Take a moment to refresh, refocus, and refine your faith.
As Lord, we owe you our fealty. As Father, we owe you our love. Yet despite furnishing the universe for us to thrive and giving us every opportunity to live abundantly under your protection, we continue to stray and act foolishly.
We prevail upon you once again to forgive our willfulness and rehabilitate us. Train us in righteousness that we would think and act like Christ.
Renew us in an attitude of praise that we would spend our days living in grateful service.
Perhaps sweeter still than service is the intimate Sabbath rest you call us to.
Quiet our spirits, minds, and bodies so we can fully enjoy the simplicity of basking in your presence.
Clear away the clutter of day-to-day life and draw our focus to your beauty and grace.
Warm us in the light of your perfect love and teach us to express it purely back to you.
Open our eyes to the reflections of your glory around is - in creation, in other people, in our circumstances.
Grant us the vision to see your merciful hand in motion.
Rekindle the passions you seated within our hearts that after our rest we would be refreshed to pursue them with enthusiasm and vigor.
Remind us of our purpose and the pleasure in working out our salvation.
When you speak, may we be so enamored and trustful of you that we never hesitate to follow after your calling, whatever it may be. Amen.
Philippians 2:12-16
Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.
Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.” Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the word of life. And then I will be able to boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor in vain.
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