Faithbase

Good morning and welcome to this morning's prayer time and I wanted to make a mention of this Bible before I begin. As you can see it's been marked up and there's a little story behind that. I, like many of you I'm sure, tend to underline and make highlights or notations in my Bible and one day this Bible was at home and one day I came home and one of my daughters, who was probably about seven at the time, something like that, she was, actually she was younger than that, come to think of it, she would have been a few couple years younger than that I think, but anyway, I came home and she was was scribbling in this in this Bible and I said, what are you doing? And she said, daddy I'm reading the Bible. I said, you are? And and when you make those marks does that help you read the Bible? She says, daddy helps me remember what the Bible has to say. And so I've I've kept this this particular pew Bible, that's all it is, for many many years. That particular daughter now is in her mid-20s and so this has been at least probably about 20 years when this happened and but it's been something that was a real heartwarming, I guess you say for me, I just and so I let her keep this Bible for a while. She didn't mark it up anymore after that, but then then I've kept it ever since for my for my own use here. So anyway, we're gonna read from Psalm 7 and pray through the first five verses here this morning. I'll read that to you, Psalm 7, the meditation of David, which he sang to the Lord concerning the words of Cush of Benjamite, O Lord my God, and you I put my trust, save me from all those who persecute me and deliver me, lest they tear me like a lion, rending me in pieces while there is none to deliver. O Lord my God, if I have done this, if there is iniquity in my hands, if I have repaid evil to him who is at peace with me, or if I plundered my enemy without cause, let the enemy pursue me and overtake me, yes, let them trample my life to the earth and lay my honor in the dust, Selah. O gracious Heavenly Father, we do put our trust in you, and as we read with the psalmist what David is saying here to us this morning, we recognize that we put trust in you, we should put trust in you in all situations, Lord God, and so I pray that you'll help me, that you help each person watching this morning or throughout the day, whenever they see this, Lord God, that we can put our trust in you because we will go through difficult situations, and it is at those times that our trust is tried, Lord God. We pray that you will save us. You may not be persecuted, Lord, as the psalmist was, we may not be persecuted physically or even in a very obvious way, but Lord, we live in a culture where faith in our Lord Jesus Christ is becoming something that people not just ridicule but condemn. Lord, just this week I read about a well-known political commentator who said that the Christian faith, essentially said that the Christian faith is far greater a threat to American democracy than Al-Qaeda, and Lord, this not only brings deep pain but it also is a frustrating thing, it is a thing that can cause anger, Lord, but Lord, it's a thing that can cause fear. I pray, Lord, that we will trust in you. Lord God, in you we put our trust. Save us from those who persecute us, Lord, but may you raise up strong leadership that is godly, Lord. Lord, we don't want to be persecuted, we don't want to be torn like a lion would tear, we don't want to be rended in pieces, we don't want to be, and we know that the psalmist is speaking, in his case, could even be speaking literally, but Lord, for us we say, Lord, our heart, our spirit, our life can be upended and can be brought to disaster, at least in our eyes, by what we go through at the hands of those who despise you, Lord, and despise your ways, and so we pray, Lord, that you will protect us, that we place trust in you. Also, Lord, we recognize, as the psalmist says, that if there is iniquity, you sometimes use the hardship of persecution, you sometimes use hardship of a variety of kinds to bring purging, to bring cleansing, to bring correction to your children. We know this from the book of Hebrews as well, that Lord, you will correct your children, that you discipline us and draw us into greater Christlikeness, because we know that all things work together for good. For those who love the Lord, those who are called according to his purposes, so Lord, if we have done this, if there is iniquity in our hands, Lord God, forgive us, we pray. We bring our sins before you this morning and ask that you'd forgive us if we have not been loving toward our neighbor, if we've repaid evil with one who's peace with us, if we've, if we have somehow taken from others those things that do not belong to us, we've plundered our enemy. Lord, if we have done anything to step outside of the Christlike walk that you called us to, we pray, Lord, that we will receive any correction you give us and that we will quickly turn back to you and that you will quickly restore us and strengthen us, Lord God. And so today, Lord, we pray that we will think about these things, just as the psalmist at this point stopped to think about the possibility of sin that has caused hardship in his life, Lord, we recognize that that can very well be the situation for us as well. So we pray in the name of Jesus Christ that you would give us wisdom, that you'd give us insight, Lord, that you'd give us peace today. We pray your blessings on this day. Watch over us throughout this Advent season as we turn our eyes to you, Lord Jesus, and remember that you, and I know it sounds like a cliche, but you are the reason for this season. We pray these things that we have just talked about here in your scripture, Lord God, we pray this all in Jesus' name, amen.