Vital Spiritual Attitudes

Starting Your Day With Jesus LIFEstyle Series

By Mel D. Westbrook MBTh

The Book Introduction

Version: 25.10.23

Using The Truth/Prayer Pages

Jesus will be teaching you a truth then lead you into praying for that truth. Each page has power truths and power prayers. Today read about the purpose of Power Truths. Then, tomorrow read about the purpose of Power Prayers. From then on, you will read three Truth/Prayer Pages each day for five days. Please read the purpose of Power Truths today. NOTE: This is a five-day program; you skip Saturday and Sunday.

The Purpose Of “Power Truths”

Week One Day One

What Is Your Original Purpose?

This introduction is used in all the “Starting Your Day With Jesus LIFEstyle Series” studies and prayers. If you have read this introduction before, it may seem repetitious. But, it is vital that you stay aware of where Jesus is taking you and what you are doing to get there.

What kinds of people are you having to deal with every day? Do you find that, as a Christian, it hard to do what Jesus wants your relationships to be? With the kind of people you have to deal with, how does He expect you to treat people with unity, truth, compassion, fairness, and love? How do these things work in business, dating, marriage, a family, or with an enemy or adversary? How do you take what you learn in the Bible and apply it to the way you live life? How do you do it in such a way it actually empowers you to succeed in life in a better way than ever before? You and Jesus will be able to solve these issues together here.

Does The Bible Help With Your Life?

Have you ever read a requirement in the Bible, and wondered what would happen if you applied it to your business or a relationship? What would happen to your business or your friends if you went around just telling them the truth? It can look like you would be a lot more successful if you mainly concentrated on your needs, likes, preferences, and interests. To start loving others and concentrating on their needs, can appear to hurt your goals, plans, and future; but, it actually enhances them. Wisdom from Jesus will make the difference.

What makes you win in life? What causes people to want to be around you? Why would someone want to do business with you, marry you, be your friend, or stop being your enemy? What kind of a person would you need to be to win at life and it make you and those around you happy. What is Jesus, the truths of the Bible, and Christianity offering that would make your life so much better that you wish you had lived that way all of your life?

Did You Know There Are Two Lifestyles?

There are two approaches to life; one involves dishonesty and the other involves honesty. One involves selfishness and the other involves love. One involves goals that end at death and the other wins now and in eternity. One involves loving things and using people and the other involves loving people and using things. One involves following the teachings of the world and the other involves following the teachings of Jesus. The thing about these two lifestyles is, one abuses people and the other blesses, helps, befriends, and cares about people.

Would You Like To Grow With Jesus?

What if you are already too busy to add one more thing to your life? What if you already have a full schedule? What if you are already doing as much as possible trying to have a relationship with God? Why would you add something like this to your busy schedule?

It’s true you can’t just stop your life to let Jesus teach you. But, would reading and praying over three pages a day really be that hard? Rather than a simple “thought for the day” or some self-help concept, what if Jesus took you into steady, continued growth in your relationship with Him? What if He took you into incredible principles and taught you how to succeed at everything you do? Studying a truth and then praying and asking Jesus to put it in your life is a powerful way of making your life so much better than it has ever been.

How Is The Bible Relevant To Your Every Day Life?

What about your life? Would you like Jesus to teach you how to succeed in a business, a marriage, a family, a career, or your life? Are you willing to let Him help you grow in your relationship with Him? Have you ever considered how wise Jesus is? What would happen if you included Him in all the decisions of your day? He will help you think of incredible things that will enhance your plans. You can simply read and pray through three pages a day for five days a week and Jesus will help you learn how to walk and talk with Him all day long.

What about your happiness? Have you ever thought a certain thing or person would make you happy and it didn’t? Have you ever got something that made you happy for a while and then it gradually lost its excitement? How would you like Jesus to guide you into those things that bring true happiness that lasts for a lifetime? How about starting your day with happiness?

What Is Your System For Life?

What is life all about? Jesus and the Bible are like turning on the light in a dark room. Most people are trying to “feel” their way through life. They are trying to imagine and guess what life is all about. They find themselves going down dead-end paths, running into obstacles, and falling over things they weren’t able to see. Jesus is the light of the world. He illuminates the issues and circumstances you face so you can see and understand what you are dealing with. This is called truth. On each page, you will be letting Jesus teach you a truth and then empower you to pray and invite Him to put it into the attitudes, character, and behavior of your life. That is worth the little time it takes to read and pray three pages a day.

Do You Know What Causes You To Win Or Lose?

What about your success? Did you know there are certain areas of your attitudes and character that are causing you to win or lose at life? These two things are Jesus’ priority. He knows that if you have bad attitudes, you will fail. How is your character? You may feel like your attitudes and character are pretty good. Have you ever dealt with a person who seemed to be unaware of their faults? Their people-skills were poor; but, they didn’t seem to know it. It is difficult for us to see our own faults. Jesus will lovingly and gently help you improve.

Who do you like? Do you like those who are trying to use you to get what they want? Do you like those who lie to you so you will meet their needs? Do you like those who will cheat you, if they think they can get by with it? Do you like those who talk down to you because they think they are superior to you? Improving your attitudes and character are how Jesus helps you treat people the way you like being treated. When they find out that you are real and trustworthy, it becomes much easier for them to be around you. Jesus wants to teach you how. Win/win relationships are all about doing to others what you want them doing to you.

Your Team

Jesus’ people are praying that you are blessed in a special way. They are praying that you have a close relationship with Jesus.

People Are Praying This For You:

Eph 1:16-17 (NIV) I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may GIVE YOU the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know Him better.

Eph 1:18-19a (NIV) I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which He has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints, and His incomparably great power for us who believe.

Eph 1:19b-21 (NIV) That power is like the working of His mighty strength, which He exerted in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.

This concludes your reading and prayer.

The Purpose Of “Power Prayers”

Week One Day Two

Living Life For A Purpose

How Do You Turn Information Into A Lifestyle?

If you were a hoarder, you would fill your house with all kinds of things. They may be very useful; but, you would have forgotten why you obtained them. Working on your LIFEstyle is about using what you learn, and living life as God gives it to you. This keeps you from just “hoarding” a bunch of information.

Let’s say you got a degree and was licensed as a professional. What if you worked at a fast-food place, getting minimum wages, while getting your education, degree, and license? But, suppose you kept working as a fast-food worker after you paid the price, learned the information, earned the degree, and were licensed to take advantage of your training. You didn’t make the changes in your LIFEstyle. Jesus’ methods keep this from happening.

What Makes Jesus’ Truths Different?

Have you seen people going on a strict diet, lose a lot of weight, but later gain it all back? They didn’t make dieting and exercise a part of their lifestyle. Your LIFEstyle is permanently changed by you “doing what it takes” to get where you need to go so you can continue living there. By exposing yourself to Jesus’ principles, you develop a LIFEstyle.

How can Jesus take three-page chapters and turn those principles into a new LIFEstyle for you? First, He helps you understand His truths. Then He helps you ask Him to put those truths into your life by providing you relevant prayers based on those truths. Plus, He helps you be thinking about what you studied and prayed about. All during your day, He helps you see how you can use His principles in your daily life.

How Does Jesus’ Life Help Your Life?

A baby goes through many stages in becoming an adult; they try to pattern their life after adults. If they saw how much smaller, weaker, and untrained they were, they might get discouraged and not try. You have been born again; this time you were born into the family of God. You started out as a spiritual infant. As a beginner child of God, you are to become a mature, trained, adult child of God. Jesus will help you grow into all these things.

Jesus is your pattern for adulthood; But, you must see Him as your example. Jesus is the Creator of the universe; He is God; of course He is able to do what He did. As a spiritual beginner, you may see how small, weak, and untrained you are; you may not be willing to try. You may not know you are to be a spiritual adult someday by following Jesus’ examples and training. Jesus can get you ready to live in God’s Kingdom by helping you now.

What Is Jesus Trying To Teach You?

If a baby doesn’t innately know the reason they have a small version of an adult body, they won’t develop properly. They must desire to watch, practice, grow, and gradually learn how to live life as an adult. You are never going to be God; but, you are a child of God; you are to watch Jesus, practice, grow, and gradually learn how to live life as a spiritual adult. Jesus IS God; but, it is still His desire to show you how to live His adult, Jesus-life as a child of God.

You were born as a human so you could have a body and a life to be trained with. It is a limited life because your attitudes and character haven’t been developed to a place where you can be trusted with supernatural, God-sized power. If you yield to Jesus’ training, your attitudes and character will be developed properly. Then Jesus will gradually give you opportunities to work together with Him. He and you will be able to train and help those around you to experience Jesus’ power and truths in their life.

Are You Ready To Learn How To Live The Jesus-Life?

Ask Jesus to help you understand vital truth issues. Like in the rest of these things in this book, spiritual understanding only comes from Jesus. If you read and understand these things, you can be sure it is because Jesus is empowering you to understand. If you read and don’t understand, all you have to do is ask Jesus to help you understand. If you pray and still don’t understand, then ask Jesus to help you bring it back up when He is ready to explain it to you.

1. Be Born Into It

John 3:3 (NIV) In reply Jesus declared, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.” You know what human birth looks like; it is a small version of a human, starting out for the first time on this planet. They usually have all the physical equipment, but, don’t know how to use it or take advantage of it. They have a lot of growing to do physically, mentally, spirituality, and in experiences. They have a long way to go to be an adult human; but, they seem to have the desire, hope, and determination to get the job done.

You were born again; your second birth made you God’s child, a member of His family, and a citizen in His Kingdom. Now you need to allow all of this become a reality in your heart and mind. You KNOW you have been born into it. Now allow Jesus to help you know the other things you need to know.

2. Know You Are Born Again For Eternity

1 Pet 1:23 (NIV) For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. Being born again is different from being born as a human. The human “seed” of your parents produced a life that is perishable and heading for death. You do all that growing physically, mentally, and in experiences; but, if you aren’t born again, you lose it all at death. Being born again through the “seed” of God is imperishable; you live forever. But like human birth, you have some growing to do; you start from spiritual infancy and mature into an adult child of God.

3. Trade Your Human Life For Jesus’ Life

Gal 2:20 (NIV) I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself for me. If you want to, you can spend all your time learning how to succeed as a human. If you do, you will forfeit your eternal Jesus-training. As an untrained Christian, you will enter into eternity with very little spiritual skills, abilities, experiences, or training. Your opportunities will be extremely limited. However, even if you only give Jesus a few minutes of your time each day, He will use it to help you succeed now and for eternity in many ways.

As a child of God, you have some growing to do. Jesus will help you learn to live in the spirit realm where your Father lives. As a new born-again beginner, you don’t know much about this new realm. But, Jesus provides you examples through His life and teaching. He will teach and show you what an adult child of God looks like. It will take a lifetime to learn; but all of it will work now and last for eternity. Let Jesus show you how to trade your life for His.

4. Trade One LIFEstyle For Another

John 14:12 (NIV) I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in Me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.

What if a young child didn’t see their parents as someone they were to pattern after? What if they thought they could never be like them? That is what happens to a lot of Christians. They don’t understand the LIFEstyle Jesus is trying to give them. Yes, Jesus is God; but, He lived His life as a human, spiritual adult. He did it so you can accept His lifestyle as yours.

5. Trade One Inheritance For Another

Rom 8:17 (NIV) Now if we are children, then we are heirs--heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in His sufferings in order that we may also share in His glory. What if you see the Bible and Jesus’ life as not have anything to do with your life now? How would it affect your life if you knew your life now was influencing your eternal inheritance? What if you found out that you could be making investments in eternity by living a certain way here? Did you know that your success here affects your success in eternity?

6. Appreciate Your New Birth And New Inheritance

Now if we are children, then we are heirs: What did you inherit when you became a child of God? Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is (1 John 3:2). Just like a human child will automatically grow up looking a lot like their parents, there are parts of you that are automatic in Christian growth. But, there are skills, knowledge, experiences, abilities, and training your parents have that you didn’t get.

7. Take Advantage Of Your New Birth And New Inheritance

Now if we are children, then we are heirs--heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ: Not all of Christianity is automatic; a human baby inherits their characteristics from their parents. But, what they do with them is up to them. That is the way Christianity is; you inherited God and His provisions. That is automatic; but, what you do with all this is the next big issue.

You aren’t here just to learn how to live as a human, you are mostly here to learn how to live as a spirit being. You are to let Jesus use the things you learn about living as a human to teach you about living as God’s child. You have applied yourself to learning a lot about being human; and, you have applied yourself to learning HOW to live as God’s child. Now it is time to start living as a child of God.

8. “Do What It Takes”

If you need a drink, you have learned how “to do what it takes” to get one. If you need to chew some food, you know how to do it. If you need to pick something up, you have learned the process of accomplishing that. But, do you know how to hunger and thirst after righteousness? Do you know how to “chew” spiritual truths? Do you know how to move spiritual issues from one place to another? Learning how to walk in the Spirit, digest God’s truth, have eyes and ears that can see and hear what Jesus is teaching, is what you are dealing with now.

A Prayer For You To Always Pray For Yourself And Others

Jesus’ people are praying Ephesians 1:17-23 for you. It contains such vital requests before God that it has converted into a prayer for you and those around you. As others pray it for you, please join them by praying this modified prayer for yourself and your friends.

I keep asking that the God of my Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give me the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that I may know Him better.

I pray also that the eyes of my heart may be enlightened in order that I may know the hope to which He has called me, the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints, and His incomparably great power for me, who believes. Jesus, help me see, know, and understand the hope, the riches, and this power.

That power is like the working of His mighty strength, which He exerted in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under His feet and appointed Him to be head over everything for the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him Who fills everything in every way. Jesus, I ask that I would receive a full revelation and vision into all this power that is available to me; and, I ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.

It would be good for you to pray this prayer for yourself and those around you regularly.

What To Do During Your Day

Rather than reading or praying more than one chapter during your day, Jesus’ object is to help you take those three pages He worked with you on and let Him put them in your life. Here are some questions it would be good for you to ask yourself for the rest of the day:

1. Did today’s study or prayers deal with anything in my life that I am not living yet?

2. Did today’s study or prayers deal with anything that I don't understand?

3. Did today’s study or prayers deal with anything that I don't agree with?

4. Did today’s study or prayers deal with anything that Jesus has given me a breakthrough or miracle on that I haven't adequately praised and thanked Him for?

5. Did today’s study or prayers deal with anything that I need to do additional study and prayer on?

This concludes your reading and prayer.

The Vital Spiritual Attitudes
Truth/Prayer Pages

Version 25.10.23

Chapter One

What Does Life Look Like?

Week One Day Three

Where Is Your Control Center?

You can typically think you are in control of your life and are in charge of all of your own decisions; but, Jesus is about to expose you to eight major issues that reveal whether or not you are able to control your destiny. There are things inside you and others outside you that actually control you.

Matthew 5:3-12 is called the Beatitudes; it deals with the core spiritual and life-growth issues you face with your heart and mind. You have strong attitudes where your emotions reside. The Bible calls this area, your heart, because it controls you emotionally. It is subconscious and has a powerful influence on you with positive and negative feelings. The Beatitudes are eight major principles that help you improve and change these powerful attitudes that control your life.

Jesus, since my emotional attitudes decide what I like and don’t like, and since they decide what I fear and what I don’t, and since they decide what I am willing to change and what I can’t, then they control what I will learn and accept and what I will resist. Help me see that they decide what kind of a person I am and whether or not I grow and improve. But, show me that I am the one who trained this area. I programmed it to make sure I follow the rules I created for myself.

Is There A Way To Control The Controller?

Jesus’ eight foundational principles can change your heart. They have the power to influence whether you are successful in getting what you need and want. They can make it possible for you to be blessed, healed, delivered, and able to help others. If you gain power over your heart, you start changing who you are and what you do. But, before you start tampering with something as powerful and influential as your heart, you need to make sure you are changing the right things.

Jesus, I have tried to get something I really thought I wanted, only to discover it didn’t do what I thought it would. There are things in my life that I thought would make me happy. And, even though they are still in my life, they aren’t making me happy. There are a lot of things about my life I have been wrong about. But, the problem is, Jesus, my life is really important to me. I can really hurt myself, if I make mistakes with it.

How Do I Control The Controller The Right Way?

What if you had to have some work done on your face and you chose the wrong plastic surgeon to do the work? What if you went for years to a school to learn a profession and they didn’t know what they were talking about? What if you exposed yourself to people who “claimed” to be experts on how to live life and they weren’t? That is why you need to see how great an expert Jesus really is. He is the Creator of all life and eternity and knows what life is all about.

Jesus, teach me that You are qualified to tell me how to influence my heart. You are the One I should spend the most time with so as to get input that takes my heart in the right direction. You know what my heart is all about and what it is going to take to heal it. Teach me that experts are people I have to trust because they know more about the subject or issue than I do. If I pick the wrong “expert,” I place my heart and its wellbeing in the hands of the wrong person. Show me that my choices have caused my heart and emotions to be the way they are.

Why Is My Heart In Its Current Condition?

The “experts” in the world are telling you that you are simply a product of your environment. They say the reason you are the kind of person you are is because of how you were treated by people and life in general. But, Jesus is telling you the reason you are who you are is because of your reaction to your environment; He says you decided what you wanted to be.

Jesus, help me always keep in mind that I have a God-given free will. I use it to decide how I will react to every person and every circumstance. No one can make me react or feel the way they want me to feel about things. Even if I act like I feel a certain way, I still control the way I want to feel deep down in my heart. I may be forced to say or do things I don’t agree with; but, I still decide what I think and how I feel about all of them in my heart and mind.

How Has A God-Given Free Will Effected My Heart?

God put a will inside you that manages what you believe, what you agree with, what you like, and what you think. You may be a total people pleaser that only says and does what you are told; but, if the opportunity presents itself, you will reveal who you really are and what you really think. On the inside, you are who you decide to be; and, there may come a time when a total people pleaser will rebel and break free from other people’s control. When that happens, it is revealed who that person was all along on the inside and what they had always thought.

What Do Outside Forces Do To Me?

You are exposed to all kinds of opinions and demands. These outside philosophies and ideas can’t control your mind. But, they can fool you into changing yourself. You can accidently or ignorantly change yourself in a way you really didn’t want to go. You can end up not being who you thought you were going to be. There are several procedures that cause you to be deceived into agreeing with a personal change. It all has to do with what you accept as being true. If you believe something is true, then you will embrace it. That is what starts to cause your heart to feel the way it does.

Jesus, You speak against deception, lies, temptations, and misdirection. Show me that if I believe something will bring what I want, I usually willfully accept it. If I believe a lie, get deceived, yield to temptation, or go the wrong direction accidently or ignorantly, I get cheated while thinking it’s truth. If I think something will make me happy, even if it is wrong, bad, or evil, I will typically accept it. Protect my heart from my bad decisions and false beliefs.

What If I Keep Doing Something Wrong?

Jesus knows that if you stay deceived long enough, things can become a part of who you are. He knows that things can become life-patterns, habits, addictions, obsessions, or your lifestyle. He understands that you can get so used to being and doing things, things that you typically wouldn’t want, that you give in to them and accept them anyway. Once you accept something, that you usually wouldn’t accept, it becomes a part of who you have decided to be.

Jesus, help me see that a time can come when I don’t like parts of who I am and want to change them. Show me that, that’s when I find out how powerful and stubborn my heart is. I can try to reason with it; and, it will reject logic. I can try to force it and find it is more powerful than my mind or my determination. Show me Your better way to accomplish this.

What About My Social Commitments?

Even in areas where you never did want to do some of the things you did, there comes a web of entanglements that bind you to doing things you don’t like. If you are on a job you don’t really like, you can feel you have to stay so you can pay your bills. If you have friends who are taking you down a path you don’t want to go, you can feel you have to go along so you aren’t alone. You were born with people you are committed to because you are related to them.

Jesus, I belong to a society that does things a certain way. If they are going to accept me, I must follow the crowd. I may not agree; but, I do things anyway. I get pushed into wanting expensive clothes, a car, a house, food, or entertainment. I know they are enslaving me in a lot of ways; but, I feel I need them. I have bills from these things that make me spend all my time earning enough money to pay for them; but I thought I had to have them. Help me!

How Do I Find True Success In Life?

What if you had a life-map that showed you exactly where you were and where each thing in life took you? What if you didn’t have to experiment with things just so you could see what they did to you in the long run? What if you could set goals, like being happy and feeling good about yourself, and there was a plan that did exactly that? What if you could hit the “restart” button and start your life over fresh and new? Jesus gives you this opportunity!

Jesus, I need to find someone I can trust with my life. I need someone who knows what they are talking about. I need someone who can give me some guarantees about my future. I need someone who cares for me as much or more than they care about themselves. I need someone who has the power and authority to give me the things I have to have. I need someone who can help me know when I am making the right decisions; help me see You are that Person.

Do I Have Faith Or Distrust?

YOU have failed yourself by making mistakes, bad decisions, and bad investments. YOU have trusted the wrong people, believed the wrong things, and tried wrong systems. People pushed you into doing things you knew you shouldn’t; and have let you down by only caring about themselves. Circumstances have hurt you with things that were out of your control. You may feel like God let you down because of all the things you believe He “allowed” to happen to you.

Jesus, who loves me more than I love myself? Who is smarter than me and can take me in the right direction? Who has the resources I need so I can afford, have the legal right, and have the necessary skills to move into a truly successful life? Who has the knowledge, understanding, wisdom, foreknowledge of what the future holds, and the power and love to get me on the right track and keep me there? Help me look at all these issues and find the answers to them all. Take me into those things that really work for making my life successful.

This concludes your reading and prayer.

Truth/Prayer Pages Chapter Two

How Do I Bringing My Heart And Mind To God?

Week One Day Four

Do I Have A Way To Make My Body Obey?

Rom 12:1-2 (NIV) Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is--His good, pleasing and perfect will.

Therefore, I URGE you, brothers: All of the Bible is important; but, here is an urgent message. It is an urgent message to “brothers” or family members of God. It is something you need to take care of right away. As a Christian, you have special provisions from God that have made it possible for you to accept certain assignments you can carry out. It is time for you to “do what it takes;” and, it is time for you to do it with a certain amount of urgency.

