Tag Archive for: John

Disciple-Making, Follow Jesus, Gospel, leadership, Prayer, Relate to One Another

Leading with the Love of Jesus

As Jesus followers, we talk a lot about love. We talk about loving our neighbors, as well as our enemies. We talk about including strangers, as well as listening to people with whom we disagree. We do a lot of talking, but when do we put love into action?

Jesus says that the people in our neighborhoods and cities will know that we belong to him when we put love into action by loving one another the way he has loved us. Part of your responsibility as a Christ-centered leader is to help people love others as Jesus has loved them. To take your responsibility seriously, you have to model the love of Jesus by loving the way Jesus loved. You love the people who God has entrusted to your care.

Leading with Love

Loving like Jesus is not easy. You are leading some people who put a lot of emphases on the social aspects of the gospel and at the same time you are leading others who put a lot of emphasis on the personal aspects of the gospel. How do you model for each group the love of Jesus? To add to the difficulty, you meet people with different experiences from your own. How do you love them?

Keep this in mind. In every human heart is the need to be loved and the need to be challenged to love. Everyone entrusted to your care is seeking to experience, understand, and express love in ways that make a difference in their lives and in the world in which they live. How will you model the love of Jesus for them?

Again, this week, use the pattern of Read, Reflect, Respond, Return as a tool to learn more of who you are as a Christ-centered leader.

Read John 13:34-35

Jesus says, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Reflect

Some think the biggest challenge facing the church today is human sexuality. But there is a greater challenge. It is the challenge of loving others just as Jesus has loved us. Is it possible to love as Jesus loved in the world in which we live?

Learning to love and modeling love is the challenge of every Christ-centered leader. But it is not only your challenge, learning to love is the challenge of the church, our nation, and the world. When our focus is on differences and disagreements, how do we walk together as sisters and brothers, united by the love of God?

Love One Another

In the midst of cultural wars, we have made enemies out of the people who disagree with us. We have used the words of Jesus as instruments of pain and separation instead of instruments of agape and reconciliation. Jesus says that the mark of true discipleship is seen in how we love one another.

Am I missing something when I think that Jesus meant for us to work on bringing people together instead of separating people? Instead of using words that vilify and demean aren’t we to use words of hope and encouragement?

Only Love Can Do That

Martin Luther King, Jr., in his book, A Testament of Hope, wrote, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that… I have decided to stick to love…Hate is too great a burden to bear.”

In his sermon titled, “Love Your Enemies,” King gives several reasons why Jesus said, “Love your enemies.” One reason he gave was this:

“Jesus says to love your enemies because love has within it a redemptive power. And there is a power there that eventually transforms individuals. Just keep being friendly to that person. Just keep loving them, and they can’t stand it too long. Oh, they react in many ways in the beginning. They react with guilt feelings, and sometimes they’ll hate you a little more at that transition period, but just keep loving them. And by the power of your love, they will break down under the load. That’s love, you see. It is redemptive, and this is why Jesus says love. There’s something about love that builds up and is creative. There is something about hate that tears down and is destructive. So, love your enemies.”

Learn to Love as Jesus Loved

The question is, how do we learn to love as Jesus has loved? Where do we find the desire and the courage to love one another as we have been loved?

The answer to that question starts with focusing on Jesus. In our culture, you are pressured to declare your allegiance with one side or another. You are either evangelical or progressive, or you are either traditional or liberal. You could likely add others. You are challenged to place your focus on one side or the other.

Where You Start Matters

Again, the answer to the question starts with focusing on Jesus. Where you start makes all the difference. If you start with the values of either side, you miss the value of loving like Jesus. If you start with Jesus, you begin to love like Jesus.

T. M. Anderson provides an answer. He writes, “The goal of spending time with Christ in prayer is to have His character become our character. For our life to be hidden in His life, his nature to become our nature, and His habits our habits. It is possible to become so intimately acquainted with a practice, a way of doing something that you can do it without thinking. It becomes second nature, natural. When we find the secret place of abiding in Christ, our ordinary, daily interactions with people will become much more than mundane. They will be majestic opportunities to fulfill God’s purpose. We will become fruitful Christians. All fruitfulness of this kind flows out of intimacy with Him.”

