged, believed, and proclaimed than discussed, so today we affirm that truth to ourselves and proclaim it to others rather than waste time on discussing it: "How great you are, O Sovereign LORD! There is no one like you...!" My Prayer... Holy, righteous, and living God, we hold you in the highest place in our hearts. Please forgive ...