Jesus, help me feel the urgency that You feel. Help me allow this urgency to fill my heart so I will be willing to “do what it takes” to respond to You with all my heart and all my mind. Let me feel this urgency through Your power so I will be able to respond to it.

Do I Appreciate God’s Gifts Enough?

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy: This urgent message is asking you to take action based on the fact that God is merciful. He has removed the issue of whether or not you deserve something. He is giving you His gifts for free just because you are His child. You can’t earn them, buy them, trade for them, steal them, or win them; they come free of charge and without limit. God is so generous and loving that you could start taking Him and all His provisions for granted. You could start thinking that you have no obligations or responsibilities to God. But, God does want something in return for all His gifts.

Jesus, I don’t want to take Your love and generosity for granted. I want to love and appreciate all You have, are, and will do for me. Help me appreciate You and all You do. Let me learn what Your power-attitudes are all about so I can be changed. Give me a deep desire to yield to all You have to offer. Empower me to have attitudes that lead me in the right direction.

How Do I See Through God’s Eyes?

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices: God wants a relationship with you; and, He wants it to be one where you and He love each other. It is awesome that God loves you; but, God wants you to love Him back. However, you have a body, a dwelling place you live in that struggles with any kind of love.

Rom 7:22-23 (NIV) For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members.

What Am I Doing To Myself And Others?

“Making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members” is talking about total spiritual failure in your relationship with yourself and other people. In this case, you are a Christian, but, are failing in many of your human relationships. You may not feel like you are failing all that bad; but, if you were to see your life through God’s eyes, you would see the devastation you are inflicting on yourself and those around you. God’s standards are high!

Jesus, it is difficult for me to see my faults; my heart resists and hates any criticism or negative evaluations. But, I do want to find out what my weaknesses and shortcomings are so I can get Your help with them. Please help me learn how to be able to look at all the negative aspects of my life so I can bring them to You for healing and deliverance.

How Do I Demonstrate My Love?

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God: What if you saw someone about to get hit by a car; what if you were close enough to pull them out of the way but you didn’t? You didn’t push them in front of a car and therefore do something evil; you just didn’t do anything good. God considers your lack of doing good and not pulling them out of danger as being evil as well. It’s easy to see our not doing what we could have done to save a person’s life as being evil; but, we may not see how us growing in God as having anything to do with obligations and responsibilities.

Jesus, help me see those areas where I am neglecting people. Take me go beyond not doing things wrong, bad, or evil. Help me see the importance of growing in You so I can do right, good, and righteous things that heal, transform, and bless people.

How Is Being Trained And Healed, Love?

What if you see someone suffering from the ravages of sin and you know how to lead them out of it? What if you see someone’s marriage falling to pieces, and you know how to teach them a better way? What if God wanted to train you and make all your relationships better, but, you didn’t want to put out the effort? What if God tried to teach you but you didn’t yield to it so you could be ready to help all these people?

Jesus, help me understand that there are two types of people who come to a burning house. Those who didn’t do one thing to learn how to put out a fire and those who paid a great price to be ready to help during this crisis. Show me that there are those who come to watch it burn and those who come to put the fire out. Help me be one of those who pay the price to be ready to help. During my moments of crisis, I thank You for those who were ready to help me. Just like those who didn’t set my house on fire can still fail me because they didn’t “do what it takes” to be ready to help me. I can do the same with spiritual issues in others.

How Do I Love God, Myself, And Others?

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship: What could you do that would really make God happy? What is He looking for in you that would please Him the most? When you became a Christian, you came with almost no real knowledge of Who God is or what He wants. But, it is important for you to discover both of these things.

Who God is and what He wants:

· Mark 12:30 (NIV) Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.

· John 14:15 (NIV) If you love Me (Jesus), you will obey what I command.

· John 15:17 (NIV) This is My command: Love each other.

Jesus, it is amazing that the way to please You is for me to yield to Your love so I can love each other. You could have put any demand on me that You wanted to. You could have pressured me to perform in so many other ways. But, instead of You wanting me to just love You, You have directed me to love others so as to demonstrate my love for You.

In view of Your mercy, Jesus, empower me and teach me how to offer my body as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to You--this is my way of performing a spiritual act of worship to You. Help me see that my way to be prepared to help others is to allow You to help me. The more I yield to You and Your provisions, the more You are getting me ready to meet other’s needs. It is all by Your power and breakthroughs in and through me; help me see this and appreciate it.

This concludes your reading and prayer.

Truth/Prayer Pages Chapter Three

Jesus, Show Me The Doors Into Success

Week One Day Five

Who Is Jesus To Me?

Mat 5:1-2 (NIV) Now when He (Jesus) saw the crowds, He went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to Him, and He began to teach them, saying….

Those who are Jesus’ disciples know Who Jesus really is; they realize He is the Creator of the universe. When they read His teachings, they read them like the One Who knows everything about everything. They know that the reason He knows what He is talking about is because He is the One Who created all of life. He knows how it works; He knows what brings blessings and benefits to you and what hurts and destroys you.

Jesus, help me always realize that You love me more than I love myself. Help me know that You have my best interests in mind in a sacrificial way. You are the only One Who would die for me, because I needed it. I know about the cross and Your death; but, help me understand what all that means. Help me know Who You are and what Your attitudes and character are so I won’t find it difficult to put my career, my goals, my plans, and my life into Your hands. Help me know Who You are so I will let You work on my attitudes and character.

Who Is The Authority On The Subject?

Now when He saw the crowds: When Jesus looks at you, He sees you as being the most important thing on the planet. He loves and cares about you more than He cares about any of His other creations. When He sees you making bad decisions, trying things that will hurt you, and doing things that not only hurt you but those around you, His heart goes out to you.

Jesus, You knew I was going to have to have help with life. You knew I was going to need guidelines to help me make the right decisions and get involved in the right plans. Show me that from the very beginning, You made sure I had help with thinking, feeling, talking, and doing the best things for myself and those around me.

What Is Different About Jesus’ Attitudes And Character?

Now when He saw the crowds, He went up on a mountainside and sat down: People show an interest in you for many different reasons. In most cases, the number one reason they show an interest in you is because you are someone or have something they want or need. If you aren’t someone or don’t have something others want or need, they will typically show an interest in someone else. You will usually spend your time with those you enjoy their company or who can help you with something. And, you typically spend a lot of time trying to be and to have those things others want and need.

Jesus, You have everything that is good. You don’t have to have anything else. But, because of Your love, You feel a concern and a true interest in me, my needs, and my happiness. You has a love for me that reaches out beyond Yourself. Help me understand that You actually feel my feelings and hear my thoughts. When I am sad, You feel that sadness. When I am happy, You feel that happiness. Help me realize that You identify with me on a level that humans can’t know or understand about me.

What Does Jesus Do With His Power And Authority?

Now when He saw the crowds, He went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to Him: Disciples are willing to listen to someone who knows things they want to learn. Disciples have attitudes that make them able to learn. They are students who have decided to accept a person as being an expert in the area where they want to be trained. Jesus helped His disciples have certain attitudes that inspired them to stay with Him, look to Him for their future, and lead them into those things they needed to be.

Jesus, just because You are the Expert of all experts, the Lord of all lords, and the King of all kings, doesn’t mean I will give You the respect You deserve. Empower me to realize Who You are and what You have to offer. Help me respect You enough to listen and learn what You have to say. Make me one of You true disciples and have the openness to get the great and wonderful things You have to offer. Help me see that if I am closed, I will miss out on all Your wonderful life-changing things.

What Does Jesus Do With His Love And Compassion?

Now when He saw the crowds, He went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to Him, and He began to teach them: Jesus never charged money for His classes, miracles, healings, or mentoring. Jesus did receive donations from people who appreciated Him and what He had to offer. But, He gave it to Judas Iscariot who kept it in a bag. Jesus used the money to finance His disciples, give to the poor, and make sure people had their needs met.

Jesus, since money wasn’t Your motive for sitting down and teaching people, why did You take out the time to teach? Help me see that it was because You knew that the reason we all hurt and fail, in areas of our lives, is because we are missing important truths. Show me that You know that because of missing truths I make mistakes, make wrong decisions, and end up in places I don’t want to go. Give me the attitudes I need so I won’t have missing truths.

What Does Jesus Do With His Knowledge, Understanding, And Wisdom?

Now when He saw the crowds, He went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to Him, and He began to teach them, saying: Usually a person wants to own and control their information. If you want something they know, they will charge you for it. Jesus loves and cares for you rather than your money, possessions, positions, power, popularity, prestige, pleasure, or accomplishments. He will give you anything that is good for you. But, just because it is free, don’t believe the world’s philosophy that you get what you pay for.

Jesus, I have paid for things that were represented as being good for me, only to find out they were useless. In some cases, I paid for things that were actually bad for me. With all the knowledge, understanding, wisdom, love, and power You have, help me understand that You make sure You only give me those things that are the very best for me. You use Your knowledge, foreknowledge of the future, understanding, and wisdom for my good. So, when You speak, You are speaking to me from that perspective. Make it clear to me that no one else has the pure motives and desires You have for me.

Why Is Jesus My Best Friend?

So, Who is Jesus? He is the only One Who was willing to love you with a sacrificial love.

Who is the Authority on all subjects? Jesus is your source for finding out what all is good for you and what is bad for you without you having to use the trial-and-error method to find out the hard way.

What is different about Jesus attitudes and character? Even though He could have had any kind of attitudes and character, He chose to love you and die for you. He redeemed you from an eternal damnation that sin was dragging you into.

What does Jesus do with His power and authority? Even though He has absolute power and authority, even though there is no one who can resist Him, even though He could make you serve Him, He made you in His Own image and likeness. He gave you a free will. He allows you to make your own decisions. And, He only tries to help you understand Who He is and why you should make Him your Savior, Lord, and King.

What does Jesus do with all His knowledge, foreknowledge of the future, understanding, and wisdom? Instead of using it to control you, mislead you, out think you, and abuse you, He makes all these wonderful things available for you to take advantage of.

Jesus, speak these important facts into my heart. Help me see that You are trying to get all these wonderful truths into me so I will be able to trust You. Show me that You aren’t using any of Your superior attributes to force me in any way. Help me see that You are being extremely gentle and respecting of my God-given free will. Help me appreciate the way You are treating me. I want to totally trust You, because no one is willing to treat me like You do. Show me that You are “sitting down” and only teaching those who want it.

This concludes your reading and prayer for this week.

Truth/Prayer Pages Chapter Four

Are There Doors Into Success?

Week Two Day One

I Am Opening My Heart And Mind To God

Rom 12:1-2 (NIV) Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as LIVING sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is--His good, pleasing and perfect will.

Do I Have A Body Barrier?

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship.

What does it take for you to have an idea or make a decision and then use your body to move physical things around you? If you were totally paralyzed and mute, you wouldn’t have any way to influence the world around you. You couldn’t do anything good or bad. You could have good or bad thoughts and feelings. But, you wouldn’t be able to use them to influence people or things. It’s your body that you use to express yourself. But, what you may not think much about is, your body also influences you and your thoughts and feelings.

Jesus, teach me what it means to offer my body as a living sacrifice. Since it is my way of influencing the people and the things around me. I want to be able to make it function for my and other’s good. Help me be empowered and trained to yield to Your will and Your ways.

Is My Body Imprisoning Me?

Rom 7:22-24 (NIV) For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?

If you hadn’t realized that you were wearing and living in a body of death, you wouldn’t have cried out and looked to God for help. You wouldn’t have seen the problems, characteristics, attitudes, and behaviors that needed changing; but, you didn’t know how.

Jesus, I am ready to learn where my problems with my thoughts, feelings, words, and deeds are coming from. I want to learn about this issue the Bible draws out concerning my body. Help me accept this teaching so I can cooperate with all You are trying to teach me, change in me, and empower me to deal with. Help me see what it is doing to me; let me understand its influence on me so I can be set free from it making me a prisoner. Give me a complete understanding of the kind of power it has over the behavior of my life.

Is My Body Saturated With World Influence?

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world: Part of offering your body as a living sacrifice is to cease to conform any longer to the pattern of this world. This isn’t as easy as it sounds. You’re like a sponge in water. To expect it to not get wet would be ridiculous. You are in the world, surrounded by the world, trained by the world, influenced by others trained by the world, and patterned your life after experts in world philosophies. You are saturated with the pattern of this world. How are you going to stop patterning after it?

Jesus, when the Bible gives me a command like, “do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world” I struggle with knowing how to obey; I want to obey. But, I don’t understand how to do it. Help me see what the pattern of this world is. Show me when I am conforming to it. Give me Your knowledge, understanding, and wisdom to identify it in my life. Empower me to desire to not conform to it. Show me in the Bible what it looks like. Help me know how to pray against it. Give me Your faith for being set free from it. Empower me with Your love so I will love You, myself, and others enough to give it all up. Join me in living my life on the basis of the fact that I am able to cease to conform to it.

Am I Saturated With World Training?

“To offer your bodies as living sacrifices” is going to take an incredible miracle of God. We can’t even imagine how much we are made up of those things the world thinks. From the moment we were born, we started getting prepared for world training. But, our body, that is in “love” with the world, the things of the world, and the pattern of this world, is all wrong! Our body and world’s influence on us are directing us in the wrong direction. They are motivating us with the wrong motivations. All our training from the world has all kinds of wrong implications in them. But it all seems normal to us; it is all we have ever known.

Jesus, sometimes it is hard for me to believe my body and the world’s influence is that far off. All I have ever known is the friendship, rewards, benefits, and successes I experienced through them. I went to school, watched how others lived, came up with my own systems, and experimented with ways of accomplishing things through human effort. Help me see how it is possible for me to be so wrong about all my experiences. Help me accept Your truth on these issues. Give me Your training and attitudes so I can learn how to live a different way

What Are The Procedures Of Transformation?

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed: You are either going to be conformed or transformed; you can’t be both. After salvation and justification, you are still conformed to the pattern of this world. You are credited with transformation in your relationship with God; but, you are still conformed to the world in your behavior with yourself and other people. Sanctification (spiritual growth) is the only way for you to not conform any longer to the pattern of this world and be transformed.

Through spiritual growth, which is the process of sanctification, your behavior with yourself and other people gets transformed as well. Spiritual growth exposes you to the Word of God and the teachings of Jesus through the Holy Spirit. As God’s Word enters into your mind, it starts to renew it and make it see things from a totally different perspective.

Jesus, empower me to start opening my heart and mind to the truths of Your Word. I want to get those things You have credited to my record to start showing up in my relationships. I am thankful that You have given me the grace of this clean record so I can come to You for help. But, I want to take advantage of my relationship with You by having my behavior transformed. Transform me in the actions of my life.

What Is The Process Of Mind Renewal?

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind: The way to get those things that have been credited to your record into the behavior of your life is through the renewing of your mind. And, the way to get your mind renewed is to desire, study, pray, believe, love, and take faith-action. BUT, even though The Seven Biblical Principles are very familiar to you, it doesn’t mean you have this part mastered. Your problem starts at the beginning of this passage: “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices….” You have to get the power of God to make your body desire, study, pray, believe, love, and take faith-action; and, here’s how.

Jesus, empower me to offer my body as a living sacrifice by desiring, studying, praying, believing, loving, and taking faith-action for the renewing of my mind. I want to be able to make my body do these things so I can grow spiritually in You. Empower me to be able to use The Seven Biblical Principles to be sanctified and live out Your truths.

How Do I Move My Behavior Into The Will Of God?

Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is--His good, pleasing and perfect will: Being in the will of God because of a clean record is how you start out in the Christian life. But, God’s will isn’t being done in your relationships with people. You can be still selfish, self-centered, only self-aware, very self-protective, and can only help others if you get something out of it. You may belong to a team, a company, a family, a marriage, a church, or a group; but, you majorly represent yourself in those group relationships. You are constantly looking out for yourself; you make sure you get what you want and need in these relationships.

Jesus, help me get God’s will fulfilled in my life. Help me become a team member in the real sense of the word. Empower me to literally represent the group; help me love them as much as I love myself. Help me care about their needs and wants as much as I care about mine. Let Your love help me use my renewed mind to think of ways for all involved to win. Join me in presenting my body as a tool for worshipping You. Let me fulfill these verses through the behavior of my body: “If you love Me, you will obey what I command (John 14:15). This is My command: Love each other (John 15:17).”

This concludes your reading and prayer.

Truth/Prayer Pages Chapter Five

What Are The Eight Vital Doors Into Success?

Week Two Day Two

Meet The Creator Of The Universe

Mat 5:1-2 (NIV) Now when He (Jesus) saw the crowds, He went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to Him, and He began to teach them: If you were invited to a meeting with the Creator of the universe, what would He say? Since you know Who He is and how powerful and important He is, wouldn’t you come with great anticipation and respect. But, Jesus taught you that your body is making you a prisoner. How are you going to make it take you where Jesus is and do what Jesus says.

Jesus, tell me some of the number one reasons I fail in life. Tell me how to make my body do the right things. Since You created me and the life I live, You are the only One Who can help me succeed in life. You know how to make my body follow You into a life of great success for now and in eternity. Help me get ready for Your training!

Getting The Ability To Receive Truth

Foundational Truth Number One

Mat 5:3 (NIV) Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. The very first word out of Jesus’ mouth is about a type of life-success everyone is looking for. God’s blessings bring happiness. Only God knows everything, and since He is the only One Who loves you more than you love yourself, and since He is the only One Who has the power to make sure you get the very best, then you know this blessing is right and perfect for you.

Jesus, help me be truly blessed. Help me find the right solutions, make the right decisions, and wins by them. Give me an attitude that learns how life really works. Give me an attitude that opens up to all my needs being met properly. Give me an attitude that reaches the right goals, by establishing the right plans, and by using the right methods to reach those goals.

How Do I Get The Ability To Find Out?

Blessed are the poor in spirit: What if someone told you about a great invention and would tell you the secret and share the wealth? But, what if you were too skeptical and negative to listen? Jesus has a power-attitude that leads to all His knowledge, foreknowledge of the future, understanding, and wisdom; it is a power-ability to be open to truth but closed to lies.

Jesus, make it clear to me that being poor in spirit is the door into the great wealth, knowledge, truth, and provisions of God. It is the protector that keeps me from being misled. Tell me how to get this power from You that keeps me from being gullible while helping me become incredibly informed and wise. Help me use my God-given free will to be willing to receive this powerful ability from You.

What Is Truth Acceptance And Lie Resistance?

Poor in spirit is to have a special kind of teachable attitude. You have a resistance to new information. You accepted things as your “truths” for life. Since you chose them, you consider them superior to all other information. Any new, different, or conflicting information is questionable. You can get stuck with faulty information. But, being poor in spirit solves that!

Jesus, empower me to be poor in spirit so I will accept You and the Bible as my final authority. Let it keep all the wonderful things You offer coming my way. Let it help me listen to all You have to offer. Let it close the door to all world training and human ideas that lead me in the wrong direction. Let God’s power-attitude of being poor in spirit help me see the benefits and blessings that come through it.

Steps To Getting The Ability To Receive Truth

John 8:31-32 (NIV) To the Jews who had believed Him, Jesus said, “If you hold to My teaching, you are really My disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Poor in spirit deals with the quality of the teacher, the quality of the student, the quality of the material, and the quality of the results.

The Quality Of The Teacher: Jesus

If you hold to My teaching: Jesus is the Creator of the universe, your planet, and all mankind; He owns it all. He created you and the life you live. He is the only One qualified to teach you about life. And, He qualifies because He lived the perfect life.

The Quality Of The Student: Humility

If you hold to My teaching, you are really My disciples: Jesus make me one of Your best disciples. Let me be so poor in spirit that my receptivity as a student empowers me to get the very best training from You. Let it empower me to listen, want to learn, believe Your information is true, and be willing to apply it to my life?

The Quality Of The Material: Truth

Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free: If you, the student, are open and receptive, and if Jesus, the teacher, is valid, and if the Bible, the material, is true, then you, the student, will get the results you were promised. But, you are poor in spirit, if you are only open to Jesus and His teachings; that establishes the quality of all four requirements.

The Quality Of The Results: Blessed

For theirs is the kingdom of heaven: Jesus teach me that God’s power-attitude of me being poor in spirit gives me access to the privileges of God’s family and Kingdom. It is a teachable attitude that handles my struggle with pride and humility. When I resist a passage in the Bible, it is because I think I know better than You. When I read a Scripture that challenges me, points out sins, shortcomings, mistakes, and misdeeds of my body, I have a choice of humility or pride; and, I am choosing between being blessed or not being blessed.

A Quality Student Yielding To

A Quality Teacher And Material

John 8:31-32 gives four steps to being poor in spirit: First, you must hold to Jesus’ teaching. Second, you must know the truth concerning the issue you are struggling with. Third, you must allow that truth to set you free. Fourth, you must live on the basis of that freedom.

1. HOLD

DESIRE: Jesus, I want You to make me poor in spirit. I want Your power to listen, accept, and hold to Your teachings as my final authority. I want to accept Your truths whether I like them or not, whether they cause me inconvenience or not, whether I agree with them or not, or whether I feel I can live them or not. And, I want the power to resist anything opposing it.

2. KNOW

STUDY AND PRAY: Jesus, I ask You to make me poor in spirit. Help me seriously study Your words. Let Your words empower me to know what the truth is. Let that knowledge empower me to accept Your goals, plans, and truths that set me free to succeed in life.

3. TRUTH

BELIEVE: Jesus, I believe You are making me poor in spirit. I believe Your words are the truth. I believe You are speaking through the Scriptures in the Bible. And I believe You are creating healing, help, and solutions to my life. Let all this set me free to succeed in life.

4. FREE

LOVE AND FAITH-ACTION: Jesus, since You are making me poor in spirit, join me in my relationships. Set me free to control my body, my dreams, my goals, my accomplishments, and my future. Let freedom open the door to success. If I am stopped by barriers, bondages, opposition, and distractions, help me win over them so I can help others win.

Poor In Spirit Is The Power To Never Give Up

Gal 6:9 (NIV) Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. You may get frustrated with yourself, Bible principles, or even God; but, do not believe the lies that come against you. You are having trouble succeeding because you are being trained. You aren’t an expert; you aren’t skilled in spiritual living; you are a disciple! You have many truths to learn before you get much freedom.

