i pray

short podcasts to bring the sacred into your everyday

Do you only have a few minutes for prayer today? You’re in the right place! Try one of our new i pray podcasts. A few minutes is all you need to pray God’s word into any situation by interceding for friends, family, and yourself. 

Show Notes

Do you ever feel that you’ve messed up too much for God to forgive you? 

That is a lie. When we confess our sins and accept that Jesus died on the cross and took the penalty for our sins on Himself, we have the assurance that we are forgiven.

Once we have established our relationship with Christ, when the Holy Spirit convicts us of any new sins we’ve committed we simply confess them and let the Spirit work in our lives to heal us of what needs healing. God is our God of second chances.

Let’s pray today using 2 Chronicles 7:14. “If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”

Thank you for praying with us at OnlyByPrayer.com today!

Nourishment and refreshment for your soul.

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”

Hebrews 12:1-2

While we are walking out our life on this earth, a great cloud of witnesses have their eyes on us. In order to walk correctly, we need lay aside any distraction and every sin,that clouds our vision and keep our eyes on Jesus. Their eyes are on us. Our eyes are on Jesus. Eyes on the cross. Cross-eyed.

Scientific research proves where the eyes go, the body follows (Research Article). Therefore, if we keep our eyes on the cross, we will follow Jesus.

Verse 2 uses the term looking unto Jesus, which transliterates into one Greek word, aphorao. Aphorao means “to turn the eyes away from other things and fix them on something, to turn ones mind.” Aphorao descends form another verb horao, which means “to see with the eyes and mind, to become acquainted with by experience, to perceive, to know. ”

Mind … body … eyes. All connected. All leading somewhere. Eyes on Jesus. Eyes on His word. Eyes on the cross.

Cross-eyed.

Action Points:

1. Are you cross-eyed?
2. What is getting in the way of seeing Jesus? Do you need to lay something aside?
3. What do you think about and meditate on? What do you fill your mind with?
4. Do you know Jesus? How can you get to know Him better?

Life is sweet!

“Therefore, this is what the Sovereign LORD says: ‘Look! I am placing a foundation stone in Jerusalem, a firm and tested stone. It is a precious cornerstone that is safe to build on. Whoever believes need never be shaken. I will test you with the measuring line of justice and the plumb line of righteousness.” (Isaiah 28:16-17a NLT)

In Part 1 of this post, we left Israel in limbo waiting through 400 years of silence from God. I can’t imagine living my whole life without any sign or word from God. Finally, God breaks His silence, and He does it through a series of spectacular angelic visitations.

• The angel Gabriel appears to Zacharias the priest when Zacharias is burning incense in the temple of the Lord. Gabriel explains that Zacharias and Elizabeth (who are elderly and childless) will be blessed with a baby who will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. ( Luke 1:5-25)
• Appearing with even more astounding news, Gabriel also visits a virgin Mary to tell her that she is blessed among women because she has found favor with God and will bear the Son of the Highest. (Luke 1: 26-38)
• An angel of the Lord appears to Mary’s fiancé, Joseph, in a dream and tells him to not be afraid to take Mary as his wife, because the child she carries is conceived by the Holy Spirit. (Matthew 1:18-25)
• An angel of the Lord appears to shepherds in a field to tell them of the Savior’s birth, and then a whole host of angels lights up the sky before them rejoicing. (Luke 2:8-20)
• Three wise men from the East are divinely warned in a dream not to return to Herod after they have seen the baby Jesus. (Matthew 2:12)

Exit Law Enter the Grace of the Cross

To our eternal benefit, God sends a heavenly baby to earth and in that action He does away with the law as a means of forgiving sin. No one had been able to keep the law until, that is, Jesus came to earth and lived a sinless life. Jesus did what no one before Him was able to do and no one after Him will ever be able to do. God put the penalty of the world’s sin on Jesus. His death on the cross included payment for my sin and your sin. God then forever broke the power of sin and death with Jesus’s spectacular Resurrection three days after His death.