To Love Like Jesus Is a Decision

To love like Jesus is not a feeling. It is a decision. You don’t love because you feel like it or because someone agrees with you or because it benefits you. You love because you are a follower of Jesus and that is what followers of Jesus do.

As a teenager, our youth group would sing “I Have Decided To Follow Jesus.” The words were this:

I have decided to follow Jesus.

No turning back. No turning back.

Following Jesus

When you are being wooed by God’s grace to follow Jesus and when you have been loved by God through Jesus, you make a conscious decision to follow Jesus. Your decision to follow seals the deal on who you love and how you love them. When you decide to follow Jesus, to love like Jesus, there is no turning back. No turning back.

It is by loving one another that we show the world that we belong to Jesus. Our courage to love comes from our willingness to engage in a life-changing relationship with Jesus and with the people with whom we interact each day. It goes without saying that the love we are talking about is based upon God’s love for us. Our love for those around us grows out of the love we experience and know through Jesus Christ.

The good news is Jesus gives us the ability to love each other. The world will know the depth of your relationship with Jesus by the way you love others, especially strangers and enemies.

May your thoughts, words, and actions, your loving others, bear the mark of true discipleship. Because who you are is how you lead.

Check out LeaderCast Episode 252 – Words that Matter – Love

Or explore “Love Shaped Leadership” , “Leading With the Heart of Jesus”,

“Being A Leader Who Loves” or “Leadership and Love.”

Respond

The good news in John’s gospel is “if you have seen Jesus you have seen God.” When Jesus says, “Love one another as I have loved you” he is saying, “Love one another as God loves.”

We don’t love one another because it is practical or because it works. We love because we are the sons and daughters of God. We love because it is who we are. It is not easy. People who love unconditionally usually wind up on a cross. Remember that crucifixions have a way of being followed by resurrections. The end of love is its beginning. Only those who are foolish enough to lose their lives will find them. It is the grain of wheat that falls into the ground and dies that lives.

Jesus did not tell his followers to love because it would work. It never occurred to him whether it was practical or not. As followers of Jesus, we love because that is who we are.

Of course, you don’t have to be a follower of Jesus. But if you are, one of the conditions is that you love outsiders, people who are different, whether they be your friends or not, and that you pray for people you consider to be enemies, those who hurt you and take advantage of you. Because it is God’s nature to love, you love who God loves.

It is by the way you love others that the community and the world know you are a follower of Jesus. The single most important factor of a Christ-centered leader is love. Who you are is how you lead.

Prayer

O God, show the world your love through me today.

Stir up within me the desire to serve you in trust and obedience;

the desire to not only do good but to be good;

the desire to live peaceably with family, friends, colleagues, neighbors, strangers, enemies;

and the desire to surrender this day and every part of my life: family, friends; fears, failures; finances, fantasies; focus and future to your love in Jesus Christ.

Make me aware of the people around me today so that I might be a blessing to someone somewhere today. I offer myself to you in and through the love I know in Jesus. Amen

Return

Give God thanks for the people you met today. In what situations did you find yourself loving like Jesus? Upon what criteria did you base your decision to put love into action? In what situations did you help others put love into action? What difference did loving like Jesus make in your life and the lives of the people around you today? Give God thanks for the opportunities you had to love others as you have been loved.

Bible Study, Follow Jesus, leadership, Relate to One Another

John 8: Leadership and Words

Have you ever tried to go 24 hours without saying something negative about another person? If you are like most people, you shrug off little “white” lies, slander, and gossip as “only words.” Words that are not meant to hurt or belittle anyone, become hurtful and harmful when not taken seriously.

Your Words Matter

Your words matter. As a leader, people pay attention to what you say and how you say it. Your words can and do shape the reality of the people who hear them. The Bible clearly states the influence of words, teaching that God created the world with words.

In his book, Words That Hurt, Words That Heal, Rabbi Joseph Telushkin writes, “Like God, human beings also create with words. We have all had the experience of reading a novel and being so moved by the fate of one of its characters that we felt love, hate, or anger. Sometimes we cried, even though the individual whose fate so moved us never existed. All that happened was that a writer took a blank piece of paper, and through words alone created a human being so real that he or she was capable of evoking our deepest emotions.”