Being Poor In Spirit Requires Patience:

Jesus, let being poor in spirit help me be willing to pray and ask You to make me patient. Help me be patient with myself, other people, the Bible, and God. Show me I am learning and growing. Help me see that You are using this growth period to bring about a whole lot of things. You aren’t just helping me with my problems, You are teaching me about many things that have to do with winning in this temporary life and in my eternal life as well.

This concludes your reading and prayer.

Truth/Prayer Pages Chapter Six

Why Are These Eight Doors Vital?

Week Two Day Three

Being Poor In Spirit Produced This

John 8:31-32 (NIV) To the Jews who had believed Him, Jesus said, “If you hold to My teaching, you are really My disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

Foundational Truth Number One

Mat 5:3 (NIV) Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Being Poor In Spirit Gives You Ears That Hear

It Isn’t A Problem With God’s Plan

Mark 4:22 (NIV) For whatever is hidden is meant to be disclosed, and whatever is concealed is meant to be brought out into the open. Being poor in spirit empowers you to be able to listen to Jesus, but it doesn’t force you to listen to Jesus. When you are missing a truth and aren’t being set free, it isn’t because of God; it’s always a hearing problem. Jesus is offering it, wants you to understand it, wants you to know how to use it, and wants you to apply it. But, there may be something in your heart that is keeping your ears from hearing that truth.

Jesus, I ask You to show me where there are areas of resistance in my will, my heart, and my mind. Show me why I don’t think I want You to put a certain truth into my life. Let me see my misunderstandings that are causing me to feel like I don’t want various truths that would set me free; help me be poor in spirit toward them.

Spiritual Ears Are More Important Than Physical Ears

Mark 4:23 (NIV) If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear. Even if your natural eyes and ears are perfect, doesn’t mean you see clearly spiritually. If your spiritual eyes and ears are faulty, the truths of God will be like water on a duck’s back. The wonderful truths of God will be all around you, but, they won’t mean anything to you. Every missing truth of God will leave you hurting, failing, struggling, and groping in the darkness of confusion and ignorance.

Jesus, I don’t want to miss out on anything You have to offer me. I don’t want to suffer things that You have provided help with. I know I lack the necessary qualifications for grasping Your truths on my own. I know Your Spirit is going to have to open my spiritual eyes and ears so I can understand them. I am asking You to heal my spiritual eyes and ears. Fix them so I will be able to hear, understand, and yield to every truth You have provided.

Spiritual Understanding Is More Important Than Human Understanding

Mark 4:24-25 (NIV) “Consider carefully what you hear,” He (Jesus) continued. “With the measure you use, it will be measured to you--and even more. Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him.” You are born with the natural ability to understand human concepts; they automatically make sense to you. When something makes sense to you, you accept it as truth. That is why your heart and mind are filled with human concepts, principles, philosophies, techniques, and systems. That is why you embrace them and find it hard to give them up; you have accepted them as truths.

Jesus, I can see why I’m having such trouble accepting Your truths. I have already accepted “truths” that disagree, resist, replace, and oppose those things You are presenting as truths. Heal me from having faith in things that are different from what You are trying to teach me. Give me Your faith in Your truths so I can feel comfortable and receptive to them.

Being Poor In Spirit Makes Learning Possible

1 Cor 2:14 (NIV) The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. Before you were saved, you were only able to hear and understand those things the world taught. The truths of God didn’t make any sense to you; so, the sum total of all you learned was world training.

Jesus, since I was only able to learn the things of the world before salvation, help me be willing to accept the fact that I have a lot of unlearning to do. Help me not get frustrated or impatient with my situation. Help me trust You to make this retraining process be as enjoyable and rewarding as is possible. Help me yield to Your training as it crowds out all of those things the world put into me.

Having The Mind Of Jesus Makes Truth Possible

When you became a Christian, you received the mind of Jesus. 1 Cor 2:16 (NIV) For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ. Jesus gave it to you so you could comprehend spiritual things. But, it’s just the ability to comprehend spiritual things. If you aren’t poor in spirit, you have the ability but you lack the power-attitude to be open to them. That leaves you with only world training to guide your life.

Jesus, I want to take advantage of the mind of Christ that You gave me. Now that I have Your mental abilities to understand spiritual things, I want Your power-attitude of being poor in spirit. Help me be filled with and understand spiritual things. Help me use the mind of Christ and being poor in spirit to embrace the truths You provide. Let us get started pouring great truths into this new mind so they can crowd out world training.

The Truths Are Coming My Way

John 16:13-14 (NIV) But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on His own; He will speak only what He hears, and He will tell you what is yet to come. He will bring glory to Me by taking from what is Mine and making it known to you.

Being poor in spirit is a receptive, hungering attitude toward all the explanations, instructions, interpretations, illustrations, and guidelines of God’s Word through the Holy Spirit. Without being poor in spirit, you are like a student who is sleeping while attending a great class on those things you need for your future. With the mind of Christ, you are incredibly capable of learning; but you would lack interest.

Jesus, help me not have my spiritual eyes and hears closed to the Holy Spirit’s guidance, training, teaching, and interpretations. Help me learn and live all those wonderful things the Bible is making available to me. Now that I have Your mind, the Holy Spirit’s explanations, and the Bible’s truths, help me take advantage of everything You have provided.

The Truths Are Coming To A Receptive Person

When you get the mind of Christ, it is like being able to hear for the first time. All kinds of wonderful sounds, meanings, and communication become open and available to you. You can hear it all and it opens your mind and heart to all kinds of things not available to you before. All the sounds are available to a deaf person; they are all around them; they just don’t have the ability to hear them. But, being poor in spirit is Jesus’ power-attitude to want to use the mind of Christ. That gives you an intense desire to learn more and more from Jesus.

Jesus, I see how important it is for me to have Your mind and to be poor in spirit. I see how much I am missing out on in those areas where Your power-attitude isn’t helping me be receptive to those things Your mind is capable of understanding. I don’t want to be spiritually deaf; I don’t even want to be hard of hearing. Help me hear You clearly, understand exactly what You are saying, and then be able to live on the basis of all these new truths.

This concludes your reading and prayer.

Truth/Prayer Pages Chapter Seven

Why Is My Esteem And Confidence Resistant To Change?

Week Two Day Four

Foundational Truth Number Two

Mat 5:4 (NIV) Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

The Battle With My Esteem And Confidence

Poor in spirit empowers you to start getting the right things into your behavior. Mourning helps you get wrong things out of your behavior. Mourning is God’s power showing you what your real problem is and how to get rid of it. Wrong behavior can block of life-success. But, if you have the wrong kind of esteem and confidence, mourning can be very painful. I can be like a surgeon removing a growth off of your skin. It is something that isn’t supposed to be there; but, it is attached to your body, and hurts to have it cut off.

Jesus, I wasn’t taught to have God-confidence and God-esteem, I was taught to have self-confidence and self-esteem. Help me accept God-esteem and confidence so they can keep all my mistakes and failures from being seen as who I am. Teach me that in self-esteem and self-confidence my behavior makes me a good or bad person. But with You, I have a perfect record so I can bring my behavior to You and we can deal with it and make it right.

Self-Esteem And Self-Confidence Can’t Handle Criticism

Mourning is going to require that you allow God to go over your behavior and let Him remove things that shouldn’t be there. But, they are things you did. If you have self-esteem, people-esteem, or accomplishment-esteem, it can cause you to doubt yourself, lose confidence and esteem, or turn on God and deny that those things He is showing you are wrong. Once mourning starts working on your behavior, you may try to justify it, explain it, ignore it, or deny it is wrong. These procedures will lock great damage inside your heart.

Jesus, teach me how to give up confidence and esteem that blocks off the healing power of mourning. My heart is running my life; and it has a lot of damage that is causing it to lead me in wrong directions. Show me how to be delivered from the wrong kinds of esteem and confidence. Then show me how to replace them with God’s wonderful esteem and confidence. Help me use them so I can start mourning and getting my heart healed.

Being Honest With Myself

Esteem and confidence in God can’t be hurt, criticized, attacked, or diminished because there’s nothing wrong with God; nothing is impossible for Him. So, you need to get esteem and confidence in Him so you can join Jesus in critiquing your behavior. Your behavior needs correcting, changing, constructive criticism, and redirecting. Your perfect record provides you with God-esteem and confidence that can handle all of this mourning process.

Jesus, I hate my past; it is hurting me. But, if it is too painful for me to realize I am in this condition because of the decisions I made, then I will refuse to mourn. If this realization hurts my esteem and confidence and me feeling good about myself, mourning will be out of the question. Show me that the only way I am going to get where I can face my mistakes, failures, weaknesses, and inadequacies is to get the mourning power-attitude from God. It can help me face these problems without hurting my God-esteem and confidence.

The Battle With My Deeds And Me The Doer

My Salvation And Justification

Rom 7:15 (NIV) I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. This is a Christian that is having to face behavioral failure. They are suffering like you. Like them, your self-esteem and self-confidence are performance based; you are only as valuable and as good as you perform. If you do something great, then you are a great person. If you fail, then you are a failure. God-esteem and God-confidence totally separate you from your performance. With God, you are a perfect person even though you aren’t living a perfect life. All you have to do for now is “want” and “hate” like Romans 7:15.

Jesus, help me always realize that salvation makes me into a whole new person. It allows me to start all over again. Teach me that God sees me as not having any past failures, mistakes, sins, or wrong doing. Justification supplies me with a perfect record from now on. Show me that as far as God is concerned, I am perfect even though I am not doing perfect things. Teach me that God looks at me as having two parts to me; He separates my deeds from me the doer; I am perfect; but help me keep in mind that my deeds aren’t! Help me mourn over them.

My Deeds And Me The Doer

Rom 7:20 (NIV) Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. How can a person mourn and attack, correct, and change their deeds without suffering from the process? If you are your deeds, then everything wrong with your deeds is also wrong with you. But, if you aren’t your deeds, then you and God can join forces and help you mourn against wrong deeds and change them. God can help you mourn by criticizing, disagreeing, hating, and attacking them without it hurting you, your esteem, or your confidence. They are protected in God. With that settled, you are ready to allow mourning to heal your heart.

Jesus, help me join God and mourn against any deeds that are preventing me from succeeding in life so I can have that heart-healing experience. I have a perfect record; but, my heart has been damaged by all my past mistakes, failures, bad decisions, difficult relationships and circumstances. Heal it through God’s power-attitude of mourning so I can move into a life of success. Show me that God does not value me based on my performances or deeds.

The Battle With My Heart And Mourning

The Emotional Language Of My Heart

Confidence and esteem are attitudes from your heart. They are feelings that your heart adds as emotions to your performance. If you feel confident, you approach an assignment with courage, faith, and assurance. If you feel esteem, you consider yourself valuable. Your heart’s problem is, it can’t talk with or receive words; it just has feelings and positive and negative emotions. You can’t reason with your heart. You can’t convince it of anything. You can’t even access it.

Jesus, show me that if my heart gets hurt, it will make me feel resistance toward anything that might put it back in that damaging situation. I don’t always know why I feel the way I do. I just know I don’t like certain situations. Show me that my conscious memories may be buried way down deep in my mind. But my heart is still reacting to those events. Let God’s power-attitude of mourning allow my heart to grieve, cry, and release the hurt and damage inside it.

Logical Resistance To Emotional Problems

Rom 7:17 (NIV) As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. As God takes you through the mourning process, He will be dealing with past issues you have already, “handled.” You probably handled them the world’s way:

· The world tries to help you feel like your words and deeds aren’t your fault, so you won’t feel bad about what you did. Jesus helps you see what part of them is your fault.

· The world tries to help you feel good about your sins, mistakes, and failures. Jesus helps you hate your sins, mistakes, and failures.

· The world considers your behavior to be you. Jesus separates you from your behavior, so you can join Him in working on it.

· The world has little success with changing a person’s behavior. Jesus is able to make you into a completely new person. And, Jesus’ power-attitude of mourning is a major part of this new person.

Jesus, I want to see my behavior the way You see it. Please set me free from the training the world has given me. Through Your power-attitude of mourning, help me be open to a whole new way of looking at my relationships and the way I treat myself and other people. I can see why the world’s way of handling these issues doesn’t bring healing to my heart.

This concludes your reading and prayer.

Truth/Prayer Pages Chapter Eight

Why Is My Body Resistant To Change?

Week Two Day Five

The Battle With My Body And My Spirit

Mat 5:4 (NIV) Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

I Live In A Body

As it is, it is no longer I myself: You are not your body; you are a spirit being living in a body. However, your body isn’t just a human machine that has no will or influence of its own. It is very much like an animal; it has survival instincts, animalistic urges, and physical needs. You, as a spirit being, can have Biblical attitudes and the characteristics of the Holy Spirit. Your body has a sinful nature that drives it. Mourning helps you reject and hate the things that drive your body. Here are the characteristics your body gravitates toward:

Gal 5:19-21 (NIV) The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery (excessive indulgence in sensual pleasures); idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. These are the things your body likes.

Jesus, I need to understand these physical drives of my body. I need to see the animalistic aspects of it so I can isolate them from the real me. I don’t want to give in to these physical drives that are so crude, selfish, and obnoxious. Help me see myself as a spirit being.

I Am A Spirit Being

As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me: Salvation and justification separated you from your body’s deeds and separated you from the sinful nature that is in it. God only sees you as a spirit being; He has completely credited you with a perfect record that cannot be contaminated by the character, attitudes, and behavior of your body. But, the one major requirement of that clean record is that you want or desire the right things.

Here is what your spirit likes: Gal 5:22-23 (NIV) But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. These are the things your spirit enjoys and wants to live on the basis of.

Jesus, empower me to yield to these things. They are the true desires of my heart and mind. Help me to make my body yield to the behavior these characteristics produce. Help me mourn over how evil these things my body likes so I will hate them completely. Give me a total desire for the fruit of the Spirit. Set me free from any tendencies for the sinful nature.

The Journey Into Mourning

As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it: Before you can make any changes in your body’s behavior, your spirit has to have the right attitudes both positively and negatively. If you don’t delight in the right things and hate the wrong things, your spirit won’t push your body in the right direction. Jesus uses The Seven Biblical Principles guide your spirit into making your body do what it is supposed to do. But, your spirit must be totally against all your body’s lusts.

Jesus, teach me how to get my spirit aware of the problems in my body. Put Your attitude of mourning in me so I can start leading my body in the right direction. Use me being poor in spirit so I can have an open and teachable attitude about mourning.

The Difference Between My Body And My Spirit

Rom 7:22 (NIV) For in my inner being I delight in God’s law: This is the beginning attitude that helps you want to yield to the power-attitudes in Matthew 5:3-12. Rom 7:15 (NIV) I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. Mouring gives you the power to hate wrong things and the damage they inflict on you and others. If you have a mild dislike for sin, you won’t allow Jesus to totally separate you from it. Mourning gives you an intense, negative attitude against things you do that hurt people.

Jesus, mourning is a whole new concept for me; I have tried so hard to stay away from anything that causes me pain. I have tried to avoid anything that made me sad, disappointed in myself, or face any personal failures. Teach me how to join You and evaluate my mistakes, sins, failures, and weakness; help me do it through Your power-attitude of mourning. Show me how to see these things in my body so I can bring them before You for healing, change, and transformation.

Jesus, I know I am not going to grow and succeed at life without making a lot of changes. But, it is hard for me to allow Your power-attitude of mourning to give me the dislike, hatred, sorrow, and disdain I need. I know You have to give me the proper negative attitudes toward all those things that are hurting me and the people around me. I know my efforts have hurt me and others when I tried to justify myself, explain away any errors on my part, and tried to make myself feel good about all of them. I want to quit doing those things that stop Your healing. Give me Your power-attitude of mourning so I can move into complete healing.

My Reason For Wanting To Mourn

Rom 7:22-23 (NIV) For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members.

Jesus, help me see how much my body’s sinful nature hurt me all during my old life. Help me see how it is now waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner. Give me a whole new attitude toward it through mourning so I can have the proper attitudes toward it and my old way of life. Give me the desire to mourn over what I was driven into.

The Healing Of My Heart By Getting A Mourning Attitude

I Am Allowing Jesus To Walk Me Through It

Mat 11:28 (NIV) Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Jesus uses the power-attitude of mourning to help you allow your heart to release wounds, pain, contaminants, and pressures that have inflicted it. Now that you have moved into God esteem, God confidence, and accepting God’s evaluation system, you are ready to face things you did that were wrong, bad and evil. You will face these deeds you, the doer, have done in your past that have created guilt or regret in your heart. And, it will help you be able to deal with any walls developed by it.

Jesus, teach me that mourning is allowing You to show me my past. Let it take me into a healthy type of critiquing of my deeds. This is hard for me to even pray for, because it involves some pain, guilt, seeing my shortcomings, admitting my sins of the past, and facing my mistakes. Show me how these things are influencing and hurting my heart.

Heart Healing Through God’s System

Mourning helps your heart release the effects of deeds done in the past that it feels bad about. It has to mourn over them or it can’t get healed. You have to allow Jesus to take your mind into your past so your heart can release them. During mourning, you aren’t seeing what kind of person you are; you are looking at what kind of person you were. 2 Cor 5:17 (NIV) Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he IS a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!

Jesus, help me understand that salvation and justification created me into a new person. But, I haven’t forgotten who I was and what I did in the past. In my mind, I may not see myself as a new creation; and in my heart, I may still feel the same. But, You must change my mind and heart and convince them of the change. Help me give them the opportunity to accept the difference. Since God said He did create me into being a new person, I open my heart and mind to His power-attitude of mourning.

The Holy Spirit Is My Heart Healer

Rom 8:26-27 (NIV) In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans that WORDS cannot express. And He Who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.

Jesus, teach me that mourning is the Holy Spirit’s way of taking me into an area where I have never been before. Show me that He is empowering me to mourn by me yielding to groans that words cannot express. As I see how awful my past life was, help me yield to Him and allow my heart to release all that damage. Let Him give me prayers that cooperate with my heart. Let them be emotional prayers that bring healing to it.

This concludes your reading and prayer for this week.

Truth/Prayer Pages Chapter Nine

What Was So Bad About The World?

Week Three Day One

The Battle With The World And My Salvation

I Am Totally Giving Up The World

2 Cor 5:17 (NIV) Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! In order for the old to stay gone, God must give you a true evaluation of it. If you can’t see how bad it was, you won’t totally give all of it up. He will use the power of mourning to help you reject all desires to return or try to keep some of it.

Jesus, I am still in this world that lured me in. I still have my body with a sinful nature in it. I still have memories of sin events and the feelings they produced. I know how I should feel about them. But, I lack the intensity for doing right and hating doing wrong like I should. Thank You for setting me free; but, I need to see how bad all those things were in my past. Use mourning to help me be so convinced and set free that I hate them and all they represent.

Appreciating What Jesus Saved Me From

The new has come: As Jesus teaches you what would have been better decisions, it hurts to see what you should have done. Mourning will cause you to feel regret, sorrow, shame, guilt, and repulsed. But, let Jesus take you through it by His power. Let Him show you who you used to be so you can thank Him for what you are now. Let Him help you be thankful for where He stopped you from going and who He protected you from becoming.

Jesus, I appreciate where you have me; but it needs to be stronger. Show me that weakness has left a door open in my heart. Help me totally reject that old way of life so I can’t be tempted by any of it. Take me through mourning so my rejection and hatred for all of it is complete. Let it cause me to see how horrible the life of my unsaved friends are.

Learning To See The Truth

The old has gone, the new has come: In your past, you tried to make your sins look good. You tried to build up good feelings about yourself, forgive yourself, excuse yourself, justify your actions, and blame others and circumstances for why you did what you did. This kept you from seeing the truth about sin. God wants you to face up to how bad your former life was; He wants you to be able to read the Bible and see what the truth really is.

Jesus, teach me that if I am not willing to see wrong, bad, and evil for what they really are, God and I will never be on the same page. Show me that I can’t just see how bad they are in others, I have to see how bad they were in me. Otherwise, I will go right on seeing sin, wrong, bad, and evil as “not being all that bad” as it relates to me. And, I will fail to see right, good, and righteousness as being all that important.

Getting A True Christian Attitude

James 4:4 (NIV) You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. The problem is mixture; if you don’t adequately let Jesus take you through the mourning process, there will be areas of compromise with the world. There can even be a feeling of loss, sacrifice, and sorrow over having to give up some of the things of the world.

Jesus, help me not choose to be a friend of the world and become an enemy of God. Help me see how important this mourning process is to me and my heart. Help me get a true view of how bad things are in the world. Heal me from considering the pleasures I got in the world as evidence of good. They were candy-coated poison. They were bait in the trap. They were the lies of the devil trying to convince me that they would be good for me.

The Attitude Of The Holy Spirit

James 4:5 (NIV) Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the Spirit He caused to live in us envies intensely? The Holy Spirit isn’t going to allow you to have your feet in both worlds. He will only help you if you make a total break with the world. He is jealous of His relationship with you. He loves you and won’t share you with those things that were killing you. You have to allow Him to help you make a complete separation from sin.

Jesus, help me appreciate the Holy Spirit’s love. Help me understand that I wouldn’t want my spouse giving equal love to some other person. I would require them to only love me and be devoted to me. Help me fully see why I need to make a full commitment to You.

Pride Lies To Me

James 4:6 (NIV) But He gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” As long as you have pride, you will put your opinions above the truths of God. You will believe in yourself; you will make your own evaluations; and, you will open yourself up to the lies of the world and the devil. The benefits of the Bible can only come your way when you realize that God is the only representative of the truth. Humility is vital for you allowing yourself to be convinced that Jesus is your answer.

Jesus, use your process of mourning to set me free from believing in myself in the slightest bit. Help me see that pride closes the doors to any area where I value my opinion or the world’s opinions over Your truth. Let mourning help me see how wrong I have been.

The Two Major Assignments

James 4:7 (NIV) Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. This is a foundational truth. You are being given the two major aspects of what you are assigned to do as a Christian. As it deals with your body, the world, and the devil, you are to have complete resistance. But, the only way you will have power to accomplish that is to have complete submission to God. These will be the two things you will be doing for the rest of your life. The problem will be to learn how to know when it is God and when it is Satan talking.