We now have a new plumb line: the cross.

When we confess our sins and accept Jesus’ payment for them on the cross, we are forever in true with God because of the plumb line of the cross! And each day, we can align ourselves with Jesus and the Holy Spirit to make sure we are continually transformed into the image of Christ (2 Corinthians 3:18).

God has always provided a plumb line for us. For the rest of history, that plumb line is Jesus and the cross.

No matter how crooked your life may look right now, the plumb line of the cross can straighten you out with God. You can start your journey with God by praying this simple prayer:

Dear God,

I admit that I am a sinner. I ask that you forgive me for my sins. I realize on my own I can do nothing to make up for them. I accept Jesus’ death on the cross as payment for my sins, and I ask Him to take charge of my life. Amen.

If you just prayed that prayer and you are able to do so, please leave us a message below in the comments. God bless you.

Pray on!

“Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.” Ephesians 4:26 (NIV)

“Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.” Ephesians 4:31 (ESV)

“But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life.” 1Timothy 1:16

He is risen! Happy Easter!

Today we are looking at the final stanza of True Lenten Discipline:

FAST from anger; FEAST on patience.

(Here is the full poem of True Lenten Discipline. Here are the devotions for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,  Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Here is the link to the True Lenten Discipline Podcast.)

God’s word calls us to let all anger be put away from us. From this word let we can infer that we choose what, where, when, how long and if we will be angry. Just as love is a decision, anger is a decision. I have even caught myself thinking, “If he does that one more time, I’m going to become really angry!”

The word let used in this verse is airo which means “to raise, to lift up, to raise upward, to elevate.” This definition then is a reminder to us that when we are overcome with anger, we can choose to lift up in prayer the situation, circumstance, or person that we are upset about. The problem with anger is that it demands vengeance. But God has declared in Romans 12:19 that, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay.” We need to let our anger go. The longer we nourish it, the more tempted we will be to make others “pay” for how they have hurt us.

By definition the Greek word for anger means, “natural disposition, character, temperament, punishment, anger used as punishment.” In order to satisfy God’s righteous anger concerning our sin, He poured out His wrath upon Jesus through His death on the cross. Jesus took our punishment so God can now give us His grace and patience. Considering how we have been spared from just punishment, what right do we have to choose to continue to be angry with others? Ask God to remove your anger and help you to choose patience instead.

God in His infinite wisdom, has provided us with two different types of patience; one for difficult situations (hypomeno), one for difficult people (makrothymeo). As our verse above shows us, Jesus is our example of infinite patience. If He could have such patience with us, how can we have not extend that same patience to others?

Application: When traced back to its origin, the Greek root word for anger means mountain.Do you have a mountain of anger in your life, something that you can’t seem to let go? Mountains are seemingly huge impenetrable obstacles that are always before us. But God has given us a way to deal with the mountain of anger—by speaking His Word (Matthew 21:21). If an issue has you trapped in chains of anger, find a Scripture that applies to your situation and by faith pray that Scripture into your situation. Keep praying scripture into your situation and by an act of obedience show patience instead.

Because of Easter, because of Christ’s death on the cross, we too can choose to lay aside our anger and choose instead to be patient with others.

Prayer: God, we pray for the willingness to let go of our anger and extend instead the gift of patience. We thank you for your patience with us and your love as demonstrated through Jesus.

Easter morning. The wrath of God was satisfied!

“For He was wounded for our transgression, bruised for our iniquities and by His stripes we’re healed.” Thank you Jesus for your sacrifice. Join us for our Good Friday Devotion, Following Jesus to the Cross by clicking on the link.

Image: dan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Our Lenten Devotional series has certainly sped past. It’s hard to believe we are in our final week’s journey to the cross and then to Easter Sunday. To start off this week, let’s spend some time reviewing the past five weeks of study. Thanks so much for joining us, and be sure you make some time to spend with our Lord this week as we journey through Holy Week. Just click below to read our review.

Lent Review

May God bless you this week!