Words are tangible and powerful

I think that is one reason Paul wrote to the newly formed church in Ephesus while instructing them on how to live as followers of Jesus, “Do not use harmful words, but only helpful words, the kind that build up and provide what is needed, so that what you say will do good to those who hear you.” (Ephesians 4:29 The Good News Bible)

I am writing today to ask you to consider the impact of your words. Are you able to go one day without saying something negative about another person? Let’s try an experiment to discover if you can. Use the pattern of “Read, Reflect, Respond, and Return” to discover how you do.

Keep in mind, just as who you are is how you lead, what you say and how you say it reflects who you are as a person and as a leader.

Read John 8:1-11

And Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. Early in the morning he returned to the temple. All the people gathered around him, and he sat down and taught them. The legal experts and Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery. Placing her in the center of the group, they said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of committing adultery. In the Law, Moses commanded us to stone women like this. What do you say?” They said this to test him, because they wanted a reason to bring an accusation against him. Jesus bent down and wrote on the ground with his finger.

They continued to question him, so he stood up and replied, “Whoever hasn’t sinned should throw the first stone.” Bending down again, he wrote on the ground. Those who heard him went away, one by one, beginning with the elders. Finally, only Jesus and the woman were left in the middle of the crowd.

Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Is there no one to condemn you?”

She said, “No one, sir.”

Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go, and from now on, don’t sin anymore.”

Reflect

Most people when they read this story get stuck on the woman, adultery, the Law of Moses, or on Jesus’ action of writing in the dirt. Some get stuck on the “Neither do I condemn you,” as a sign of forgiveness. Others get stuck on, “Go, and…don’t sin anymore” as an example of grace and transformation. Regardless of what part of the story speaks to you, there is something to learn here.

Screaming at Trees

Robert Fulghum, in his book, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, tells a story of the Solomon Islanders. Some of the villagers practice a unique form of logging. If a tree is too large to be felled with an ax, the natives cut it down by yelling at it.

Woodsmen with special powers creep up on a tree just at dawn and suddenly scream at it at the top of their lungs. They continue this for thirty days. The tree dies and falls over. The theory is that the hollering kills the spirit of the tree. According to the villagers, it always works.

Those poor naïve people. Screaming at trees. Too bad they don’t have the advantages of modern technology and science. I don’t yell at trees. I may yell at televisions, cars, drivers of other cars, my wife, and my children.

What Good Does it Do to Yell?

I even shake my fist and yell at God sometimes. I have heard people, educated people yet at umpires, officials, coaches, and players and they are not even at the game. People yell at step ladders, televisions, computers, and machines. Especially machines. Machines and family get most of the yelling.

What good does it do? Machines and things just sit there. Even hitting and kicking them doesn’t help. As for people, the Solomon Islanders might have a point. Yelling at living things does tend to kill the spirit in them. You remember the words, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words – they break my heart.”

Words that Cut to the Soul of People

You don’t even have to yell. All you have to do is speak. In her book, The Cracker Factory, Joyce Rebeta-Buritt, tells of a woman by the name of Cassie. She drinks too much and is hospitalized for emotional distress. She writes a letter to her brother, Bob. This is part of what she writes:

“It’s been one hell of a year. I’ve been running around half crazy, trying to remember whatever it is Alexander (her psychiatrist) said I learned in the hospital the last time. Bob, I don’t even know. I just know that I’m coming unraveled and can’t seem to stop it. It’s been a whole year of Charles’ (her husband) running off and slamming doors when I need him. I tell him I’m sick and he says, “You’re telling me? I’m sick of your sickness.” And…bam…out the door.

He looked at me one night and said, “Cassie, you’re a loser.” Bob, when I stand on Judgment Day to hear myself condemned to hell, it will be no more devastating and irrevocable than Charlie’s “You’re a loser.” Forever defective. Forever doomed. No hope at all.”

Your Words Can Shape the World

Your words matter. As a leader, you shape the world and the reality of the people who hear your words. Just reflect upon it for a moment, God, who has had every right to yell at us, has shaped our reality by sending us an encouraging Word. God, who could yell and say, “I’ll love you when you get your act together,” did not spare his only son, but gave him up for us all. God’s encouraging Word is Jesus.