Jesus, teach me how to recognize Your voice and be empowered to submit to You. Teach me how to recognize Satan’s voice and resist him. Help me become so proficient in these two aspects of Christianity that You make me completely pure in my behavior.

The Submission Procedure

James 4:8 (NIV) Come near to God and He will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. You must make the first move. Since God has already done His part in giving you His Son to die in your place, from that point on, you must always make the first move. Once you come to God, He will empower you to wash your hands from all filth. He will set you free from committing any more sins. He will empower you to purify your heart. And, He will heal you being double-minded.

Jesus, show me that James 4:8 is giving me things to use The Three Keys on. I ask You to cleanse those things I put my hands to. I seek Your truths to purify my heart. And, I knock on the doors of opportunity to share Your healing of my mind from double-mindedness with those who are still trying to mix the world with their salvation.

Engaging In The Mouring Process

James 4:9 (NIV) Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. This is a temporary process. But, it is vital for you to be completely set free from any love for the world. You must be totally healed of all appreciation, affection, or positive memories for your life of sin. Jesus wants to heal you of all those lies that are still resident in your mind and heart.

Jesus, help me be ready to see my past life for what it really was. Help me see how much it hurt me and all those around me. Help me see what it is doing to my friends. Take me through this mourning process and empower me to hate it with a perfect hatred.

Enjoying The Benefits

James 4:10 (NIV) Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will lift you up. To humble yourself before the Lord is to yield to the mourning process. It is you letting Jesus show you how horrible you were being treated by sin. And, it is you seeing how horrible it caused you to be in your treatment of those around you. I will take complete humility for you to be totally healed from seeing yourself as “not being all that bad” in your old way of life.

Jesus, help me be humble so You can lead me into how things were in my old life. Help me see all those procedures I used that kept me from seeing how bad I was treating myself, other people, and You. Show me that I must see it all clearly so I will give up everything about my old life. Lead me into a disgust, hatred, repulsion, and rejection for all those things I tried to make be okay.

Jesus, lift me up through this mourning process so I will be completely healed from all misunderstand, false memories, and lies about my past. Give me a new view of my salvation.

This concludes your reading and prayer.

Truth/Prayer Pages Chapter Ten

How Do I Make I Right?

Week Three Day Two

The Battle With My Past And My Friends

Mourning About Past Abuses

Mat 5:22-24 (NIV) But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, ‘Raca [you empty headed, worthless person],’ is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell. Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.

Your heavenly Father is the One Who searches your heart. He sees all the things that are going wrong in there. He wants to help you “do what it takes” to get healed from those things that are hurting you and others. But, you have to yield to the mind of the Spirit. He wants you to learn how to hate those things that hurt you and others. You yielded to things that not only hurt you, they hurt others. He wants you to stop acting like they weren’t all that bad.

Jesus, help me yield to the power of God’s mourning and help me see what they did through me to others. Help me be willing to feel bad about how I hurt others. Help me not try to ignore it, justify it, excuse it, or forgive myself for it. Help me look to You for the power to go and make it right with those You are bringing to my memory.

Getting Ready To Make Things Right

Rom 8:1-2 (NIV) Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. Jesus isn’t leading you into mourning so as to condemn you. He wants you to know that you have a perfect record with God. He wants you to be able to go to others that you have hurt and bring healing to them. But, you can’t do that until you have been completely healed yourself.

Jesus, let all the previous studies and prayers do a complete work in my heart so I can make it right with those I hurt in my past. Help me see that I am not being judged or condemned for my past. You have forgiven me for all I did to myself, others, and to You. However, help me see that there can still be hurts in other’s hearts from what I did to them. Help me go to them, if you lead me to do so, and bring my story of healing to them.

The Criteria For Making Things Right

1 Cor 13:4-8a (NIV) Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

Love is patient

Jesus, let mourning help me be filled with patience for a person who is frustrating to me. Help me go to them and be able to bring healing and love. If they say anything that tries to reopen my frustration, empower me to be forgiving and free from any impatience with them. Help me totally forgive them for the past and anything they may say now. Help me be able to share my miracles with them and the love You have given me.

Love Is Kind

Jesus, help me yield to Your mourning with such power that it won’t bother me if someone can’t forgive me for what I did to them. Help me respond with kindness and love so they can feel my sorrow for what I did. Let them see that I truly am sorry for my behavior. And, help them eventually experience that kindness in such a way that they do forgive me.

Love Does Not Envy And Does Not Boast

Jesus, help me remember those times I tried to use Your blessings in my life as proofs of my own greatness. Use mourning to remind me of times where I bragged to other people and created envy in their lives for what You gave me. Help me go to them and admit that You love them just as much as You love me. Let me share with them those things that will help them be blessed by You just like you have blessed me.

Love Is Not Rude

Jesus, help me through mourning so I will be able to go to those I have been rude to and treat them with respect and love. Help me see their qualities and accomplishments. Let me treat them with an appreciation that flows out of me with equality and love. Let me show them that You love them just as much as You love me.

Love Is Not Self-Seeking

Jesus, help me through mourning to go to those that I have treated selfishly and get their forgiveness. Help me establish a relationship with them that is loving and caring. Help me start seeing them through their perspective. Let me serve them in an unselfish way.

Love Is Not Easily Angered

Jesus, let mourning help me give up my anger against people. Let it help me love them and identify with their situations. Let it allow me to care for them in such ways that I am able to feel the pain and difficulties they are going through. Let it heal me and help me not feel anger against them. Give me a relationship with them that is free from my anger and mistreatment.

Love Keeps No Record Of Wrongs

Jesus, let mourning help me go to those people I have memorized all the things I they have done wrong. But, help me go to them with a clean record where I no longer am holding those things against them. Help me give them a clean record with me like You gave me with You.

Love Does Not Delight In Evil But Rejoices With The Truth

Jesus, let mourning help me go to that person who is suffering with evil and help them with truth. Keep me from thinking they deserve evil and rejoicing about it. Instead, let me help them be free from it. Let me see them as innocent and help them be free through Your truth.

Love Always Protects

Jesus, let mourning help me protect people I have abused in the past. Help me not only stop hurting and saying things against, but help me start protecting them from others that are doing those things to them. Let me be a close friend for them in all types of situations.

Love Always Trusts

Jesus, let mourning help me consider people innocent until proven wrong or guilty. Help me go to those that others have gossiped to me about and treat them with respect and honor until or unless they demonstrate they are wrong and guilty.

Love Always Hopes

Jesus, even in cases where a person is wrong, bad, or evil, let mourning help me hope that someday they will be changed by Your power and get to the place where I can go to them and work on a new relationship. Let my hopes and prayers assist them in being one of my friends.

Love Always Perseveres

Jesus, let mourning help me try to bring healing to as many people as I can. And, even in those people who will not forgive me and establish a good relationship, help me maintain as good a relationship as is possible. Help me stick with them as best as is possible.

Love Never Fails

Jesus, let mourning so influence my life that I am healed from failing myself, those around me, and You. Let mourning so teach me how to repent and apologize with people I have hurt that I become steadfast in my relationship with them.

This concludes your reading and prayer.

Truth/Prayer Pages Chapter Eleven

How Do I Yield To A True Expert?

Week Three Day Three

Mat 5:5 (NIV) Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

Meekness is accepting professionals and experts as being people you need to put some part of your life in their hands. In this case, it is making Jesus your expert in all of your life.

Replacing My Experts

2 Cor 10:1 (NIV) By the meekness and gentleness of Christ, I appeal to you--I, Paul, who am “timid” when face to face with you, but “bold” when away! We have all been meek with someone at some point; there have been a lot of people you have put in professional and expert positions. Many of those people need to be replaced with people from Jesus. If you don’t consider Jesus to be superior in His knowledge, understanding, wisdom, and abilities to see the past, present, and future (foreknowledge) as one big picture, you won’t be meek in your relationship with Him.

Jesus, as I head into success, it is going to involve many struggles with expert and training concepts. I now have things I believe and base my life on that need to be removed or replaced. Over the years, I have allowed people I considered experts to influence how I live my life. They have shaped my philosophies, beliefs, and principles of life. Help me submit them to You in true meekness.

My Meekness Relationships

Rom 12:2 (NIV) Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is--His good, pleasing and perfect will. Meekness has to do with those areas where you were being trained by some parent, leader, teacher, instructor, mentor, authority, or boss. It also has to do with people you choose to partner with, give some part of your life over to, or receive guidance from. And, it has to do with the books and magazines you read, programs you watch, websites you look at, and music you listen to.

Jesus, I frequently have to deal with areas where I have little or no knowledge. I have to pick others to help me with making decisions, finding solutions, and taking actions. I can’t be an expert in all areas of life; I have to have outside help with those things I lack knowledge or experience in. If I pick the wrong expert, I will have to pay the consequences for it. Help me understand that You are an expert in all areas of life. Even when I have to get an “expert” to take care of some area, help me keep You as the ultimate Expert all during the issue.

I Am Seeing God’s Qualifications

You have experienced many people who knew a lot more about certain things than you did; but, they weren’t trustworthy. Honesty, integrity, and love are more important than being a professional or expert. Honesty, integrity, and love control how a person uses all their skills, talents, positions, power, and prestige. You would be better off with an honest person working with you than a dishonest one who has more training and experience. You may not get as good of a product or result; but, it won’t come with evil consequences.

Jesus, You know everything, see everything, understand everything, and know how to use all Your knowledge and understanding to produce the very best results. No one is able to know more than You, have a better understanding of how things really are, or be able to come up with a wiser plan than You. But, help me see that the greatest thing about You is Your love.

I Am Establishing The Meekness-Relationship

Success while living here and success in eternity all come through your meekness-relationship with Jesus. If you are going to be helped in a God-sized way, you are going to need to consider Him to be totally superior to you and all other humans. If there’s any area of your life where you think you know better, that will be your next major area of problems or failure.

Take a quick look at David, who lived in the Old Testament. See from his life what meekness toward God and meekness toward men do to you.

King David’s Philosophy Of Life

Evaluating My Meekness Toward Humans

Psa 1:1 (NIV) Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. This is King David who lived life and experienced both failure and success. He tried making humans his advisors; and, he tried the counsel and training of God. He knew what the end results were for both approaches to life. Blessings and success didn’t come to him through any of those who tried to teach him human philosophies.

King David isn’t trying to counsel you; he is trying to point you to God’s counsel. He isn’t trying to be your expert on life; he is trying to be a recommendation for where to get your advice on how to live life. He is trying to use his experiences with humans and God and save you from making the same mistakes he made. If you will listen to him, he will be the encourager for making God the final authority in your life just like he did.

Jesus, it is difficult to realize that even “well meaning” people give me direction, advice, and instructions that have truth in them but are foundationally wrong. I hear things that make sense to me; but, when I apply them, they lead me in the wrong direction. Help me see that truth mixed with world philosophy will hurt me just as much as total misinformation.

Jesus, teach me to only trust information that comes from You. And, help me not take Your truths and mix them with human goals, human motivations, human efforts, and human applications. Keep me from getting Your information from untrustworthy sources. Deliver me from information that is true but the application is wrong. Help me not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers.

I Am Maintaining Meekness Toward God

Psa 1:2 (NIV) But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on His law he meditates day and night. David traded his old way of doing things for God’s way. He gave up all his world philosophies and embraced the principles of God. He didn’t just learn them; he was trying to use them in his daily activities. He established a constant relationship with God and His truths. His attitude, that motivated the relationship, was: his delight is in the law of the LORD. His method for governing his day was: on His law he meditates day and night.

Jesus, there are times when I find it hard to agree with Your laws, commandments, and instructions. Help me see my limited knowledge, understanding, wisdom, and lack of foreknowledge. Show me that I evaluate things while missing a lot of important truths. Keep me from making bad decisions because of how much I don’t know or understand. Deliver me from great confidence in myself and what I think I know. Please fill my heart and mind with Your power-attitude of meekness. Make me one whose delight is in the law of the LORD. Teach me how to be one who, on His law he meditates day and night.

I Am Getting The Results

Psa 1:3 (NIV) He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers. You are like a tree with its roots planted in a constant source of supply. God is making everything work out for your good (Rom 8:28); He is giving you His supply of knowledge, understanding, wisdom, and love. You are filled with the resources of God and have all you need to be able to succeed in life. Meekness in your relationship with God brings the kind of life everyone is looking for. He is the Expert of experts, the Authority of all authority, and God over all.

Jesus, I see and believe that the results of meekness bring great happiness, joy, and success into my life. I see how my resources will be supernaturally improved and increased just by me only looking to You as my source. But, I am learning that it isn’t enough for me to be convinced that these things are true. I have personally experienced many failures where I thought all I had to do was come into agreement with You and it would change my life.

Jesus, I need Your power-relationship so I can do what You are asking me to do. I need Your help to be like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Let whatever I do prosper. Help me apply The Three Keys To All Of Christianity to this. Help me, empower me, and transform me into a meek person.

This concludes your reading and prayer.

Truth/Prayer Pages Chapter Twelve

Trying To Be A True Expert

Week Three Day Four

Mat 5:5 (NIV) Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

King Solomon’s Philosophy Of Life

2 Chr 9:22 (NIV) King Solomon was greater in riches and wisdom than all the other kings of the earth.

Jesus, You gave me a certain degree of wisdom, skills, talents, and influence. They aren’t anything in comparison to what You gave King Solomon; but, I took them and used them as if I produced them myself. Help me bring all of them back to You and dedicate them to Your will and purpose for my life. Add all You are to all You have made me.

Meekness Toward Human Philosophy

Eccl 1:16-17 (NIV) I thought to myself, “Look, I have grown and increased in wisdom more than anyone who has ruled over Jerusalem before me; I have experienced much of wisdom and knowledge.” Then I applied myself to the understanding of wisdom, and also of madness and folly, but I learned that this, too, is a chasing after the wind.

Solomon is King David’s son; he asked God for wisdom to lead the Jews. So, God gave him great wisdom and wealth. But, He didn’t use God’s power-attitude of meekness. He didn’t keep his wisdom connected to God. He lacked meekness and used God’s wisdom. He used it to make his own conclusions; and, Ecclesiastes 1:16-17 is how life turned out for him.

Jesus, I think to myself a lot; I forget to invite You into my thought processes. Help me always invite You into everything I am thinking. I also frequently look at those things I own, accomplish, and feel like they represent who I am. Protect me from thinking and feeling like I know what to do and how to do it. Help me keep in mind that everything I have, that is of any value, has come from You.

The Results

Eccl 1:2 (NIV) “Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.” Once you get your eyes off of God and make human wisdom, knowledge, and understanding your “expert” opinion, life loses its meaning and purpose. You can get all the money, possessions, positions, popularity, prestige, power, pleasure, and accomplishments and still not find happiness, purpose, or meaning. You will look at it all and realize it doesn’t satisfy. You will get it all and still need more. You will join the rat race and never find the finish line.

Jesus, I feel this way a lot; help it be my warning that I have slipped away from trusting You.

When I look to You, invite You into my thoughts, ask You what You want me to do, and then ask You for the power to do it, those things that seem meaningless and confusing come clear to me. Give purpose to my life; put goals in me that matter; help me understand how life works; and be included in every aspect of my life. Help me go through my day, inviting You into every aspect of it so I can be connected to Your wisdom through meekness.

Misplaced Meekness Ends Up Needing More

Eccl 1:8 (NIV) All things are wearisome, more than one can say. The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing. Once you set your goals and make your plans to be successful by accumulating things, your heart and mind never know when they have enough. If you get into competition with others who have the same goals, you become obsessed with the race. It takes your attention off of the purpose for life. Misplaced meekness allows humans to point you in the direction of worldly concepts that don’t work for the teacher and don’t work for the student.

Jesus, I have obtained a lot of things that made me happy for a moment; I have accomplished many things that I got pleasure from for a few days; I have felt temporary satisfaction from being praised by people; but, it wasn’t long until I needed more pleasant and enjoyable experiences. If I put my trust in the world and human effort, show me that I will have to keep obtaining things, accomplishing things, and winning more and more people’s approval. Help me get involved in those things You provide that last through time and eternity.

Misplaced Meekness Usually Ends Up Blaming God

Eccl 1:13-14 (NIV) I devoted myself to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under heaven. What a heavy burden God has laid on men! I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

David, Solomon’s father, made some big mistakes; but, he always returned to God for help with his problems and mistakes (meekness). He found the happiness and true success that gives you a purpose in life that satisfies your heart and mind. It is a blessing to you and to those around you. These two men represent the results of meekness or the results of lacking it.

Jesus, I devoted myself to a lot of study and learned a lot of things. I tried to be wise and apply myself to being successful at things I set as goals. I tried to see new things and fill my eyes with some of the wonders of the world. My experiences gave me memories of things I enjoyed but now they are distant and fuzzy. They have slipped through my hands like sand.

Jesus, help me not go to that place where I feel: “What a heavy burden God has laid on men!” Help me not be mad, upset, frustrated, confused, or depressed about those things I feel You have asked me to do. Give me such a close relationship with You that I am able to fully understand and feel Your love and generosity to me.

Solomon Had All The Resources

No one has had all the resources Solomon had. He had massive amounts of money, possessions, positions, power, prestige, popularity, pleasure, and accomplishments. He has already tried it all so you won’t have to. You will never have the resources to give it a better try. Let’s Solomon’s experiences give you adequate warning about the folly of a life without meekness.

Eccl 2:1-3 (NIV) I thought in my heart, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good.” But that also proved to be meaningless. “Laughter,” I said, “is foolish. And what does pleasure accomplish?” I tried cheering myself with wine, and embracing folly--my mind still guiding me with wisdom. I wanted to see what was worthwhile for men to do under heaven during the few days of their lives.

Eccl 2:4-7 (NIV) I undertook great projects: I built houses for myself and planted vineyards. I made gardens and parks and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. I made reservoirs to water groves of flourishing trees. I bought male and female slaves and had other slaves who were born in my house. I also owned more herds and flocks than anyone in Jerusalem before me.

Eccl 2:8-10 (NIV) I amassed silver and gold for myself, and the treasure of kings and provinces. I acquired men and women singers, and a harem as well--the delights of the heart of man. I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me. In all this my wisdom stayed with me. I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my work, and this was the reward for all my labor.

Eccl 2:11 (NIV) Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.

Jesus, when I feel frustrated and dissatisfied, help me see those feelings as my warning that I have moved away from You. Let them be the signal that Your power-attitude of meekness has been neglected. Help me immediately come to You and apply the ask key to Your power-attitude of meekness and get it restored to its proper place in my heart.

Jesus, help me not go down the path where I feel that all of the things I think, feel, say, and do are meaningless, a chasing after the wind. I want to be like King David where I have the emotions and the philosophies that bring great joy and satisfaction to me. Give me meekness so I will see You as being the only authority, parent, expert, counselor, teacher, and leader in my life. Let me have the kind of results, experiences, and evaluations from life that Your power-attitude of meekness brings.

This concludes your reading and prayer.

Truth/Prayer Pages Chapter Thirteen

What Helps Me With My Behavior?

Week Three Day Five

Mat 5:6 (NIV) Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Jesus Establishes The Principles

Righteousness is the attitude, desire, and act of doing those things that are good for you, those around you, and God’s plan. It is also the avoidance of all those things that are bad for you, others, and God’s plan. However, what is good and what is bad is established only through what God says they are. He alone is qualified to decide what works well for you and what doesn’t.

Jesus, I make mistakes; I say and do things that have good intensions but turn out wrong. I do things I know are wrong but I do them anyway. There were things that were bad words and deeds I intentionally did to hurt those people around me. And, there are things that are evil, involving theft, cheating, abusing, lying, and misleading people that I get tempted with a lot. Give me righteousness so I can get rid of wrong, bad, and evil words and deeds.

I Need Replacement Attitudes

Jesus is inviting you into a way of life that replaces wrong with right, bad with good, and evil with righteousness. Whether you do something wrong, bad, or evil, it always ends up in failure. That’s because it wasn’t right, good, or righteous. You must always remember that Jesus isn’t as concerned with what you accomplish as how you accomplished it. He rejects the philosophy that “the end justifies the means.” He cares about why you do what you do.

Jesus, teach me that if I get good results while using wrong methods and procedures, I automatically fail. This is because of the way You judge success. Teach me that even if I help people while achieving a selfish goal of my own, You judge the motive behind the benevolent act. Show me that who I am is more important to You than what I do. Help me understand that if I use wrong, bad, or evil systems trying to achieve right, good, or righteous results, then there is something wrong inside me.

Doing What I Am

Mat 7:16-18 (NIV) By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.

Jesus, teach me that this is where the issue of the deed and the doer look like they aren’t separated. You are saying: “A good tree cannot bear bad fruit.” That would seem to mean that You don’t see me as being separated from my deeds. But, help me see that this is where I get separated from my deeds: Rom 7:16-17 (NIV) And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. Teach me that this bad fruit isn’t actually coming from me; it is coming from my body, that is currently out of my control. Make it clear to me that the good fruit are flowing from my spirit as desires for good and hatred toward bad and evil.

Hunger And Thirst

Justification allows you to do something wrong while wanting to do what is right. But, as a Christian, you are being forced to do things typically considered bad or evil. Rom 7:15 (NIV) I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. You, this “tree,” have a hunger and thirst, but are struggling with a problem in your body.

A good tree cannot bear bad fruit: Jesus, teach me that through salvation and justification I, a bad tree, got created into a good tree. 2 Cor 5:17 (NIV) Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! Since I, the bad tree, have been transformed into a good tree, my next issue is the fruit. Show me that humans bear bad fruit; You produce good fruit.

Where Does Righteousness Come From?

Whether it is a tree or a vine, the fruit it produces demonstrates what kind of tree or vine it is. In John 15, Jesus uses the illustration of a grape vine: John 15:5a (NIV) I am the vine; you are the branches. This sets the stage for the fact that Jesus is the true tree or vine. Now, you can see where you fit into the tree or vine illustration. You aren’t actually the tree trunk or vine; you are just a branch or limb on the vine or tree of Jesus; He is influencing what kind of fruit you bear. All the character and attitudes of Jesus, if yielded to, flow into you and bear fruit.

