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

Today we are praying about new life. Jesus is the only one, the only Savior who beat death and rose again. He is the difference. When we accept His sacrifice on the cross, taking the penalty of our sins upon Himself, then we also get to experience eternal life! When we die, we have the assurance that we will be with Him in heaven.

Abundant Life Today

But this promise is also for abundant life right now. God wants to do something new in us and through us. Today let’s pray through Isaiah 43:18-19 for this new thing to spring up within us. Feel free to add your prayers or ask for prayer in the comment section.

Pray on!

Click on the arrow to listen below:

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!

Day 6: The Book of Life

“He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the Book of Life; but I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.

Revelation 3:5

Do not remember the rebellious sins of my youth. Remember me in the light of your unfailing love, for you are merciful, O Lord.  Psalm 25:7 NLT

These words resonated with me a few mornings ago as I was reading them. I had to stop and go over verse 7 a few times to let it sink in deeply.

You see, for years I struggled with seeing myself as the same girl I was during high school, college, and my young adult years. Even though I was changing, moving on, and growing in my faith, when I thought about myself, the image of who I was in those teen and early 20s seemed to haunt me. While spiritually I was growing, my mindset was not letting me fully embrace those changes and was holding me back. It took me years to let go of this faulty thinking.

I hope this verse will convince you to not wait as long as I did, because … verse 7 is a life changer. Perhaps I can explain it this way.

Photographers will often set the F-stop of their camera to a low number for artistic effect. It brings the desired object into sharp focus but everything in the background becomes a fuzzy blur, like in the picture of the brown-eyed Susan you see here.  And you know what, that’s exactly what God does when He looks at each one of us. He sets our F-stop to a low number! Who we are now in Jesus, as one of His beloved children is in sharp focus.Those things we did in the past? Well, to God they’re a blurry blip in the background of our lives. Yes, we may still suffer some consequences from those choices and decisions, but Jesus has removed the stigma from them. When we trust Him to forgive our sins, God now sees us in the light of His unfailing love.

It’s time to move on from old, dead thinking. If you’ve confessed your sins and placed your trust in Jesus to bear the penalty of your sins, then God isn’t the one holding you back. You are. When God looks at you, He doesn’t see the junk in the background of your past. He sees His lovely child standing in front of Him in clear detail. Bask in His love and light today as the person you are now.

Feel free to share your thoughts below, or you can also contact me.

Pray on!

Jane VanOsdol’s work has appeared in Pockets, Small Farmer’s Journal, Woman’s Day, Warner Press publications and numerous online publications. Jane and her sister Mary Kane are the authors of OnlyByPrayer.com and speak together at women’s retreats and seminars. She loves gardening, knitting, reading, biking, and gluten-free goodies. Jane is married to Mark and has a son, daughter, and a son-in-law.

“Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen!” Luke 24:5,6

He is risen! Happy Easter!

I pray this Easter morning finds you rejoicing in the knowledge that our Savior is alive.  We do not serve a powerless God. No! We serve a Savior who conquered death and all the powers of hell to rise triumphant. Because of that we have the certainty of eternal life when we accept Jesus’ sacrifice for our sins on the cross. It is a free gift with no strings attached. And He offers this gift to every person. Have you accepted it?

Jesus isn’t a go-with-the–flow kind of person. No, He came to the earth to shake things up. And He did. He healed the sick. He cast out demons. He talked to a Samaritan woman and companioned with tax collectors. He took a whip and cleared out the moneychangers from the temple.  And He opened the truth to the Gentiles, Jews, Greek, slave, and free—in short anyone who would believe in Him.

And Jesus still does all those things today. He wants to be our everyday lives. He changes us, encourages us, heals us, admonishes us and loves us. He brings hope to even the darkest of situations and times.

Wherever this Easter day finds you, I hope it finds you rejoicing in our Savior. Happy Easter!

Pray on!

“Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.” John 8:36

True Freedom

By

Jane VanOsdol

“You stay here, and I’ll be back in a few minutes,” my relative Max said to me as he went with the East German police into a building. It was the summer of 1980. I had just graduated from high school and was visiting relatives in Germany. Max had taken me into East Berlin to meet a friend of his, and we were trying to return back to the West side after a few day’s visit. An armed guard marched around and around the car as I waited for Max.  I eyed the guard as I pondered the events of the last few days. Nothing in my life had prepared me for the palpable oppression and depression I experienced in East Berlin.

The moment we crossed the border, everything was drab and lifeless–the countryside, the buildings, even the people seemed gray and lifeless. I had even looked back behind us, trying to figure out what had happened in the last few feet to cause such a change. It slowly settled on me that this was the result of a government that robbed people of their basic freedoms. I had to guard every word that came out of my mouth–even inside our friend’s apartment–as I quickly learned the first day.

.

The minutes ticked by as I sat in the car. After 20 minutes I decided I had to go find him. I opened the door and started for the building, wondering what the guard would do. At that moment, Max flung open the office door and strode out, motioning me back into the car.

It wasn’t until we were on our way down the road that he spoke. Because I was an American, they made up some violation that Max had supposedly committed and assessed him a hefty fine. They pulled us over one more time and fined us again before we made it back to West Berlin.

Never before had I recognized the true worth of freedom in America. My eyes were suddenly opened to the value of my country compared to this stifling existence that I had lived for only a few days, that many others were trapped in forever.

Likewise, I came to recognize a few years later the ultimate gift of freedom given by Jesus. After I had spent a few miserable years wallowing in the drab gray prison of my own sinful ways, how could I not choose the One who came in, rescued me from myself and took me over the border into freedom?

Every July 4th reminds me anew of the blessing of my country. And every day lived with Jesus reminds me to be thankful for my freedom in Christ.

Prayer:  Dear Lord, we thank You for the blessing of America. Help us not to take for granted what so many others have died for. Thank You for the ultimate sacrifice You made on the cross that freed us from our sins and reconciled us to You. Amen.

Copyright 2009                    Jane VanOsdol            All Rights Reserved