In the scripture for today, Jesus said to the crowd ready to stone the woman, “Whoever hasn’t sinned should throw the first stone.” I think these words are the most overlooked and dismissed in the story. It is easy to miss the point of God’s grace. I mean, it is just words. “Sticks and stones…but words…do great harm. So, are you ready? Are you able to go one day without saying something negative about another person?

If you are without sin, say your harmful and hurtful words. But, if you know God’s Word made flesh in Jesus, use “helpful words, the kind that build up and provide what is needed, so that what you say will do good to those who hear you.”

Respond

O God, thank you for your Word made human in Jesus. Forgive me when I forget how powerful your Word is in my life and I use words that hurt and harm. By your grace, give me clear thinking so that what I say will provide what is needed to help others become who you created them to be. Use my words as an instrument of your love and peace in the lives of the people you have given me to love and service. In Jesus’ name. Amen

Return

So, how did you do today? Were you able to go the whole day without saying something negative about another person? Give God thanks for the opportunities you have had today to love others as God has loved you. Where did you use encouraging words today? How were your words received? How were you aware of the words of others? What was said and how could it have been said differently? Think about this, your words reflect who you are and who you are is how you lead.

Bible Study, Courage, Follow Jesus, Gospel, Missional

What is Your True Value?

When do you do it?

John Wimber, the founder of the Vineyard Christian Fellowship, tells the story of the first time he attended worship in a Christian church. He said he didn’t know what to expect, but what he thought was going to happen did not happen. After attending worship for three Sundays, he became frustrated.

One Sunday, after worship, he approached a man who looked like someone with authority.

Wimber asked, “When do you do it?”
The man, who was an usher that morning, asked, “When do we do what?”
Wimber answered, “You know, the stuff,”
The usher replied, “And what stuff might that be?”
Wimber said, becoming more frustrated by the moment, “The stuff in the Bible.”
Now the usher is frustrated, “I still don’t understand. Help me. What do you mean?”
Wimber said, “You know, multiplying loaves and fish, feeding the hungry, healing the sick, giving sight to blind people. That stuff.”
The usher replied somewhat apologetically, “Oh, we don’t do that. We talk about it and pray about it, but we don’t actually do it. No one really does it, except maybe those crazy fundamentalists.”

What does the church value?

The values of the church in the above story are revealed through the actions and inactions of the congregation. Anyone of our congregations will reveal who we are to the community through our actions and inactions with the people we encounter.

Often our values are unnamed. When this is the case, it is only when a conflict of values occurs, that we become aware of what we value. As a congregation, when conflicts arise around core values, consider whether you have stated your core values.

But don’t stop there.

Name the behaviors that bring the values to life. When you do, you’ll be better able to encourage people as well as define expectations of within the church culture. people understand the expectations of following Jesus. Afterall The core values point to who we are as Jesus followers.

After all, if our core values are going to help reveal who we are as Jesus followers, they will propel us to action. If this seems like a challenge, remember, you’re not alone on this journey. Scripture reveals the conflict of values that can unfold as we encounter the love of Jesus.

A Conflict of Values in Scripture

Look at the story in John, chapter 9. It was the Sabbath day. A blind man comes to Jesus for healing. With a little spit, dirt, and a loving touch, Jesus restores the man’s sight. You would think the church would rejoice and celebrate this miracle performed in their very midst. But they are working from a different set of values.

A theological debate breaks out. It goes like this:

Part 1

“Wait a minute, doesn’t this man know that it’s against the law to heal on the Sabbath? The man must be a sinner, or he wouldn’t break the law like that.”
“Yes, but if he’s a sinner, how did he heal the blind man?”
“Well maybe the guy was just pretending to be blind.”
“His whole life he’s been pretending to be blind? I just don’t think he could pull that off. He’s not that smart, you know. He’s never even been to school. What would have been the point? You can’t teach a blind man to read and write.”
“Well, let’s go ask his parents. They ought to know.”

Part 2

So off they go to question the man’s parents.

“Is this your son?”
“Well, yes, he looks like our son, except for the fact that he can see and our son has been blind all his life.”
“Well, how could it be that he’s been blind all his life, but now he can see?”
“I don’t know! You’ll have to ask him.”

So, they question the man again.

Part 3

I can imagine this conversation going like this: “Hey you. Yes, you, the one who was once blind. You! What is going on here? We better get some answers from you, or you’re going to be in serious trouble.”