Jesus, teach me that a limb on a peach tree produces peaches because it is connected to the trunk of a peach tree. Help me see that the trunk grew a peach limb and then gave it all it needed to produce peaches. You created me as a new creation; I am a new limb on Your tree. Help me see that I am not trying to produce righteousness; I am hungering and thirsting after the righteousness that comes from You; You produce the “peaches” that come from me.

Experiencing Righteousness

John 15:5b (NIV) If a man remains in Me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from Me you can do nothing. True success flows through Jesus; He has the power, attitudes, character, love, and abilities to empower you to start thinking, feeling, saying, and doing things that bring true life-success. You saw the clarity, purpose, and true understanding in King David. You also saw the confusion, disappointment, and emptiness of King Solomon, David’s son. David was attached to Jesus; Solomon was detached from Jesus.

Jesus, show me that King David had a lot of money, possessions, positions, power, prestige, popularity, pleasure, and accomplishments; and, King Solomon even had much more of all of them. King David was very successful in his relationship with You; King Solomon was angry and disappointed in You. The “fruit” these two kings bore were completely opposite. The results these two kings experienced were totally different. Teach me that the source they were growing out of, produced fruit from different “trees.” David was connected to You; Solomon was connected to himself and the world.

Deeds And Doers

A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit: Righteousness has to do with your words and deeds. It influences the way you treat yourself and other people. But, new and untrained Christians have a lot of wrong, bad, and sometimes even evil words and deeds come out of their bodies. How are you going to get righteousness flowing from Jesus through your spirit and your body? How are you, a good tree, going to bear good fruit?

John 15:4 (NIV) Remain in Me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in Me. Jesus, teach me that these are the instructions for how I can be a good tree and bear good fruit. Show me that the objective is for me “to do what it takes” to remain in You. But, how do I “do what it takes” to remain in You?

Hunger And Thirst For Righteousness

Remain in Me, and I will remain in you: The number one thing Jesus is looking for is desire. Rom 7:19 (NIV) For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do--this I keep on doing. As bad as this situation sounds, this is actually a person who is a good tree; they are bearing some good fruit and are about to bear a lot of good fruit. Through justification you are bearing good desires; and through sanctification, by remaining in Jesus, you will make your body bear good words and deeds.

Jesus, teach me that hungering and thirsting for righteousness is the desire You gave me at salvation and justification. You have created me into a person who really wants to treat themselves and others with good words and deeds. Show me that if I have self-confidence and esteem, I will bear the fruit that Solomon did; if I get my confidence and esteem from You, I will get the results David did. My fruit are based on Who my connection makes me.

I Am Remaining In Jesus

Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in Me: A good tree bearing good fruit has to not only accept Jesus’ salvation and justification, they have to “do what it takes” to remain in Him. The key to remaining in Jesus is to put your faith in what Jesus says. You have to believe that Jesus told you the truth about hungering and thirsting for righteousness. He told you that if you remain in Him, you will bear fruit. That fruit you will bear is righteousness. That is why He said: “for they will be filled.” But, that filling is a continuous flow from Jesus, the Vine, to you, the branch. It is Jesus’ righteousness, not yours.

This concludes your reading and prayer for this week.

Truth/Prayer Pages Chapter Fourteen

What Changes My Behavior?

Week Four Day One

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled: This is where you apply The Three Keys and The Seven Biblical Principles to a situation. A situation where you desire something to happen to you. If you want something from God, if you read something in the Bible that you need, and if you wonder how to go about getting it, the answer is always The Three Key To All Of Christianity and The Seven Biblical Principles.

How To Be A Good Tree Bearing Good Fruit Of Righteousness

1. Jesus, give me more of a desire or hunger and thirst for righteousness.

2. Jesus, help me study and learn more about Your righteousness.

3. Jesus, help me pray prayers that help me yield to Your righteousness in my life.

4. Jesus, speak faith into my heart and mind so I will be able to believe that I have Your righteousness flowing from You into me.

5. Jesus, teach me how to yield to God’s love so I will have the power to live Your righteous life.

6. Jesus, help me start practicing taking faith-action and begin living on the basis of the fact that You are causing Your righteousness to flow into me and through me into the lives of other people. James 2:17 (NIV) In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

7. Jesus, once You start answering this prayer, help me always be thankful.

The Seven Biblical Principles As Diagnostic Tools

Obviously, you aren’t going to live a perfect, righteous life. But, if you find yourself asking for specific areas of righteousness, as you read the Bible, it will be placed in your life. If, for some reason, you can’t continue to live it in your everyday life, The Seven Biblical Principles will help you identify why. The seven principles in it are mandatory. If one or more are missing, your ask, seek, and knock Keys won’t work. Typically, they will fail because one or more of those items are missing or inadequate for The Three Keys to work.

Jesus, help me get Your righteousness working in my life as I face various issues during my day. Help me see that this general prayer for the general aspects of Your righteousness isn’t all I have to do. As I read my Bible and study these Scriptures in this book, help me pray each one of those prayers with faith. If I ask for a Scripture on Your righteousness to be flowing in and through my life and I keep struggling with it, empower me to go over each item in The Seven Biblical Principles so You can show me what the problem is.

Getting An Intense Desire

Mat 5:6 (NIV) Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. The word “hunger” means starving to death. And, the word “thirst” here is to be dying of thirst. It is a desperate desire for Jesus’ righteousness. It is a power-attitude from God that helps you see the incredible damage unrighteousness does to you. And, it shows you how wonderful, miraculous, and beneficial Jesus’ righteousness is to you.

Jesus, show me the effect Your righteousness has on me. Help me see through God’s eyes so I see unrighteousness as a cancer eating away at me and my relationships. Show me Your righteousness as creating happiness, blessings, and health to me and my relationships. Let this power-attitude give me an intense hunger and thirst for righteousness from You.

Steps Into Intense Hunger And Thirst For Righteousness

1. My Relationship With Jesus

John 15:4 (NIV) Remain in Me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in Me.

Remain in Me, and I will remain in you: Jesus, the more I remain in You the better I see things from Your Biblical perspective. I have been so blind about things that hurt me and my relationships. Your eyes make things in the Bible make sense to me. Shine Your light into the darkness and confusion of my own philosophies and opinions. Empower me to see more clearly how life really works, and how Your righteousness effects my life and relationships.

2. My Relationship With Myself

John 15:5 (NIV) I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in Me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from Me you can do nothing.

Jesus, Your Holy Spirit kept pointing out to my conscience my shortcomings, sins, flaws, and failures. But, instead of me turning to You for freedom from selfishness in my relationships, I justified them, explained them away, made myself feel good about them, and got better at not getting caught. Give me an intense delight or hunger and thirst for righteousness.

3. My Relationship With Other People

John 15:7 (NIV) If you remain in Me and My words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you.

Ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you: Jesus, show me how my feelings, words, thoughts, and deeds affect others. Reveal my sins, failures, misdeeds, shortcomings, and relational mistakes. Deliver me from things that hurt others. When I ask whatever I wish, and it will be given to me, let it be an intense hunger and thirst for righteousness for how I treat people. Help me hate it when I mistreat them; I repent and pray for a life filled with Your righteousness.

4. My Relationship With Life

John 15:9 (NIV) As the Father has loved Me, so have I loved you. Now remain in My love.

Now remain in My love: Jesus, I want You and Your love in every aspect of my life; cleanse me from arrogance, self-sufficiency, self-reliance, and self-dependency. I desperately need to see things the loving way You see them. I need to be humble before You and let You show me what unrighteousness (a lack of love) and righteousness (love) are all about. Let me see what unrighteousness does to me and those around me. And, give me a full understanding of how much better my life will be once I yield to the righteousness of Your love.

Empower me to be humble with You; set my feet on the foundation of You and Your righteousness. I want what You have to offer so I will understand and yield to those things You know are the very best for me and those around me. Give me a humble heart so I can give up world training and accept the words in Your Bible. Give me the intense hunger and thirst for Your righteousness; help me see how badly I need it to be the power in my life.

5. My Relationship With Jesus’ Commands

John 15:10 (NIV) If you obey My commands, you will remain in My love, just as I have obeyed My Father’s commands and remain in His love.

If you obey My commands, you will remain in My love: Jesus, I desire to obey every one of Your commandments; Show me that they are the fulfillment of Your righteousness. Help me receive them as the instructions and life-methods that I need to live by. Let me study and learn every one of them so You can empower me to live them. Help me to ask for them to be installed in me and my relationships. Give me faith so I can believe I have them. Let them be me living out love in all my relationships. Join me in living them out through faith-action.

6. My Relationship With Jesus’ Love

John 15:12 (NIV) My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.

Love each other as I have loved you: Jesus, I got Your love when the Holy Spirit came inside my body and joined my spirit. Let it inspire the desires of my heart. Help me understand it through Your commands in the Bible. Let me pray prayers that empower me to base my life on it. Give me the faith to believe I can love each other as [You] have loved [me]. Teach me how to so yield to Your love until it becomes a hunger and thirst for righteousness. Empower me with Your life. Help me take faith-action on the fact that I have Your love flowing through me.

Jesus, I ask You to empower me to do all these things that I don’t know how to do for myself. I ask You to help me live life by giving me Your life as a power, skill, ability, and wisdom to not only hunger and thirst for righteousness, but to live it out in my relationships.

This concludes your reading and prayer.

Truth/Prayer Pages Chapter Fifteen

Can I Get Supernatural Behavior?

Week Four Day Two

Righteousness Solves People Conflicts

James 4:1 (NIV) What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? Most problems come out of relational issues; righteousness has to do with what you think, feel, say, and do to yourself, other people, and to God’s plan. It has to do with what is right and what is wrong. It also covers the principle of what is good and what is bad. And, it deals with the concepts of what is just, fair, moral, or evil.

Jesus, teach me that righteousness is the criteria for measuring how I am treating myself, others, and God. Show me that righteousness is a set of Biblical rules, laws, and commandments designed by God. Help me see that God cares and knows more about justice, fairness, and love than anyone anywhere. Help believe that God is the only One Who is qualified to establish what is right or wrong, good or bad, righteous or evil. Help me understand that this is one of the reasons the Bible is so important for me to be exposed to.

Asking For A Deep Desire

Hunger and thirst is a deep spiritual need that feels like you are dying in the desert. It is a desire to do right things and stop doing wrong things to yourself, other people, and God. You got the beginnings of this desire when you got salvation. But, if you are going to get the healing, help, and miracles you need, you must know how to get it influencing your life. This is accomplished by you yielding to those power-attitudes of God you have so far.

1. You have become poor in spirit enough to be willing to listen to what God says when He shows you that there have been a lot of things you have done wrong, bad, or evil. And, you are open to letting Him heal your heart and mind from these memories.

2. You are yielding to God’s power of mourning, as you allow your heart and mind groan and cry about those things you have done in your past that they still remember.

3. You are yielding to God’s power of meekness by believing Him as He tells you, through Biblical principles, what to give up and what to let into your heart and mind.

4. Since you are doing these three things, you are open and ready to learn about and live a righteous life. You heart and mind are prepared to hunger and thirst for righteousness.

Jesus, I thank You for making me poor in spirit so I can be receptive to everything You want to teach me. Thank You for helping me mourn so You could help me grieve and cry about those things I did in the past that my heart and mind still remembered. I thank You for making me meek so I could totally respect the knowledge, foreknowledge of the future, understanding, wisdom, power, and love of God. You have made me teachable, correctable, and respectful so I can be filled with God’s righteousness.

Being Evaluated By God

Blessed are those who: One thing you can count on: you will have a lot of things in your past, your current behavior, and your future words and deeds that God won’t approve of. That’s because He is perfect and you aren’t. He sees things from a perfect perspective that would make your life its very best. Righteousness isn’t the good or avoiding the bad you might think of. It’s the way a perfect, holy, divine, and supernatural God sees good and bad.

Jesus, thank You for providing me with a perfect record with God. And, thank You for God’s power-attitudes that are giving me supernatural power to get a better record with myself and those around me. With the perfect, holy, divine, and supernatural character and attitudes of God, I would have never been able to approach You and get Your help. Without You, I would have lived with a horrible record with myself and all those around me. Help me see that hungering and thirsting for righteousness is saving my relationships.

Being Responsible For God’s Righteousness

Rom 1:16-17 (NIV) I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.”

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness: Jesus, I often feel like I am treating myself and other people pretty good. But, I know You can easily find all kinds of things wrong with it. Help me realize that because my standards are low, because I can’t see how much I am hurting people, and because I am easily impressed with my performance, it can keep me from seeking a righteousness from God. Raise my level of hunger and thirst.

Being Responsible For God’s definition Of Righteousness

The righteous will live by faith: What does it mean when you are to hunger and thirst for righteousness? It means this: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect (Mat 5:48).” And it means this: But just as He Who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy (1 Pet 1:15-16).”

This is talking about having a perfect righteousness; that is what holiness means. You will need faith, if you are going to hunger and thirst for this kind of righteousness; actually, you need mountain moving faith. But, that is the kind of faith Jesus is offering to speak into you.

Faith For A Righteousness From God

Heb 12:14 (NIV) Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. Jesus, make it obvious to me that this power-attitude from You isn’t going to be something I can produce. Help it also be obvious to me that it isn’t something I can think up or even imagine. Empower me to enter into a way of treating myself, other people, and You with a behavior that is supernatural.

Praying Your Way Into Perfection

Mat 5:48 (NIV) Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. Heb 12:14 (NIV) Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. Just because you, as a human, will never be perfect doesn’t mean you shouldn’t make every effort.

What Does It Mean: “Make Every Effort?”

Make every effort: Jesus, You have been teaching me what it means to “do what it takes.” You taught me to look to You to make every effort. That is me “doing what it takes” and making every effort through Your seven Biblical principles. My goal in life has been set by You to be perfect, therefore, as my heavenly Father is perfect. This raises the goal up to the supernatural realm where You live. Without this goal, I would be setting the standard for righteousness. I would reach that goal through human effort.

Getting Perfection Into My Life

Make every effort to live: Jesus, You are keeping my perfect record intact. But, help me make every effort to live in such a way that I take advantage Your power to lead me toward a perfect behavior. Help me not allow the concept of perfection scare me away from seeking it. Help me see that I will never be perfect; but, You are giving me Your life and You are perfect. Help me see that I am making every effort to live by means of Your life of perfection.

Getting Perfection Into My Relationships

Make every effort to live in peace: Jesus, my every effort to live in peace with those who are difficult to get along with is to yield to Your life. Gal 2:20 (NIV) I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself for me. Make every effort is to apply The Three Keys and ask You to flow through me in peace.

Getting Help With Difficult People

Make every effort to live in peace with all men: There are some people, Jesus, that it would be impossible for me to live a righteous life with. They do and say things that typically push me into all kinds of unrighteous thoughts and feelings. But, thanks to You, I am being empowered to make every effort to live in peace with them. All I have to do is apply the ask key to the situation and You change my behavior.

Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy: Jesus, I struggled with the concept of righteousness; it was hard for me to hunger and thirst for it; I fall so short of it. But now, You are telling me to be holy, which is perfect righteousness. This both scares me and shows me that You are my only way into righteousness and holiness. Give me faith in Your life, Your power, and Your ability to bring Your righteousness and holiness into my relationships. Let those things in my perfect record with God, start moving from me being credited with them, to me actually living them. Help me live with righteousness and holiness in the way I actually treat myself, other people, and God’s plan.

This concludes your reading and prayer.

Truth/Prayer Pages Chapter Sixteen

What Does Righteousness Look Like In Life?

Week Four Day Three

A Quick Look At Righteousness

Jesus’ Is Teaching Me What Righteousness Looks Like

Mat 5:1-2 (NIV) Now when He (Jesus) saw the crowds, He went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to Him, and He began to teach them, saying: The Beatitudes are the door into being able to listen and receive what Jesus has to say next. After Jesus presented these eight doors into righteousness, He started teaching you what righteousness looks like. Spend some time studying and praying about a few of those things Jesus presented for you to live as a life of righteousness.

1. Jesus, Give Me Your Type Of Influence

Mat 5:13 (NIV) You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men. What you say or don’t say to people and what you do or don’t do for people decides what kind of influence you have on them. If salt is put in your soup, it helps it taste better. The way it does this is to melt or dissolve and become a part of the soup.

Jesus, You were a wonderful influence on the people around You, when You were here. Open my life to You so You can be a wonderful influence on the people around me. Help me yield my body and life to You so You can do for these people those things You did in the past.

2. Jesus, Help Me Live And Teach Your Commandments

Mat 5:19 (NIV) Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus, I want Your commandments to empower me to treat myself, other people, and You the way You teach. Help me take Your teachings and accept them as commandments for me to yield to. Let them guide me into what to pray for so I will be able to yield to Your life. Then once they become a breakthrough in my life, let me share them with others.

3. Jesus, Help Me Bring Your Blessings To Others

Mat 5:21-22 (NIV) You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, ‘Raca [you empty headed, worthless person],’ is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.

Jesus, I want to be careful of what I say about and to the people around me. Let me say those things that are a blessing and an encouragement to them rather than something that hurts and damages them. Help me build them up rather than trying to tear them down.

4. Jesus, Help Me Care About My Relationships

Mat 5:23-24 (NIV) Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.

Jesus, as I praise, worship, serve, and thank You, let me also show my love toward You by maintaining a loving relationship with those around me. Even if it is something they are misunderstanding or taking the wrong way and it isn’t my fault, help me straighten it out.

5. Jesus, Help Me Realize My Thoughts Matter

Mat 5:27-28 (NIV) You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Jesus, help me realize that my body desires pleasure and relationships that are only for satisfying its drives and cravings. It isn’t motivated by win/win, loving relationships that are a commitment to care for, be a blessing to, and make personal sacrifices for others. Empower me to only establish relationships that bring glory and honor to You.

6. Jesus, Help Me Fulfill My Commitments

Mat 5:31-32 (NIV) It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery.

Jesus, help me treat marriage as being different from all other relationships. Let me yield to Your training and influence on how I handle my marital behavior. Give me Your ways for establishing and maintaining my relationship with the person I am to spend the rest of my life with. Help me approach it with love, wisdom, training, and transformation. You alone can establish and keep me living a life of commitment and love. Enter into it with Your life, love, power, grace, mercy, and wisdom. Keep righteousness flowing in my marriage.

7. Jesus, Help Me Keep My Word

Mat 5:33-37 (NIV) Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but keep the oaths you have made to the Lord.’ But I tell you, Do not swear at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; or by the earth, for it is His footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.

Jesus, empower me to be a person of honesty, integrity, and truth. Help me have a reputation for being one who can be trusted and relied on. Give me Your character and attitudes so everyone will see Who You are, as they establish various types of relationships with me. Even if there is a contract involved, empower me to fulfill it simply because I owe it and am committed to fulfill it. Let me do this to show all people that I honor You.

8. Jesus, Help Me Live A Life Of Love, Grace, Mercy, And Forgiveness

Mat 5:38-40 (NIV) You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well.

Jesus, set me free from wanting to get even, get revenge, get the upper hand, demand justice, make sure I get my fair share, and want to see to it that I am respected. Help me trust You with my rights, my reputation, and my possessions. Help me see that You are my source of fairness, resources, and relationships. Help me always realize that You will see to it that I am cared for and get all my needs met.

Jesus, I want to hunger and thirst for Your righteousness; help me study the rest of Your teachings and spend time praying for each of them to be fulfilled as righteousness in my life. I want to be empowered to obey everything You taught. I want to apply The Three Keys and The Seven Biblical Principles to every one of them so I can be a blessing and a help to all those around me. Help them see You in everything I think, feel, say, and do.

The Three Keys, The Seven Biblical Principles, and the Eight Power-Attitudes Of God

This has been a quick study from Jesus’ Sermon On The Mount. It gives you a glance into real-life instructions from Jesus on what righteousness looks like during your daily activities. The Bible has a lot of these behavioral requirements of Jesus. You have prayed over a few of them so as to experience the power of the ask key helping you get them into your behavior.

As you look at this sample of what Jesus says righteousness looks like, you need to not only pray these types of prayers, you need to desire them, study about them, continue to pray for them to be installed in you, look to Jesus for the faith to believe you have them, get Jesus’ help to live them out of love, join Jesus and take faith-action practicing living them. Then thank Him for hearing and answering your prayers.

The Three Keys To All Of Christianity, The Seven Biblical Principles, and The Eight Power-Attitudes Of God are your three toolsets that bring all God’s provisions into your life. Ask invites Jesus into a situation; seek keeps ask from being casual, and knock directs you to people to share with. The Seven Biblical Principles help you diagnose yourself during times when The Three Keys fail. The Eight Power-Attitudes influence your receptivity toward God and your relationships with yourself and others. Once you become successful, skillful, knowledgeable, experienced, and spiritual in using these three toolsets, all the Biblical truths will become yours.

This concludes your reading and prayer.

Truth/Prayer Pages Chapter Seventeen

What Does Mercy Require Of Me?

Week Four Day Four

Mat 5:7 (NIV) Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

Mercy is to give someone something good that they don’t deserve or to refuse to punish them for doing something they do deserve punishment, retaliation, or to be brought to justice for.

Good Or Bad Future Investments

Blessed are the merciful: Relational difficulties come from the way you treat yourself and other people. They also come from how they treat you. Sometimes it isn’t obvious; but, a lot of people are being abused by people they abused. They are being abused because of the way they treat others. When you hurt some people, they will often respond the same way.

Jesus, I can have a bad relationship with a person and feel like it is all their fault. When in reality, I caused the relationship to be that way. Teach me that a lot of my relational issues can be solved by me treating people better. Help me start relationships in better directions through mercy. Even if they don’t deserve to be treated better, help me learn to do it for You. Eph 6:7 (NIV) Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men.

Mercy Comes Back To Me

The next issue comes from the way God treats you. You can be experiencing relational and circumstantial problems because you are ignoring, not knowing, or not understanding an important principle of God. Here’s a very important principle that goes along with Matthew 5:7. Luke 6:38 (NIV) Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

Jesus, I am going to be needing a lot of mercy all during this process of You helping me get my problems solved. And, I need it as You teach me how to be successful in life. Teach me that if I am not applying this “give” principle, I won’t be giving people mercy and getting the mercy from God I need. Teach me that Matthew 5:7 and Luke 6:38 make it very clear that I must show mercy to others in order that I may be able to get mercy from God. Show me that I can only show mercy to those who don’t deserve it.

