Doing What is Right

 Prayer Practice

Prayer Journal – To begin your daily worship today, grab a pen and paper and write out a prayer to God. Not sure what to write? Try using ACTS to frame your prayer. Begin with adoration for who God is. Then move on to confession – being real about where you have fallen short in the last day or two. Give thanks to God for all that He gives (including forgiveness for the sin you just confessed!). And then finish with supplication – with your prayer requests to God. When you are done, tuck this away somewhere (so you can read it later and see how God has answered your prayers) and then move into hearing from God through His Word.

 

DAILY READING

1 John 3:7-10

REFLECTION

Whose Your Daddy?

by Mary McGinnis

My Dad was my hero. He was such a man of integrity and humble service. He cared about people on such a deep level. That sometimes meant he challenged people to do better. It meant that he was willing to ask them hard questions.

But what really drove him was his faith and his heart! He strove to meet people's needs and helped lead them toward their goals. They trusted him because they knew he had their best interest at heart.

This picture from May 23, 2009 when he walked me down the aisle caused me to reflect today. I want nothing more in my life than to be my Dad's daughter and emulate him.

I know not everyone had this kind of experience with their Dads. Some people wish that did not share the same DNA as their Father. In fact, they would be offended if someone said they were anything like their Father.  It is a deep kind of pain.  

1 John, Chapter 3 begins by saying, “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” 

Because we all have earthly fathers, we were all born with a sinful nature, prone to going our own way, and hopelessly lost. Romans 3:23 says, “We have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

Sin is missing the mark, the bull’s eye. The target is to have every feeling, thought and action of our lives being wholly conformed to the will of God, our Heavenly Father. If we are honest, we all know how far short of God’s glory we are.

Yet our Heavenly Father chose to send His only Son, Jesus, who took on our flesh. Jesus is the Righteous One, He fulfilled all that God created Him to be and did so PERFECTLY.  

He washes us clean from the inside out and fills us up with His perfect righteousness.

 

“Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as He is righteous.” This is the hope we have! We now CAN put into practice feeling, thinking, and acting like our Righteous Father, because the One who lavished us with His love has become our righteousness. Our Heavenly Father’s SEED lives in our hearts, His DNA, so to speak, is running through our veins. 

 

If we had a Father like that, why would we want to keep doing what is wrong and not do what pleases Him? 

 

What about those who continually “make a practice of sinning?” It might be easy to say, “Well, I am ONLY human, I can’t help it. It is just who I am.” And then make excuses for the things we do or do not do. 

 

John is clear that we are NOT to be deceived, led away from the truth.  The devil is a liar and accuser. He has been accusing God since the beginning of time. Satan tells us God is against us, that God is holding out on us, that He cannot and should not be trusted.  He then leads us down a path of thinking we must take things into our own hands and do what makes us happy.  He then turns around and throws accusation after accusation at us about how unworthy and unlovable we are, that God could NEVER really love us. The Devil's intention is ALWAYS to kill, steal and destroy.  

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want that kind of Dad.   

 

Lord, I confess that I often miss the mark of being all You created me to be. Fill me with Your righteousness so that my feelings, thoughts, and actions will reflect You as my Father. In the name Jesus, I renounce the works of the Accuser, the Devil. Thank You for sending Jesus to destroy him. Thank You for give us the victory over the penalty, power and presence of sin in our hearts and in our world.