And the man replies, “Look, I really don’t know how to answer you. All I know for sure is that I was blind until Jesus came along, and now I see. Can’t you just accept that and leave me alone?”
“Oh, we’ll leave you alone, all right. Get out of here, and don’t come back! Find someplace else to go to church!”
Now, why would they do that? The answer is, or at least my answer is, they are operating out of a different set of values. Even though they say they are God’s people, they are revealing a different identity.

Walk As Children of the Light

This story reveals a conflict of values. The one who was born blind learns to walk in the light, while those who were gifted with normal sight choose to remain in darkness.

When we consider our own calling to “walk as children of light,” it’s easy to recognize which character in the story we ought to imitate. Like the man born blind, we too have been restored by our encounter with Jesus. We too have been saved by God’s free grace, and our eyes have been opened to see the world in a new, counter-cultural way.

If God’s grace is a value we’re willing to claim, our response to God’s grace will also come from our values. The challenge is, when aspirational values lead the way, we leave people wondering, “Is this who we are?” “Is this what defines us?” Instead of questioning who we are, let’s help people celebrate who we are as followers of Jesus.

Our core values motivate and sustain our behavior over the long run. Our values guide our behavior as well as our relationships with one another and with the community. Let’s be intentional in developing, sharing, and teaching the core values that focus our ministry and mission. When we do, we’ll be better able to help others encounter Jesus – the One who feeds, heals, and gives us eyes to walk as children of the light.

So let it be.

What’s Your Next Step?

Download the Congregational Core Values Companion Sheets. You’ll be guided through leading local church leadership in identifying the congregation’s core values and the accompanying behaviors the church seeks to encourage.
Listen to LeaderCast Episode 062: Are You Walking Your Talk? A conversation about congregational core values and behaviors
Participate in Following Jesus Every Day: Galatians, Gospel of Grace, a daily Bible Study that invites you to read, reflect, and respond to Scripture every day. We’ll deliver an email to your inbox each morning to help you journey through the book of Galatians. Sign up today! We’re starting April 22.

Courage, Disciple-Making, Follow Jesus

The Habits of Courageous Leaders

Did you hear the story of the little boy who fell out of bed? When his mother asked him what happened, he answered, “I don’t know. I guess I stayed too close to where I got in.”

It is easy to do the same with our faith. It is tempting to stay close to where we got in and never move.

Growth is important to every Christian. When a Christian stops growing, help is needed. If you are the same Christian you were a few months ago, be careful. You might need a checkup. Not on your body but on your heart. You don’t need a physical checkup, you need a spiritual checkup.

Growth is especially important in becoming a courageous leader.

Becoming a Courageous Leader – Grow

A few weeks ago, Sara Thomas introduced us to a weekly checkup called TGIF: Trust, Gratitude, Inspiration, and Faith. She wrote, “…if all leadership begins with self-leadership, there are things that need to improve.” She continued, “I know the impact reflection has on transformation. If you want growth, stop and reflect.”

She proposed taking time each week to reflect upon four TGIF questions to assist in growing in faith and in developing as courageous leaders:

What am I TRUSTING?
For whom or what am I GRATEFUL?
What is INSPIRING me?
How am I practicing FAITH?

T.G.I.F.

Today, I want to share my experience with this spiritual habit. It has become a weekly checkup for me.

I Want to TGIF! Send me the Guide!

Trusting

What am I trusting?

I am trusting the habit of prayer. I have been reflecting upon Paul’s words to the Roman Christians, “Be happy in your hope, stand your ground when you’re in trouble, and devote yourselves to prayer” (Romans 12:12 CEB). I have learned that the only way I can deepen my prayer life is to pray. In fact, I am trusting a shift in my habit. It is a shift from having a prayer life to living a life of prayer.

I have also learned that courageous leaders have a habit of prayer. So, let me offer you some encouragement. If you want to deepen your prayer life, then pray. Trust your relationship with God and pray. Don’t attend a prayer lecture, engage in prayer discussions, or read “how-to” pray books. Each activity is important, but the best way to establish a habit of prayer is to pray.

Grateful

For whom or what am I grateful?