Success Through Mercy

“Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy” is introducing you into a way of life that always works together for your good. Rom 8:28 (NIV) And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose. There is no way you are ever going to deserve this kind of treatment.

Jesus, since God operates exclusively on the basis of gifts, grace, and mercy, help me understand that everything I get will come through that principle. Show me that it has nothing to do with what I do or don’t deserve; it’s a gift. Help see that I won’t be able to earn them, deserve them, or have the right to them. The only way to get the door to open to all of God’s provisions is through me being merciful to those around me; success in life is dependent on it.

Getting Through Giving

Luke 6:38 (NIV) Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

Give, and it will be given to you: Jesus, help me get mercy coming my way by me being merciful to others. Let gifts come from God as I give to others. Teach me that true success is based on God’s giving system. You said in Matthew 6:12 (NIV) Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. Help me not miss this concept as being the foundation for living the Christian life. Let gifts flow to the needy from these generosity-principles.

Getting More Than Given

Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap: The person who really learns this success principle starts a flow into their life that is huge. Once we get started giving, our resources increase exponentially; we find out that God is much more generous than we are.

For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you: Jesus, show me that giving mercy in small amounts or forgiving partially isn’t what You had in mind. Teach me that it isn’t just being merciful, forgiving, or giving to people, it is doing these things in a loving way. Help me not try to give mercy, forgiveness, and giving generously through human effort. My body wants to get, keep, save, hoard, use, and own its possessions.

It Is Going To Take Jesus

Mat 7:7 (NIV) Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. If you are going to get your needs met, you are going to have to take advantage of these three keys to all of Christianity. The ask key keeps you from looking to yourself. The seek key keeps you from making these three keys a ritual. And, the knock key keeps you from doing things for selfish reasons.

Jesus, help me yield to these three keys and use them in the way You presented them. I want to be merciful. But, I want to ask, seek, and knock for it because I need to have good attitudes and character. Let me use these spiritual tools as my way of staying in a proper relationship with You. I want to look to You for everything. And, I want to ask from my heart by seeking. Then I want to make sure I am not doing these things for selfish reasons. Help knock on the doors of opportunity to share these things with others.

This concludes your reading and prayer.

Truth/Prayer Pages Chapter Eighteen

Should Mercy Always Be Applied?

Week Four Day Five

A Gift To Those Who Don’t Deserve It

Mat 5:7 (NIV) Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Romans 1:29-31 gives you a list of some of the things people can do to you; not that you haven’t already experienced most of them. You have met people who fall into one or more of these categories.

Jesus, before I go through the list in Romans 1:29-31, show me my need for Your supernatural power of meekness. Help me realize that I will be having to deal with some of these types of people. I will be trying to figure out whether or not You want me to be merciful to them.

A List Of People Who Don’t Deserve Mercy

Rom 1:29-31 (NIV) They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

Jesus, what is the criteria for who, of these people, do I show mercy? Do I have to be merciful to them all? Or, are there some that it would be a mistake for me to be merciful to them. Also, what kind of mercy would I show? Would it all be the same type of mercy?

Mercy May Not Be Possible

They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity: There are people who are just evil; you don’t have to do anything to them. They may be able to hide it from you on first contact. But, by the time you get to know their true character, they have done a lot of wicked things to you. Is it now time for you to be merciful? Mat 7:6 (NIV) Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces.

Jesus, show me it isn’t just a matter of me being merciful to those who doesn’t deserve it. If I am putting myself in danger, help me see when mercy wouldn’t help them receive it as mercy. Help me be as merciful as You help me to be, but help me get away as fast as I can.

Mercy Isn’t Easy To Give Some People

They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice: A person may be in this condition, but they aren’t always dangerous. Even a murder may have done it because of one situation. But, you must ask Jesus who you are dealing with. Physical damage isn’t as bad as spiritual and moral damage. If they appear to be sexually aggressive or use depraved language, be as merciful as you can without endangering your wellbeing.

Jesus, I ask You to empower me to never fail to be merciful because of the things I feel. I want to yield to Your power-attitude of mercy even though the person doesn’t deserve it. Help me realize that the only way I can show mercy is for the person to not deserve it.

Mercy Isn’t Always My First Reaction

They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters: When people take things away from you, assassinate your character, fight and argue with you, deceive you, and treat you maliciously, they have just qualified for mercy. These people don’t deserve your love, forgiveness, or kindness. But, that is the only time you can show mercy.

Jesus, there are certain kinds of treatment from people that I automatically react to negatively. I have a typical way of dealing with these things without even having to think about it. Help me yield to Your power-attitude of mercy as my new way of responding. Give me a forgiving heart that wants to be merciful no matter what happens to me.

Mercy Takes The Supernatural Power Of God

They are…insolent, arrogant and boastful: If you are going to be merciful, it is time to pray and get God’s power-attitude of mercy. When people try to make themselves superior to you, you don’t like it. The more they are insolent, arrogant and boastful, the more you resent them and want to “take them down a notch or two.”

Jesus, You came into my life and gave me mercy and grace. I couldn’t be good enough to earn Your love and forgiveness. These people need You; they are insolent, arrogant and boastful because they aren’t transformed by You yet! Help me battle evil that is dominating their hearts with the mighty weapon of love, mercy, forgiveness, and kindness. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds (2 Cor 10:4). Let me help them be set free.

Mercy Takes The Supernatural Wisdom Of God

They invent ways of doing evil: Some evil people are very creative. They can come up with ways to hurt you that no one ever expected. They can take you by total surprise. You will never be able to prepare yourself for every possible thing people might do to or against you. You need Jesus to help you be able to handle, counteract, work around, and exercise wisdom in dealing with some people’s creative evil.

Jesus, You were incredible in Your abilities to give out mercy with supernatural wisdom. You were able to have all kinds of negative words and deeds come at You. But, You were wise enough to handle every one of them with great skill. I ask You to fill my heart and mind with Your wisdom so I can give out mercy through Your wise words and deeds.

Mercy Has To Apply To Those Close To You

They disobey their parents: One of the most frustrating and sometimes surprising types of evil can come from family members. People you love, trust, and have a special friendship with can show their true colors. You can be so hurt by someone you thought was the least likely to do anything to hurt you that you can’t even think of mercy.

Jesus, I have opened my heart to certain people; I have accepted them as my friends. I trusted them and gave them a special place in my life. When I let my guard down and let them into my heart, it made me vulnerable, susceptible to pain and hurt, and open to being disappointed by them. I didn’t expect them to be one of those who would attack, abuse, or mistreat me; but, they did. Since they were invited into the most tender aspects of my heart, they hurt me worse than anyone else could.

Jesus, I ask You to help me be so healed and delivered from this damage that it becomes easy for me to forgive people who were close to me. I open my heart so You can take that place occupied by those who were my friends but abused the relationship. I know that You and I can work together to bring me into giving forgiveness and mercy to the people who I thought were some of my very best friends.

Mercy Has To Apply To Those Who Lack Any Conscience

They are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless: Mercy doesn’t require the recipient to understand or appreciate the mercy they are receiving. Eph 6:7 (NIV) Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men. You can’t expect or even look for any appreciation, acknowledgment, respect, or notice from those you give mercy to. Mercy comes to people who don’t deserve it; but, you aren’t doing them any favors. You must do it because you are doing it to Jesus, and want and need mercy, blessings, and favor from Him.

Jesus, it is hard for me to be nice to people who don’t appreciate it. I struggle with principles like the one in Romans 12:21: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” It is hard enough for me to not retaliate and do something bad back to them. But, to do good

to someone who has treated me with evil, that is really hard. However, I know Your power-attitude of mercy will empower me to overcome evil with good.

Jesus, help me realize that You aren’t asking me to be merciful. Show me that You are offering me the power-attitude of mercy. Give me Your power that produces a mercy in me that is able to handle anything that comes against me. I am so thankful that it isn’t up to me to produce this attitude. Thank You for providing me with the power and ability to do all of those things I need to be thinking, feeling, saying, and doing.

This concludes your reading and prayer for this week.

Truth/Prayer Pages Chapter Nineteen

How Does Being Pure In Heart Bring Healing?

Week Five Day One

Mat 5:8 (NIV) Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

A Pure Heart is to have motives that are filled with love and righteousness. It is to yield to God’s love listed in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a and the righteousness listed in Galatians 5:22-23.

This Is The Love I Received From God

If you are patient, kind, don’t envy, don’t boast, aren’t proud, aren’t rude, aren’t self-seeking, aren’t easily angered, don’t keep a record of wrongs, and don’t delight in evil but rejoice with the truth, if you always protect, always trust, always hope, and always persevere, then your love will never fail (1 Cor 13:4-8a).

Jesus, teach me what a pure heart is all about. Show me that it is based on the kind of love God gave me at salvation. Help me learn how to yield to it so I can have a pure heart. Help me see how treating people with this kind of love will bring many of them into a great relationship with You and with me. Show me that my success in life is very dependent on me having a lot of reliable friendships.

A Pure Heart Establishes Trustworthiness

Take a look at the above characteristics of God’s love that have been placed in your heart at salvation. If you get to the place where you are yielding to all these characteristics, you can see that you will be a person that everyone will be able to trust. The more people trust you, the more they will work together with you to reach win/win types of goals. If you are trustworthy and those around you are aware of it, then you will have a lot of people to succeed in life with. You will out produce those who are obnoxious, abusive, standoffish, and insensitive.

Jesus, teach me that the Holy Spirit came inside me so as to empower me to be a person who yields to God’s love on a moment-by-moment and issue-by-issue basis. He helps me make many love-decisions all during my day; He helps me take each issue I face and listen for love thoughts and feelings from Him; He causes them to pop up in my mind and heart. People like this kind of love treatment.

God’s Love Is The Power To Win

Jesus has provided you with a much more detailed Bible study and prayer on this issue of the love of God. It is called “Spiritual Power.” In it, Jesus helps you take each one of the characteristics of God’s love and spend some time getting to know and understand them. And, He helps you spend time learning how to go about being able to yield to them.

Jesus, since each individual characteristic of your love listed in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 won’t be covered in much detail here, help me be sure to go through that Bible study and pray book. Help me know when it is a good time. Help me take a good look at what Your love is all about. But for now, show me the process of having a pure heart.

It Starts With My Heart

Romans 7:15-25 shows you where your true desire is. In those verses you find out that you start with having a pure heart without you having a pure life. Salvation creates purity for your past and justification credits purity to your present and future. This is so you can get Jesus’ help with having a pure life to go with your pure heart.

Jesus, teach me that God’s love, that I get through salvation, helps me with pure motives. Show me that it helps me love people so I don’t want to treat them with wrong, bad, or evil motives or deeds. Help me see that with a pure heart, I can be trusted. I will want and will pray for words and actions in my behavior that are in the best interest of everyone involved. Show me that a pure heart is one that is open for everyone to see. There are no hidden agendas, misleading behavior, or deception in it.

Contaminating My Heart

A lot of your problems with succeeding in life come from the fact that your heart has a hidden agenda. This agenda typically comes from an assignment you gave it a long time ago. People probably hurt you in the past; and, at that time, you may have decided to never let anyone hurt you like that again. You may have trusted someone and they let you down; so, you made up your mind to not be so gullible ever again. That gave your heart the assignment to send you emotions of suspicion, distrust, and caution as you approach relationships.

Jesus, teach me that I may get God’s healing from relational damage I experienced in my past. And, I may get His power to forgive them. But, help me understand that my heart will typically still be enforcing a protection-rule on all other relationships. I may be completely over a bad relationship; but, help me see that, that doesn’t change the rule I sent to my heart. It may be unreceptive to anything that threatens that rule. I may read Scripture that could bring great healing. But, it may refuse the principle presented in that Scripture.

Understanding My Heart’s Hidden Agendas

Rom 8:26-27 (NIV) In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And He Who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.

The pure heart issue requires you to bring your heart for examination before God. The Holy Spirit must guide you in how to pray over your heart issues. Its agenda is mostly hidden from you; your only indication of its motives come from the emotions you experience from it. If you see people as guilty until proven innocent, that is your only indication what the rule is.

Jesus, help me realize that my heart cannot be reasoned with. It doesn’t deal in logic or facts. I can’t change it by “facing my fears,” “making up my mind,” or “just going ahead and doing it.” Teach me that if I force it to face its fears, break its rules, or repress its emotional pain and sorrow, it will develop emotional problems that will show up in very damaging ways. Let the Holy Spirit go into my heart and give it a healing in each area where damage exists.

Dealing With My Heart’s Hidden Agendas

“We do not know what we ought to pray for” is explaining to you that your heart can’t tell you what its problems and hurts are. You heart is a mystical, hidden area of your control center that runs you. All the damaged areas are causing problems you can’t reason with or change. You must pray for it; but, you don’t know what is wrong; so, you don’t know what to pray.

Jesus, help me yield to the Holy Spirit and allow Him to help me pray. Help me realize that I don’t know what is wrong with my heart. Protect me from people who think they know how to help me by reasoning with me. Help me realize that their reasoning isn’t speaking my heart’s language of emotion. Help me not be confused when I know something is true; but, it doesn’t help my heart.

Getting Inside Information

The Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express: Groans are the language of your heart; it often expresses itself with smiles, frowns, tears, and laughter. Groans are emotional expressions that the Holy Spirit aids your heart to release. As your heart yields to the Spirit’s intercession to God for it, healing and help come inside it. He is the only way your heart is healed. His healing process changes the way your heart controls your life.

Jesus, since my heart controls me, help me allow the Holy Spirit to heal it. Help me yield to Him as He tries to guide my prayer times. Help me understand that He is my only way to experience heart-healing. Help me experience complete healing in all areas of my heart.

My Prayer Team

Rom 8:27 (NIV) And He (Our Father) Who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will: Your Father searches your heart and knows what needs to be prayed for. Then the Holy Spirit brings those concepts into your mind that are the nonverbal needs of your heart. If you are listening to those ideas popping up in your mind, it will change how you spend your time in prayer.

Jesus, since my heart can only communicate with groans that words cannot express, let the Holy Spirit bring these heart-problems before God. Help God’s power-attitude of a pure heart function through my life. Even though I won’t be perfect in the purity of my heart, the more You help me with it, the greater my healing and success will be. Help me treat people based on how much my heart has been healed. Enhance my relationships by changing the attitudes and character flowing out of my heart. Let it be as pure a heart as possible.

This concludes your reading and prayer.

Truth/Prayer Pages Chapter Twenty

How Can I Be Imperfect With A Pure Heart?

Week Five Day Two

1. My Pure Heart Is A Miracle Of God

Mat 5:8 (NIV) Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. This is God’s goal for your heart; but, Jeremiah 17:9 is where you start out.

Jer 17:9 (NIV) The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? Your heart is one of your most complicated and mysterious parts. You may be great at keeping people from knowing what your agenda is; but, you are clear on your own goal. However, when it comes to your heart, things get very confusing and unclear. You program your heart; but, you don’t control it. It takes the experiences, opinions, philosophies, and things you accept as truths, and forms a set of bylaws and rules that it forces you to live by.

Jesus, give me a new heart that is capable of becoming a pure heart. Give me one that is real, honest, trustworthy, and sincere in my relationships with myself, You, and those around me. Help me see why You want this for me. Help me understand that it is so I can help others experience the realities of Who You are and how You live. Let Your pure heart, that is in me, set an example of what is possible through You.

2. My Pure Heart Is An Open Book

What if everyone knew exactly what you were thinking? What if they also knew exactly how you felt about things? What if your whole life was open and clear to every person you associated with? If you had no secrets, no way of fooling anyone, and no way of hiding your motives or agendas, you could be in a lot of trouble.

A pure heart is to quit thinking or feeling anything you don’t want other people to know. It is to become so honest, so loving, and so wise that all your words and deeds represent exactly what you are thinking and feeling. Eph 4:15 (NIV) Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into Him Who is the Head, that is, Christ. It could be easy for you to speak the truth, if you don’t care who you hurt. Or, you could care too much about hurting someone’s feelings and want to just love them. But, to speak the truth in love, requires a tremendous amount of wisdom.

Jesus, give me Your wisdom so I can speak the truth in love. Help me be open and honest with people without doing any damage to them. Only You have the wisdom for me to be able to speak truth in such a way that it brings healing and guidance to people. Let Your incredible love, truth, and wisdom flow through me because I have Your pure heart.

3. My Pure Heart Speaks The Truth Through Love

Instead, speaking the truth in love: When you try to combine truth with love, things really get complicated. How do you reveal how you really think and feel and it come out of a heart of love? 2 Cor 3:6 (NIV) He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant--not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. Truth through love, sets you free; truth through the law, kills you by making you guilty of sin. Speaking “your mind” without love, hurts people. Withholding truth because of human love, also hurts people.

For the letter kills: Jesus, teach me that without the truth, people are being lied to, misled, misinformed, uninformed, and living their life on inadequate information. Teach me that the truth isn’t optional for me as a Christian. Without the truth, show me that I and those around me can’t make correct decisions. We can’t navigate through life; and we can’t build the right relationships. But, help me see that if the truth comes in an unloving way, it will weigh us down, depress us, discourage us, and make us responsible for things we can’t live up to.

Jesus, help me love people enough to give them the truth; but, help me love them in such a way that it helps, heals, blesses, and meets their needs. Give me Your wisdom so I can yield to Your love while speaking the truth with great skill.

4. My Pure Heart Gets And Gives Life

For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life: The world’s demands push you into a “success” that enslaves your life. You will have to be where they want you to be, if you are going to get what they offer. You will lose your time, efforts, and money so you can pay your bills, buy the things they want you to have, and live how they tell you to live. It’s a form of slavery that’s actually self-inflicted. John 10:10 (NIV) The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

Jesus, let God’s power-attitude of a pure heart help me not love the world or the things of the world. Let it set me free from the slavery of it taking all my time, effort, and money to live like they are trying to teach me to live. Help me see that the commercials, social pressure, styles, and upgrades that they are offering me are attacking the pure heart You have given me. Help me be set free through this new heart You have put in me.

5. My Pure Heart Sets People Free

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy: This is where a lot of people live; they have and are surrounded by impure hearts. The “love” they are experiencing makes them think they are being cared and provided for. But, if they fail to conform, they get fired, ostracized, shunned, rejected, attacked, abused, and gossiped against. They need a pure heart

Jesus, I know this world isn’t going to only have people with pure hearts. But, let many come to You and gain its benefits. As I do business, date, be married, live with family, have friends, and handle enemy issues, let Your power-attitude of a pure heart, help many people come to You to trade their impure heart for Your pure heart.

6. My Pure Heart Gives Me A Life That Is Full

I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full: The power-attitude of a pure heart so heals your motives, agendas, purposes, intentions, and plans that you don’t have to pretend to be those things people are looking for. You don’t have to just tell people what they want to hear. You don’t have to conform any longer to the pattern of this world. You can succeed in life by being real, sincere, honest, open, and trustworthy. Jesus’ pure heart comes in and becomes your heart; it turns you into being those things people are looking for.

Jesus, empower me to yield completely to Your pure heart that You put in me. Help me understand that it won’t force me to live a pure-heart life. Help me focus in on all that it takes to allow it to have control over all my attitudes and character. Let it be the true motive of my heart. I give you my old heart and totally embrace this new heart You have given me.

7. My Pure Heart Is Freed By Me Defeating My Body

Here is the road or path into the realm of the pure heart; it is true life and true purpose:

Rom 12:1-2 (NIV) Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is--His good, pleasing and perfect will.

If you get your body under control where it is no longer able to force its animalistic drives, urges, and passions on you, then you are able to resist the temptations of the world and the devil; that will protect Jesus’ pure heart that is empowering you. If you keep your body under control where it yields to you reading your Bible, praying, doing your devotions, going to church, attending small groups, listening to good Christian music, reading good Christian books, and sharing your breakthroughs with others, you will be living through the power of Jesus’ pure heart that He put in you.

Jesus, I want to take the journey, because I have Your power-attitude of a pure heart. I know my problems are with the animalistic desires and drives of my body. It will do anything to be accepted, loved, popular, respected, have friends, fit in, be on the team, and be able to accomplish things that give it physical pleasure. But, help me know that without me yielding to the pure heart you gave me, I am never going to get any of those things and them be real.

Jesus, empower me to be truly honest, no hidden agendas, and motivated by win/win solutions. Keep me set free from using world techniques; instead, empower me to use Biblical principles. Let my relationships always open, honest, sincere, loving, and true. Help me develop real relationships through acceptance, love, appreciation, respect, and friendship. Let Your power-attitude of a pure heart give me the abilities I need to establish these kinds of relationships with those who are willing to respond.

This concludes your reading and prayer.

Truth/Prayer Pages Chapter Twenty-One

How Do I Get Peace So I Can Give Peace?

Week Five Day Three

Mat 5:9 (NIV) Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.

Peace That Comes From A Pure Heart

John 16:33 (NIV) “I have told you these things, so that in Me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

A Peacemaker is a person who has God’s peace already in their own heart and life. They are those who are willing to share this peace with those who are struggling with having peace in their own life and in their relationships with other people.

Jesus, You started me with God’s love giving me a pure heart. You are teaching me how to yield to it by being patient, kind, not feeling envy, not wanting to boast, not feeling proud, not wanting to be rude, not being self-seeking, not easily angered, not keeping a record of wrongs, and not feeling a delight in evil but rejoicing with the truth. You have given me a desire in my pure heart to always protect, always trust, always hope, and always persevere. It is my pure heart’s desire for my love from God to never fail (1 Cor 13:4-8a).

The Power That Enables My Peace

Gal 5:22 (NIV) But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Right up front, you have the Holy Spirit helping you with love; this is the love that God gave you at salvation. This is the love you have been looking at as a part of your pure heart. From that love comes some additional power-emotions from God. When you are already feeling these emotions in your heart, it is easy to have peacemaking relationships with others.

Jesus, once You made the fruit of the Spirit be the dominate emotional position in my heart, I no longer feel desperation or a hunger for others to provide me with happiness or pleasure. When I enter into all my relationships while already having a heart filled with the fruit of the Spirit, it takes the pressure off of all my relationships. I am not looking to the relationship to provide me with positive emotions. You have already taken care of them.