This week, I am grateful for trusted friends. I am grateful for those so close they not only love me just the way I am, but they give of themselves so I can become who God created me to be. I am grateful for the embodiment of unconditional and unselfish love. I am grateful for the habit of meeting with or connecting with those who can speak truth with such love that I want to be more like Jesus.

It has been my experience that courageous leaders are surrounded with trusted friends who love so deeply they can speak the truth that brings transformation. As leaders, we have the opportunity to model such love. I have learned that without those trusted friends, it is easy to compete with one another, insist on our own way, and quarrel with one another. Courageous leaders, surrounded in love, step into the world to live and lead in such a way that we model the love of Jesus.

I Want to TGIF! Send me the Guide!

Inspiration

What is inspiring me?

This week, the habit of worship is inspiring me. Consider the words from the letter to the Hebrews, “Don’t stop meeting together with other believers, which some people have gotten into the habit of doing. Instead, encourage each other especially as you see the day drawing near” (Hebrews 10:25 CEB). Because I worship in different churches, with different Christians, at different times, I have learned to celebrate God’s love in every act of worship.

Through my experience of worship, I have learned that courageous leaders are inspired in and through a habit of worship. So often, as leaders, you and I need support and encouragement. We need to be with people who celebrate God’s love in Jesus and who share God’s love as natural as breathing. We need the fellowship of like-hearted people, focused upon Jesus, leading the mission of reaching out and receiving people in God’s love, introducing people to God’s love, practicing God’s love, and engaging the community in God’s love.

Faith

How am I practicing faith? I am practicing faith by fixing my eyes on Jesus. My Lenten journey has me engaged in reflecting and sharing the grace I have experienced in and through Jesus and my friends.

This week I have reflected upon Jesus looking at the broken and distorted parts of my life. Instead of judging and condemning me, Jesus knelt in front of me and, from the basin of grace, he scooped a palm full of mercy and washed away my sin. This week I have reflected upon how he has taken up residence in my life and has given me the opportunity to offer the grace I have received. Because he has a forgiving heart, I have a forgiving heart. Because he has forgiven me, I can forgive others.

Courageous Leadership

John, in his Gospel, writes, “If I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash each other’s feet. I did this as an example so that you should do as I have done for you” (John 13:14-15).

As courageous leaders, you and I must look beyond the literal reading of that scripture and allow ourselves to be washed by God’s love. Courageous leadership is rooted in the message of God’s mercy. Jesus offers unconditional love so we can offer unconditional love. God’s grace precedes our mistakes, so our grace precedes the mistakes of others. Those of us in the circle of Christ have no doubt of his love. We now have the responsibility of enlarging the circle to include others who should have no doubt of our love.

If you and I are going to be who God created us to be, we need to keep growing in our faith. So, how are you growing in faith? What are you trusting? For whom or what are you grateful? What is inspiring you? How are you practicing faith?

Courageous leaders don’t make the mistake of the little boy. They have habits that help them grow beyond where they started, engage in God’s love, and grow to become who God created them to be. So, let it be!

I Want to TGIF! Send me the Guide!

Follow Jesus

Listen for Your Life Theme

As I prepare for the year ahead, I am going to look and listen for God in every situation I find myself. God is in everything. Paul wrote to the Romans, “In everything God works for good with those who love him … ” (Romans 8:28).

Tom Long tells of Robert McAfee Brown who likes to use in his writing the musical metaphor of themes and variations. There are many musical compositions, Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony for example, which begin with a clear, identifiable musical pattern, or theme. What follows in the music is a series of variations on this theme, the theme being repeated in ever more complex combinations. Sometimes the texture of these combinations is so complex that the theme is hidden, seemingly obscured by the competing and interlocking notes. But those who have heard the theme clearly stated at the beginning of the work can still make it out, can feel the music being organized by the theme.

In Jesus Christ “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth ….” That’s the theme of all of life heard clearly by the ears of faith. Those who hear that distinct theme can hear it wherever the music of life is being played – no matter how chaotic or confusing the false notes surrounding it.

Prayer for Today

O God, in Jesus you have set the theme for my life. Please give me ears to hear your theme in the midst of the chaos and confusion of the world. Please give me eyes to see you in all the people I meet, in all the places I greet them, and in all the situations and circumstances I share with them. No matter what the discord, keep me in tune with you in and through Jesus. Amen.

Follow Jesus, Prayer