A Peacemaker’s Heart

As you enter into all your relationships with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control already operating in your heart, you feel attitudes that make peacemaking easy. Then when “opportunities” arise for conflict, arguing, strife, gossiping, backbiting, and false reports, you are able to step in and help defuse the situation. But, these character traits have to already be in place in your own heart.

Jesus, help me yield to the fruit of the Spirit all the time. Especially when things get difficult in relationships. Help me not go back to my usual reactions from my old life; I know the memories are still there. Heal me from all my old habits and typical reactions to various situations. Fill my heart with Your peace so I can yield to it during stressing situations.

Dealing With Negative Emotions

John 14:27 (NIV) Peace I leave with you; My peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. For you to be able to be a peacemaker with those around you, you will have to get peace in your own life. There are all kinds of negative emotions that try to enter into your heart and mind from your old life. You can try to use positive thinking to solve this problem; but, when you face reality, you will often fall into some kind of negative attitude. Jesus wants to help you with this problem. He wants you to believe He has answered your prayers and given you His peace.

Jesus, my worldly, human peace works as long as people and circumstances leave me alone. But, the moment challenges or trouble come my way, I lose my peace and start being stressed, frustrated, angry, or fearful. Teach me that Your peace comes by me putting my trust in You; I am not troubled or afraid, because I know You are taking care of the situation. You are taking care of those who are causing me trouble; and, You are taking care of those circumstances that are coming my way. Thank You for giving me that kind of peace.

Peace Through Faith

Psa 23:4 (NIV) Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. This is the kind of peace Jesus gives; even the valley of the shadow of death doesn’t steal your love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. This is because Jesus is with you. His rod strikes all your enemies; and, His staff has a hook on it to pull you out of trouble. This gives you the peace you need so you will be able to give peace to others.

Jesus, help me yield to the peace I get when I know You are with me! Help me lock my eyes on You and Your greatness that is bigger than anything I face. Fill my heart with peace that is based on my faith in You. Make it a stable peace that is available when others need me to be a peacemaker for their situations.

Sharing A Heart Of Peace

For you to be healed, helped, blessed, and successful in life, you have to go beyond not being a trouble maker. Christianity isn’t you not going around causing trouble; it is you going around giving out peace. Jesus isn’t just teaching you truths that help you stop causing trouble. You are being empowered to be a peacemaker. The Jesus-life isn’t just the absence of bad, it is the presence of good. An empty tank just leaves room for something to fill it. Once you are emptied of wrong, bad, and evil, you need filling with right, good, and righteousness. You get Jesus’ peace so you can provide wise, beneficial, and win/win solutions to stressful, conflictive, and adversarial relationships and situations.

Phil 4:7 (NIV) And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Jesus, make me a peacemaker so I can be an example of God’s love. If someone is trying to fight with me, let me help them get their needs met through negotiations, reasoning, compromise, sharing, trading, and grace and mercy. Help me get these peacemaking abilities in advance through The Seven Biblical Principles. Apply these principles to my heart so I am prepared for peacemaker situations.

Being A Mediator

You don’t have to come up with solutions on our own. All you have to do is think: “Jesus, what do You want done here?” You consult your mind, when you leave Jesus’ name out of this thought. If you do that, He will honor your God-given free will and stay out of your thoughts. If you include Him, He will give you His thoughts. Then, if you see other people fighting or arguing, you just need to be willing to help them solve their issues. It’s practice time, where you may not do that great of a job for yourself or for others. But, Jesus will help you, train you, guide you, give you wisdom, and increase your love for people.

Jesus, as I even make peace with my adversaries or enemies, help me understand that God is honoring the Luke 6:38 “give” principle and blessing me for my efforts. Give me healing, help, blessings, and miracles in my own life in response. Help me be willing to practice, practice, practice. Give me faith that You will keep helping me improve in bringing peace to those around me so I will be called a son of God.

Being An Example

John 17:23 (NIV) I in them and You in Me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that You sent Me and have loved them even as You have loved Me. Bringing peace among Christians is to bring proof of the power of Jesus. As He uses you to bring unity with Christians, He is helping people see that He can help them too. Part of your contribution to the message of Jesus is to set examples that the unsaved can understand. If no peacemaking occurs, then the world sees hypocrisy, disunity, and unchristian attitudes in the church. This causes them to doubt the saving power of Jesus.

Jesus, empower me to help Christians get along. Let Your great power flow into these situations and bring unity and love among brothers and sisters in You. Show me how to lead them into cooperation and unified efforts that bring salvation to those who don’t know You. Give me wisdom for how to solve the underlying spiritual issues that are giving momentum to the anger, contention, and strife.

This concludes your reading and prayer.

Truth/Prayer Pages Chapter Twenty-Two

What Is Causing The Lack Of Peace?

Week Five Day Four

Peace Makers

Mat 5:9 (NIV) Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.

John 14:27 (NIV) Peace I leave with you; My peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. If you are going to help people get along, there will have to be some kind of a solution being offered. Kind, gentle words aren’t going to stop people from fighting, arguing, suing, divorcing, gossiping, backbiting, hating, and disagreeing with each other. You may postpone the conflict for the moment; but, if the underlying problem isn’t solved, they will be back at it again later.

Jesus, please give me Your special power to solve the thing that is causing the problem the person or group is having on a foundational level. Help me have Your ability to see beyond the surface conflict into the real issue behind it all. Fill me with Your wisdom, love, and supernatural abilities to look deep into the hearts of those who are battling with each other. Empower me to provide Your great solutions that heal people’s hearts.

A Permanent Solution

Makers of peace have a special power to solve the thing that is causing the problem in the first place. James 4:1 (NIV) What causes fights and quarrels among you? don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? To be a peacemaker requires that you bring a permanent condition of peace between two or more adversaries. Let’s say you successfully get two people to stop arguing. But, what if they go away hating each other? Did you make peace? Peacemakers have a power-attitude that provides a power solution to hurting people. It shows them how to get a healed life through Jesus.

Jesus, give me wisdom and discernment to help me see the foundational, spiritual issues that are resident in people’s hearts. Help me see that there is a spiritual condition that is making the conflict possible. Help me bring the spiritual weakness to the surface so people who are in disagreement can repent, forgive, and seek Your will for their life.

No Temporary Relief

It’s the same principle in Matthew 25:31-46: Mat 25:35-36 (NIV) For I was hungry and you gave Me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave Me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited Me in, I needed clothes and you clothed Me, I was sick and you looked after Me, I was in prison and you came to visit Me. Would it be okay if you fed someone once and then later they starved to death? The gospel or good news message has to do with transforming a person’s life. It does it in a way so as to permanently take care of all their spiritual, relational, emotional, financial, and physical needs.

Jesus, show me that Your answers to problems bring total solutions. Help me raise my view of what You are wanting to happen in the peacemaking process. Empower me with Your miraculous healing that works down in the hearts of people who are fighting. Heal me from human effort, human words, and human solutions. Help me provide people and groups with supernatural solutions that bring supernatural unity, love, and cooperation.

Providing A Peacemaker’s Solution

I was hungry… I was thirsty… I was a stranger… I needed clothes… I was sick… I was in prison: Why can’t a person like this feed, clothe, make friends, medicate, and keep themselves out of prison? Why are they hungry, thirsty, a stranger, naked, sick, and in prison? They are missing peace! It is true that a lot of circumstances can so beat them down that they need people to come to their rescue; but, what kind of a rescue would you offer? Would it only be a “handout” or a peacemaker’s solution?

Jesus, as You train and help me grow spiritually, teach me how to not only get miraculous help myself, let me learn how to pass these truths on to other hurting people. Let the things that are blessing and supplying me, be passed on to people’s physical, financial, emotional, relational, and spiritual needs. As You train me in Your truths, empower me to pass them on to others so they can be blessed. Help me pass on Your spiritual transformations that take care of all their other needs. Help me see that the spiritual solves them all permanently.

A Peacemaker’s Solution

What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you: The reason people need a peacemaker is because of the desires that battle within them. They are filled with the pain and misery that comes from a life of sin, failures, bad philosophies, misinformation, and misfortune. They are frustrated, confused, conflicted, upset, hurt, feel mistreated, and disappointed. When someone does something to them they think is unfair, all that “stuff” inside them gushes out on that person.

Jesus, let me help people make decisions and take actions that make their businesses, marriages, families, friendships, acquaintances, enemies, and other relationships successful. Many are making all their decisions for all these relationships and have no relationship with You or Your provisions. This causes bad things to happen to their decisions. Empower me to help them take advantage of Your knowledge, foreknowledge, understanding, wisdom, power, and love. Make me a peacemaker so I can offer Your solutions to them.

Peacemakers Provide Peace

Peace I leave with you; My peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid: If a person’s heart is filled with Jesus’ peace, their decisions, that they make all day long, are influenced by that peace. It is true that you are to give actual water to the thirsty, actual food to the hungry, true friendship to strangers, real clothes to the naked, loving care to the sick, and make contact with prisoners. But, how often, for how long, and with what resources?

Jesus, I see that the solutions to people’s problems can be ongoing, never-ending, and overwhelming. Show me that if I don’t allow You and Your supernatural training, wisdom, and power enter into my mind and heart, I won’t be able to do anything to help the world situation. I won’t even be able to solve the problems of one person. Open my heart and mind to solutions that are way over my head. Show me that this issue isn’t impossible for You. Help me not get discouraged and cut off You training and empowerment for peacemaking.

Transformation Peacemakers

Your provision of peace starts with the physical, the financial, the emotional, and the relational. But, it only lasts and makes a permanent difference through the spiritual. If a person doesn’t get Jesus’ peace, they will never be able to get their needs met on a permanent basis. You will never have enough time, money, and efforts available to keep pouring them into their lives. There is a way for you to be teaching them to obey everything I (Jesus) have commanded (Mat 28:20). When you become this kind of peacemaker, you have really helped a person.

Jesus, I want to be a peacemaker who provides people and groups with Your peace. Your peace is the only kind that really helps people get along. Teach me how to yield to You and help others yield to You and Your peace. Fill my heart with this kind of peace so I will have and share with other permanent, lasting peace that brings success in dating, marriage, family, business, friendship, acquaintances, strangers, and enemy relationships. I ask You to make me into a person who has Your power-attitude of being one of Your peacemakers.

People Who Don’t Want Peace

Hosea 14:9 (NIV) Who is wise? He will realize these things. Who is discerning? He will understand them. The ways of the LORD are right; the righteous walk in them, but the rebellious stumble in them. If you are busy trying to bring peace to those who are rebelling against God, you will be not only be wasting your time, you will be at the wrong place, at the wrong time, doing and saying the wrong things, to the wrong people. Those you were supposed to be bringing peace to will be being neglected.

Jesus, guide me to those You want me bringing peace to. Help me realize that there are people You don’t want me helping. Show me that it isn’t necessarily those who have obvious needs, it is those who have needs You want met. Teach me that there are people that You are trying to use disciple to help them change their ways. Help me see that only You know who I should bring Your peace to. Help me be at the right place, at the right time, doing and saying, the right things, to the right people.

Mat 7:6 (NIV) Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces.

This concludes your reading and prayer.

Truth/Prayer Pages Chapter Twenty-Three

How Do I Resist Being Controlled By Public Opinion?

Week Five Day Five

Mat 5:10 (NIV) Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Persecution is any outside human resistance against what you believe and know God has told you to believe and know.

Resisting World Wisdom

Not everyone is going to cooperate with you as you turn to God for your help, healing, and spiritual growth. Some will make fun of you, criticize your beliefs, belittle your efforts to produce win/win situations for everyone involved, and see if they can get you to try something else. There are people who put all their faith in “science,” world systems, and human reasoning. All scientists have done is discover what God has put in motion; they aren’t creating it or producing it. Experts didn’t create the way life works; they just studied the life that God produced and tried to see patterns and rules for it; only God knows how it really works.

Jesus, help me realize that ungodly teaching, arguments, and reasoning are persecution. Help me see that all “scientific” efforts that are being used to prove You don’t exist are persecution. Help me understand that those things the world is trying to force down my throat that would damage my faith, are persecution. Empower me to not only refuse to accept them, help me speak against them, like You did. Equip me with great wisdom and Bible knowledge so I can be a strong messenger for Your truth.

Resisting Social Pressure

It is vital that you have faith, confidence, and commitment in God. And, you need them in His knowledge, foreknowledge of the future, understanding, wisdom, and love. You can only be knocked out of the mighty healing, helping, and miraculous work of God, if you let people shame or persecute you out of it. It is vital that you ask Jesus to empower you to handle whatever people think, feel, or say about you. He can help you be so committed to getting the help you need that you can’t be pressured out of it. Your success or failure is dependent on your relationship with Him.

Jesus, a lot of the reasons I yield to social pressure is because I want to have money, possessions, positions, prestige, popularity, power, pleasure, and accomplishments. I don’t see how I will get them without pleasing the people around me. Help me see that You have a much better way for me to get these things. Help me not sell out for things and fail to seek first your righteousness. Help me understand that you will see to it that all these things will be added to me as well (Mat 6:33)

Handling False Accusations

Mat 5:11 (NIV) Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me.

Being Able To Be Different

Blessed are you when people insult you: It is your life; and your decisions belong to you, as to what you accept as your philosophy, system, and plan for how you go about succeeding in life. If you are patient, persistent, and dedicated to maintaining your relationship with God, you will be able to live a life in front of these people that will show them you have found a better way.

Jesus is the answer to everyone’s problems; but, many don’t know it.

Jesus, some people have developed their beliefs about You and Christianity from third party sources. They see how others feel about You and accept them without any proof. I have allowed You to demonstrate the mighty love and power of God to me. Help me see that I am the only hope many of these people have for finding the truth about Christianity and real life.

Being Able To Be Strong

Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you: Satan’s main objective in getting his people to persecute you is to get you to shut up. John 8:32 (NIV) Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. If he can cause you to be attacked hard enough, maybe you won’t give his slaves the truth. But, if you are strong in the Lord and in His mighty power (Eph 6:10), a lot of people are going to be set free from his lies.

Jesus, empower me to be strong in the You and in Your mighty power (Eph 6:10). Help me be willing to be attacked, insulted, persecuted, and lied about. Help me keep my eyes on the fact that there are people who will accept Your truth and be set free. Help me care so much about their suffering that I am willing to suffer in order to get the message to them.

Being Able To Stick With The Message

Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me: It’s one thing for people to argue with you about what is true and what isn’t. It’s another thing for them to falsely say all kinds of evil against you. That can cause you to defend yourself and get distracted. The message isn’t about you and your honesty and integrity; it’s about Jesus’ honest and integrity. Don’t let Satan change your message.

Jesus, Satan and his people will try to get my attention off of Your purpose for me. They will try to distract me, discourage me, and stop me. Help me to stay on target. Empower me to keep my eyes on what You want me do. Let Your purpose be so strong in me that I am unable to be thrown off course. Help me love these people so much that I am willing to suffer shame.

Keep Your Eyes On The Prize

Mat 5:12 (NIV) Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

I Want To Upset Satan And His People

Rejoice and be glad: It takes looking correctly to be able to rejoice and be glad, when you are being persecuted. When you are being resisted, you are doing God’s work. Luke 6:26 (NIV) Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for that is how their fathers treated the false prophets. It isn’t until you are being persecuted that you are fulfilling your Christian purpose. People are being set free from Satan’s trap; that is something to rejoice and be glad about!

Jesus, help me see how important it is for me to be doing things that cause Satan and his people to be mad. Help me want to be pleasing to You and the people who want You. Set my priorities in the right place. Set me free from wanting to be popular and accepted by the wrong people. Lead me to those who won’t hear about You from any of Satan’s people.

Setting Your Priorities

Because great is your reward in heaven: Helping people come to Jesus brings great heavenly rewards to you. Luke 15:7 (NIV) I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent. This is why you need to be helping people break free from the world and Satan. But, you may upset their friends, family, spouse, employer, employees, and potentially a lot of other people. However, you are working for your and other’s eternity.

Jesus, it is easy for me to get distracted by the things of this world. They are constantly surrounding me, needing me, enticing me, and demanding my time. Help me see what isn’t obvious to me. Give me an eternal perspective for those things that are somewhat invisible to me. Show me those things that are important but aren’t pushing me like the world is.

I Am In Good Company

In the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you: When your friends, enemies, associates, peers, family, and leaders go another way, it can be difficult for you. You may feel you are in the minority and out of touch with reality. The Gospels show you how Jesus handled public opinion and social pressure; He gave them principles that made a lot of sense. From beginning to the end of the Bible, you can see people who didn’t go with the patterns and trends of the world. Allow the people in the Bible to be your heroes and examples, they make you a part of the majority. Then you will be able to show people how to win at life.

Jesus, help me see that Your message is life-saving. Make it clear to me that people are suffering because they are being lied to, cheated, enslaved, and abused. Help me care about them needing to be set free from all those things the world and Satan are doing to them. Let me have Your great love and wisdom so I can help them see how much they need You.

This concludes your reading and prayer for this week.

Truth/Prayer Pages Chapter Twenty-Four

How Do I Do What I Takes To Be Persecuted?

Week Six Day One

Mat 5:13 (NIV) You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.

We’ve Already Tried Those Things

The world’s opinions and philosophies are wrong! Their ideas and principles are ruining people’s lives. Even those who teach these things are suffering from their own material. You have already given these ideas and methods your best efforts; you already know they don’t work. However, the thing that can bother you is, the world’s philosophies are the ones that most people are using. It is the popular way to go; it is what “everybody” is doing.

Jesus, help me give up competition. Help me give up just trying to get my own needs met. Help me not just identify with my own company, team, group, or family. Let me try to bring win/win results for everyone, every group, and every company that is involved in my efforts. Help me reveal to those around me how to love one another as You have loved us. Then when my actions aren’t popular, help me be willing to face the resistance.

Look At It This Way

Great is your reward in heaven: One of your biggest victories will come in eternity. But, your earth-problems can pull your attention into this life and these situations right here, right now. You are learning principles that not only work in this life, for this world, you are learning them to use in eternity. Win/win principles will be the method found in eternity.

Jesus, keep me from only learning how to live and succeed here. Show me that, that training will all come to an end at death. Teach me that only spiritual principles will work in eternity. Help me not allow people and things to discourage me and cause me to give up on You and the Bible. Help me see that the end results in Your life here and Your life in eternity will make all resistance and persecution worth having to be dealt with.

Resistance Before Success

Mat 5:10-12 (NIV) Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Jesus, for every great idea You give me, there is someone ready to shoot it down. For every dream You put in my heart, there is at least one person who is ready to prove it will fail. For every effort I put into trying to help people, there are people who criticize, critique, second-guess, offer “better” suggestions and plans, and try to get me to head some other way.

Resistance After Success

If you “fail” to listen to people’s “polite” resistances, they will “turn up the heat” and give you more direct opposition. Things that sounded like suggestions can turn into outright attacks. Your society will use all kinds of techniques to try to keep you from sharing Jesus and His principles with others. They will shame you, belittle you, make fun of you, shun you, try to retrain you, try to brainwash you, and will threaten you. If you are going to share Jesus, you will have to stay on track with Him.

Jesus, help me be willing and empowered to be persecuted because of righteousness and not give in to the pressure. Because, the kingdom of heaven is mine, help me be willing and empowered to handle people insulting me, persecuting me and falsely saying all kinds of evil against me because of You. Let me rejoice and be glad, because great is my reward in heaven. Help me keep moving forward in living and sharing Your great things regardless of what is thrown at me. Let me be faithful sharing You and Your influence on this world.

My Body Has Some Things To Worry About

Mat 10:27-28 What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs. Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One Who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

Jesus, as a spirit being, I don’t need supplies or support. I can’t be killed; I don’t need food or clothing; I can’t be damaged; and I only need God’s support. But, my body is another story. It needs physical supplies and support; it likes acceptance, appreciation, pleasure, and comfort. It doesn’t just crave the necessities of life, it desires “creature comforts” as well. Persecution can be a real problem for it. Help me not worry about my body.

Persecution Can Make My Body Suffer

When your body suffers, you suffer with it; your soul ties your spirit to your body so that you experience those things it feels and wants. The smallest cut can make you feel pain on all levels. If your body is sleepy, you are sleepy; if your body goes into a coma, you go into a coma. It seems like you are a physical being and not a spirit being. But, your soul makes you feel like that. So, when your body gets persecuted, you get persecuted.

Jesus, in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members (Rom 7:22-23). Help me overcome it and make it face all opposition sent my way. I want to be actively involved in sharing my breakthroughs with those around me.

I Need Incentives

Everyone’s body gravitates toward pleasurable things and tries to avoid unpleasant, painful things. There would have to be something wrong with you, if you didn’t. But, sometimes you have to use pleasure to help you endure pain. Rom 8:17 (NIV) Now if we are children, then we are heirs--heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in His sufferings in order that we may also share in His glory. Public opinion, social pressure, friendship rejection, divorce, shunning, being ignored, being physically attacked, and many other forms of persecution for righteousness’ sake can hurt you.

Jesus, help me in all these things, to be more than conquerors through You Who loved me (Rom 8:37). Help me be strong in You, Lord and in Your mighty power (Eph 6:10). Give me this power-attitude of being willing to be persecuted so I won’t give in to any kind of pressure that tries to keep me from reaching out and helping every person who wants You and what You have to offer. Let Your love empower me to make the sacrifices.

It’s Normal To Suffer

If you start up a company, if you start getting trained for a career, if you enter into a marriage, if you try to be successful at anything, you will find yourself being challenged, pressured, and faced with suffering. Jesus said in John 16:33 (NIV): “I have told you these things, so that in Me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” Whether you were a Christian or not, you would still have trouble. The choice you had was whether you wanted to have it with Jesus or without Him.

Jesus, I consider that my present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in me (Rom 8:18). Help me believe that blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Help believe that I am blessed when people insult me, persecute me and falsely say all kinds of evil against me because of You. Empower me to rejoice and be glad, because great is my reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before me (Mat 5:10-12). Help me know that this makes resistance and persecution worth it. Since everyone suffers for one cause or another, help me be willing to suffer for an eternal cause.

Punished For Doing The Right Thing

Mat 5:10 (NIV) Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Jesus, this world and this society are so mixed up that good has become bad and bad has become accepted as good. Relational, financial, emotional, and physical support and rewards are withheld from those who put people above things. Your righteousness has pointed me into a way of life that I want to live and share. Help me live and share putting righteousness above money, possessions, positions, popularity, prestige, power, pleasure, and accomplishments. Help me do it even if my job, career, and a lot of my relationships are challenged.

This concludes your reading and prayer.

Truth/Prayer Pages Chapter Twenty-Five

How Do I Get God’s Power Attitudes – Part One

Week Six Day Two

Prayers For Being Poor In Spirit

Mat 5:3 (NIV) Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Poor In Spirit As It Relates To The Bible

2 Tim 2:15 (AKJV) Study to show yourself approved to God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. Jesus, help me be poor in spirit so I will be able to be taught Your Word. Make me teachable to Your truths in the Bible. Help me be willing to allow the Bible to change my mind and heart on issues that I have been taught by the world. Regardless of how much I think I am right, help me be poor in spirit enough to accept all truths from Your Word.

Poor In Spirit As It Relates To The Holy Spirit

John 16:13 (NIV) But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on His own; He will speak only what He hears, and He will tell you what is yet to come. Jesus, help me be poor in spirit by allowing the Holy Spirit to tell me what each passage in the Bible means. Help me be open to what He says it means, how He says it is to be applied, and yielded when He starts applying it to me and my life.

Jesus, make me poor in spirit when the Holy Spirit speaks to my conscience. Help me listen to what He is saying, accept what He says is right or wrong with it, and receive His power to avoid those things that are wrong and embrace those things that are right. If I have already done or said something that is wrong, help me be poor in spirit and repent of what I have done. Let me get His power to stop doing anything that is wrong and get His help with never doing or saying it again.

Poor In Spirit As It Relates To Jesus

Gal 2:20 (NIV) I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself for me. Jesus, make me poor in spirit to You and Your life in me. Help me be totally receptive to You being in charge of my thoughts, feelings, words, and deeds. Help me allow You to do Your work and live your life through my body. Help me be poor in spirit in a total way so You can accomplish everything You need to do.

Poor In Spirit As It Relates To Jesus’ Leaders

Eph 4:11-14 (NIV) It was He (Jesus) Who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming.

Jesus, help me help me be poor in spirit with those You have put as my ministers and leaders. Help me listen to their teaching, correction, instruction, and assignments. Help me always check their teachings with Your Word. But, help me be poor in spirit enough to not resist them unless I know for sure they are wrong. Help me establish any difference of the meaning of truth by the mouth of two or three witnesses.

Poor In Spirit As It Relates To Other People

John 15:12 (NIV) My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Jesus, help me be poor in spirit in my relationships with other people. Help me respect them, love them, and allow them to give me their opinions. Help me listen and let them express themselves even if I know they are wrong. If I correct them, help me do it with love, gentleness, and respect. If they are trying to tell me what to do, help me listen and then check it out with You. Show me how to be controlled by the fruit of the Spirit as I relate to others.

Prayers For Mourning

Mat 5:4 (NIV) Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Mouring Over Sinning Against My Conscience

1 John 1:8 (NIV) If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. Jesus, help me mourn over those things I do wrong that were against my conscience. When I am being convicted by the Holy Spirit and being made to feel guilty, help me immediately respond to mourning and repent of what I have done. Help me not just repent without any regret, sorrow, or hatred for what I did. Let Your power-attitude of mourning empower me to have strong negative feelings about it.

Mouring After Repenting Of A Sin

1 John 1:9 (NIV) If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. Jesus, once I get Your forgiveness, help me mourn over the damage it did to my heart. Help me understand that my mind and heart still are being affected by what I did that was wrong. Help me mourn until they are healed.

Mourning Under Jesus’ Guidance

1 John 2:1 (NIV) My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have One Who speaks to the Father in our defense--Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. Jesus, as You are speaking in my defense over things I have done, help me not just take it for granted. Help me mourn over the fact that I sinned against You. Help me stop doing things that grieve You and my heavenly Father. Show me that when I sin, I am showing disrespect for that great sacrifice You made on the cross.

Jesus, help me mourn over the fact that You have provided me with a lot of truths that were written so that I will not sin. Help me use Your power-attitude of mourning so my heart and mind will have strong attitudes concerning me not sinning. Help me not feel like I can use repentance as a safety net for sinning on purpose. Help me want to do the right things and hate doing the wrong things.

Mourning Under The Holy Spirit’s Guidance

Rom 8:26-27 (NIV) In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And He Who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.

Jesus, help me mourn through the guidance and leadership of the Holy Spirit. Help me listen carefully as I wait from Him to put ideas and feelings in my heart and mind. Help me know it is Him letting me know what to pray for and how to pray for it. Help me realize that I do not know what I ought to pray for and what to mourn about. Help me yield to Him as He intercedes for me with groans that words cannot express. Let Your power-attitude of mourning empower me to yield to the healing power of those groans that words cannot express.

Mourning Over Hurting Others

Mat 5:23-24 (NIV) Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift. Jesus, help me not just go do these kinds of things as a matter of protocol. Help me mourn over the fact that I hurt someone. Help me care about what wrong, bad, and evil do to people.

Rom 7:15 (NIV) I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. Jesus, help me see that this is the attitude I must have when I do wrong, bad, or evil. Let Your power-attitude of mourning empower me to really care about the fact that I neglected doing good things to some and that I did wrong, bad, or evil things to others.

This concludes your reading and prayer.

Truth/Prayer Pages Chapter Twenty-Six

How Do I Get God’s Power Attitudes – Part Two

Week Six Day Three

Prayers For Meekness

Mat 5:5 (NIV) Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

Meekness Is Respect For God

Isa 55:8-9 (NIV) “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.” Jesus, help me be meek in my relationship with myself and God. Help me realize that if I am not meek, I will be totally reliant on myself. Show me that Your power-attitude of meekness is my only ability to trade my reasoning for God’s. Let Your power-attitude of meekness empower me to include Him and His incredible knowledge, foreknowledge of the future, understanding, and wisdom.

Prov 16:25 (NIV) There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death. Jesus, help me see that my reasoning power is inadequate. Help me be meek so I won’t base my decisions on things that seem right to me. Show me that this condition of things seeming right to me can be extremely strong. Help me with Your power-attitude of meekness so it can overpower my being sure I am right about things I have come up with through my own reasoning.

Meekness Honors God’s Word

2 Tim 3:16-17 (NIV) All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. Jesus, help me be meek when Your Word starts rebuking and correcting me. Help me so honor Your Word that I will take rebuke and correction with appreciation and submission. Help me see that if I allow wrong types of confidence and esteem keep me from yielding to Your Word, I will get cheated out of very important things You have for me.

Jesus, let Your power-attitude of meekness open my heart and mind to the full work of Your Word so I may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. Let meekness help me make the Bible the final authority in my life. Let it change my whole approach to teaching and training in righteousness. Let it set me free from all world training and human reasoning.

Jesus, teach me that meekness is Your power to help me see the authority of God. Heal me of all pride, arrogance, and self-confidence. Help me want to be brought under His authority so I can get those things that are vital to me. Show me that if I can’t be meek, I won’t be able to respect, honor, and love Him for the fact that He is God.

Meekness Honors Jesus’ Body

1 Cor 12:21 (NIV) The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” Jesus, help me realize that I am not a spiritual expert in all fields of Christianity and ministry. Help me be meek so I will see that I need other Christians to help me with my spiritual growth and ministry. Show me that as I read the Bible, You reveal and emphasize certain Scriptures that are most meaningful to me and my call from God. You are shaping me so I can fit in with all Your other members in Your Body.

1 Cor 12:27 (NIV) Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. Jesus, help me be meek in the way I work with other Christians. Help me see that they aren’t just Christians in general, they are being trained and shaped by You to fit with me and other Christians in a special way. Let Your power-attitude of meekness empower me to respect and honor their special gifts and training.

Meekness Honors Jesus’ Gifts

1 Cor 12:28 (NIV) And in the church God has appointed first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, also those having gifts of healing, those able to help others, those with gifts of administration, and those speaking in different kinds of tongues.

Jesus, I don’t know what part of Your Body you are making me into. But, help me be meek enough to allow You to decide what I am to be shaped into. Help me yield to Your authority in my training, career, where I live, and what my hobbies are. Help me realize that You are shaping me, exposing me to life-classes, and wanting me to concentrate on special Scriptures that You are making special to me. Let Your power-attitude of meekness keep me open to special training and preparations that will help me be who You want me to be.

Prayers For Hunger And Thirst For Righteousness

Mat 5:6 (NIV) Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Righteousness Must Be My Priority

Mat 6:33 (NIV) But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Jesus, it has been hard not putting money and possessions as my priority. My physical needs are so important for my survival that I find myself not making righteousness a greater and more important issue. Let Your power-attitude of righteousness become my priority. Help me realize that Matthew 6:33 makes it clear to me that, if I seek it first, all these things will be given to me as well.

Jesus, help me hunger and thirst for righteousness so my treatment of myself, other people, and You will be only good. Help me see that righteousness is the power to bring my behavior under Your control. I will help me start doing those things credited to my record.

Righteousness Isn’t Just An External Act

Mat 23:28 (NIV) In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness. Jesus, help me not just try to act righteous. Put Your power-attitude of hungering and thirsting for righteousness in my heart. Help me desire to be righteous. Empower me with a power-righteousness that is real, authentic, and sincere. Help me only do good things to myself, other people, and Your plan with motives of love. Help me not do good things so I can manipulate people. Empower me with the ability and wisdom to create win/win situations for everyone I get involved with.

Righteousness Prepares Me For Eternity

Mat 25:37-40 (NIV) Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You something to drink? When did we see You a stranger and invite You in, or needing clothes and clothe You? When did we see You sick or in prison and go to visit You?’ The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did for Me.’

Jesus, help me be one of these righteous ones. Help me understand that this is a part of my final exam into eternity. Help me see how important righteousness is for now and in eternity. Let me make it a top priority so that I can hear You say these things to me. Let Your power-attitude of hunger and thirst for righteousness so fill my heart and mind that I make it my top priority all day long, every day.

Jesus’ Righteousness Is Your Righteousness

Rom 1:17 (NIV) For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.” Jesus, help me understand that I have to believe that You are pouring Your righteousness into my life in response to these prayers. Help me see that Your righteousness working in and through me makes me become a righteous person. Show me that as I allow You to live it through me, because my faith is in You, Your righteousness flows through me into the lives of those around me. Let Your power-attitude empower me to let it flow freely.

Jesus’ Righteousness Can Become Your Behavior

Rom 2:13 (NIV) For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. Jesus, help me move more and more of those things that are credited to my perfect record over to actual behavior in my life. Help me hunger and thirst for righteousness as a major behavioral change in the way I actually treat myself, other people, and You. Help me take advantage of my perfect record and get actively involved in finding out what is righteousness and then ASK You to help me receive it into my heart and mind. And, then help me yield to it and it flow freely in and through my behavior. Intensify my hungering and thirsting for righteousness. Let it become such an intense hunger and thirst that I pursue it with a lot of time and effort.

This concludes your reading and prayer.

Truth/Prayer Pages Chapter Twenty-Seven

How Do I Get God’s Power Attitudes – Part Three

Week Six Day Four

Prayers For Being Merciful

Mat 5:7 (NIV) Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

I Have Alread Received Mercy

Mat 18:32-33 (NIV) Then the master called the servant in. “You wicked servant,” he said, “I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?” Jesus, help me understand that because You had such mercy on me, I need to show mercy to those who don’t deserve my mercy. Help me be filled with Your power-attitude of mercy so I won’t struggle with providing it to people I typically wouldn’t even think about being merciful to.

I Give Up The Issue Of What Is Deserved

Mat 23:23 (NIV) Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices--mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law--justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. Jesus, help me not get caught up in all kinds of religious activities and neglect justice, mercy and faithfulness. Let Your power-attitude of mercy empower me to do something that is hard for me. One of my main issues a lot of the time is things being fair. If someone doesn’t deserve it, I would typically not be willing to do it for them. Help me give up the issue of what is deserved just like You have in Your relationship with me.

I Receive The Miracle Of Mercy

Luke 6:36 (NIV) Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Jesus, help me accept this verse as You speaking power-mercy into me. I accept it as a miracle from Your creative Word into my life. I accept it as the ability for me to no longer consider what people deserve from me. I yield to Your power-attitude of mercy and believe I will be able to create win/win situations for people who need to see Your mercy being poured into their life. Let them see that You are a God of mercy that wants to forgive them of their sins and be merciful to them.

God Is Merciful

Rom 9:15-16 (NIV) For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” It does not, therefore, depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. Jesus, help me appreciate the fact that You have decided to be a merciful God. Help me praise You for setting the standard for my relationship with those around me. Help me yield to Your character and attitudes and allow mercy to flow through me into the lives of those around me.

I Dedicate My Body To Jesus’ Ministry

Rom 12:1 (NIV) Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship. Jesus, help me show my appreciate for Your mercy by dedicating, presenting, and forcing my body to do those things that are according to Your will. Let Your power-attitude of mercy empower me to be able to make my body serve You. Flow through my body and let Your message, ministry, and method be presented to all who will listen to You through me.

I Yield To Mercy As A Part Of Jesus’ Ministry

Rom 12:6-8 (NIV) We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man’s gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully. Jesus, add the mercy ministry to my ministry to those who are in need. Help me be actively involved in cheerfully being merciful to those who are suffering and needing help.

Prayers For Being Pure In Heart

Mat 5:8 (NIV) Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

I Am Resisting Deception

2 Cor 11:3 (NIV) But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ. Jesus, protect me from being led astray from my sincere and pure devotion to You. Let my heart remain committed, dedicated, and attached to You. Empower me with Your power-attitude of a pure heart so I can be faithful to You and all You stand for. Help me be able to treat people with a pure heart so they can see what You have done to my heart.

I Am Resisting Impurity

Eph 5:1-5 (NIV) Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving. For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person--such a man is an idolater--has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.

Jesus, help me see what kind of contaminates would keep me from having a pure heart. Protect me from these things so I can be given Your power-attitude of me being pure in heart. Cleanse me from those things that would flow through me into the lives of others. Help me yield to You and Your purity so people can experience Who You are.

I Am Being Filled With Knowledge And Insight

Phil 1:9-11 (NIV) And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ--to the glory and praise of God. Jesus, Help me be able to discern what is best and…be pure and blameless until Your day. Let my love abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight so I can have that purity. Fill my heart with those things that are pure.

I Am Becoming Transparent

Phil 2:14-15 (NIV) Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe. Jesus, help me give up complaining and arguing. Help me give them up so I can become blameless and pure. Let me become so pure that You can shine through me like stars in the universe.

My Thoughts Are Becoming Pure

Phil 4:8 (NIV) Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things. Jesus, give me pure thoughts so I can feed my heart with them. Let my thoughts always be pure so my heart isn’t be contaminated by anything impure. Let Your power-attitude of me being pure in heart flood my emotions. Make it so my thoughts and feelings are constantly pure through You.

My Heart Is Being Tested For Purity

1 Th 2:3-4 (NIV) For the appeal we make does not spring from error or impure motives, nor are we trying to trick you. On the contrary, we speak as men approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel. We are not trying to please men but God, Who tests our hearts. Jesus, help me see that it is impure motives that contaminate my heart. Heal my motives and make them motives of love. Help me not be involved in tricking or deceiving people. Let my heart be able to be tested and found pure.

Holiness Is A Life Of Purity

1 Th 4:7 (NIV) For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. Jesus, teach me what a holy life is. Show me that it lacks impurity. Let me learn how to yield to You so I can involve myself in those things that You consider holy. Help me see that holiness involves me treating myself, others, and You with those things that are good. Set me free from heart contaminants that would cause me to do things that hurt me and those around me. Make my heart pure so I will be motivated by Biblical principles that You lay out as being the way to behave. Let Your life of holiness be my life of holiness so my heart will be pure.

This concludes your reading and prayer.

Truth/Prayer Pages Chapter Twenty-Eight

How Do I Get God’s Power Attitudes – Part Four

Week Six Day Five

Prayers For Being A Peacemaker

Mat 5:9 (NIV) Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.

Some Don’t Get Peace Yet

Luke 12:51 (NIV) Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. Jesus, help me understand that me being a peacemaker isn’t trying to go around keeping people from fighting. Show me that You are bringing division to those who aren’t accepting Your peace. Make it clear to me that peacemaking involves helping those who are willing to accept Your peace that changes their life. Many need to have their lives in turmoil so they can see their need for Your peace.

I’m Looking For Peace-Seekers

Luke 10:5-6 (NIV) When you enter a house, first say, “Peace to this house.” If a man of peace is there, your peace will rest on him; if not, it will return to you. Jesus, help me see that I am looking for those who are receptive to peace. Show me that those who are against peace will not be able to be helped. Teach me how to find those who can be led into peace and unity through Your power and principles. Make me a peacemaker for those who are looking for peace but just don’t know how to get it.

I’m Avoiding Peace-Resisters

Luke 19:42 (NIV) And [Jesus] said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace--but now it is hidden from your eyes. Jesus, help me see that even though You could, You will not force people to find peace. Help me not do anything that would cause peace to be hidden from my eyes. Help me do everything possible to bring peace to me and for it to flow through me to others. Keep me from trying to force peace on people who have done things that has caused peace to be hidden from their eyes.

I’m Making The Right Choices

John 14:27 (NIV) Peace I leave with you; My peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. Jesus, help me understand that even though You have given me Your peace, I can still let my heart be troubled. Help me decide to yield to peace and resist feeling troubled, as I go through my day. Teach me that all during my day, I will be faced with the decision of either choosing to yield to peace or yielding to feelings of fear. Let Your power-attitude of peacemaking apply to me and to those who will let me share it with them.

I’m Believing The Right Things

John 16:33 (NIV) I have told you these things, so that in Me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world. Jesus, help me see that just because I am having trouble, I can still take heart. Help me accept the truth that You have overcome the world. Help me be convinced in my mind; and, empower me to be settled in my heart. Let Your power-attitude of peacemaking give me a heart that is assured that You have overcome the world. Then help me take that power to those who also need to have their heart and mind filled with peace.

I’m Resisting All Deeds Of Evil

Rom 2:9-10 (NIV) There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. Jesus, help me realize that peace comes and goes based on whether I do good or evil. Empower me to continually do good so that peace can reside in me and flow out of me as a peacemaker. Help me show those who are doing wrong, bad, or evil that they are cutting off the peace that they would be receiving if they would devote their lives to right, good, and righteousness.

I’m A Peacemaker With A Good News Message

Rom 5:1 (NIV) Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus, I thank You for the incredible peace You have provided me. I now have direct access with my heavenly Father and have complete peace in my relationship with Him. Help me be the kind of peacemaker who is offering this kind of peace to others. Help me bring them into peace with God through You.

Prayers For Being Willing To Be Persecuted

Mat 5:10-12 (NIV) Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

I’m Willing To Be Persecuted

Rom 5:3-5 (NIV) Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, Whom He has given us. Jesus, help me allow myself to be persecuted because I am sharing my breakthroughs with others. Help me to be willing to suffer so I can learn how to persevere. Help me become strong, determined, committed, and steadfast. Help me not allow my body to dictate whether or not I obey You and proclaim Your good news message. Let Your power-attitude of being willing to be persecuted to empower me.

I’m Sharing Jesus’ Suffering

Rom 8:17 (NIV) Now if we are children, then we are heirs--heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in His sufferings in order that we may also share in His glory. Jesus, You suffered and died in my place. Help me be willing to suffer for the cause of Your gospel message. Help me not allow anything to keep me from going where people are who want to accept You as their Lord, Savior, and King. Empower me with Your power-attitude of being willing to be persecuted for You. Help me force my body to do whatever it takes to get this message to every person on this planet.

I’m Taking Up My Cross

Rom 8:18 (NIV) I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. Jesus, help me have this attitude. Empower me to be convinced that any and all suffering I go through for Your message is worth it. Help me be motivated by the glory that will be revealed in me. Give me an eternal perspective that is far more real than anything that is going on, on this earth. Let Your sufferings inspire me to deny myself and take up my cross and follow You (Mark 8:34).

I’m Counting The Cost

Mark 10:29-30 (NIV) “I tell you the truth,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for Me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields--and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life.”

Jesus, help me understand that You will be blessing me here on earth and in eternity. Help me see that following You will be tremendous blessings relationally, emotionally, financially, physically, and in spiritual growth. Show me that there will be no sacrifice, suffering, or persecution that will measure up to the blessings now and later. Give me a whole new look at danger, physical suffering, emotional challenges, financial distribution, and relational confrontations. Let me see beyond all of them to all the blessings and rewards.

Opening Doors To Sharing With Leaders

Luke 21:12-13 (NIV) But before all this, they will lay hands on you and persecute you. They will deliver you to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors, and all on account of My name. This will result in your being witnesses to them. Jesus, help me have a priority of getting Your message out to everyone. Help me be willing to do what it takes to make sure I am exactly where You want me to be. Teach me how to see all the suffering and pain from an eternal perspective.

Jesus, open my eyes so I can see the joy that is set in front of me. Help me keep my eyes off of the persecution, suffering, accusations, rejections, and threats. Help me keep my eyes locked on You and all You are offering me for being willing to be persecuted.

Conclusion

World Training

This concludes your studies in The Vital Spiritual Attitudes Book. You are now ready to move into “The Victorious Christian Living Book.” It will prepare you for being healed from world training. Things like self-esteem and self-confidence are world training ideas that make you dependent on yourself rather than Jesus. God-esteem and God-confidence are by far greater evaluators and sources of esteem and confidence.

Being Perfect While Getting Perfect

You have allowed Jesus to give you power-attitudes that will open the doors to Jesus’ thoughts, feelings, words, and deeds, that are often very different from yours. You will be able to see things wrong with you without thinking it makes you wrong. Jesus will help you separate yourself from your deeds so you can evaluate them and make them be much better. You will see your new self from the light of perfection even though your deeds aren’t perfect.

Jesus Training

All those things you have learned that you aren’t applying to your life will come your way. Jesus will teach you why you can learn things you have a hard time living. Freedom to live the Jesus-life will come in a greater way, as you find out about the problems your body is giving you. Jesus will teach you how to make your body start doing all those things you and He want it to do.