SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 11/21/2013
7:25 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Intercession: Praying for God’s Mercy PT-2
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Daniel 9:4
Message of the
verses: We will be looking at the
second sub-point under this main point that is listed above.
Worshiping the Lord
(Daniel 9:4): “4 I prayed to the
LORD my God and confessed and said, "Alas, O Lord, the great and awesome
God, who keeps His covenant and lovingkindness for those who love Him and keep
His commandments,”
Daniel did not rush into his prayer by asking God
something, although there are times when we have to do that. Think about Peter when he was walking on the
water and then looked around at the waves and prayed to the Lord, “Save me.”
I have found it kind of amazing that Daniel’s prayer is
in Daniel 9 and Ezra’s prayer is in Ezra 9, and Nehemiah’s prayer is in Nehemiah
9, so it makes it easier to remember these three great prayers of these three
great saints of God from the OT. Ezra
prayed “3 When I heard about this
matter, I tore my garment and my robe, and pulled some of the hair from my head
and my beard, and sat down appalled. 4
Then everyone who trembled at the words of the God of Israel on account
of the unfaithfulness of the exiles gathered to me, and I sat appalled until
the evening offering. 5 But at the
evening offering I arose from my humiliation, even with my garment and my robe
torn, and I fell on my knees and stretched out my hands to the LORD my God;”
Nehemiah prayed “5 Then the Levites,
Jeshua, Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabneiah, Sherebiah, Hodiah, Shebaniah and Pethahiah,
said, "Arise, bless the LORD your God forever and ever! O may Your
glorious name be blessed And exalted above all blessing and praise! 6 "You alone are the LORD. You have made
the heavens, The heaven of heavens with all their host, The earth and all that
is on it, The seas and all that is in them. You give life to all of them And
the heavenly host bows down before You.”
My prayer life begins with confession and then praise,
and then supplication, and then thanksgiving is the way that I desire it to
end. Dr. Wiersbe says “It is important
that we focus on the character of God and not become too preoccupied with ourselves
and our burdens. The ‘invocation’ to
Daniel’s prayer is a primer of biblical theology. His words describe a God who is great and
faithful to keep His promises, a God who loves His people and gives them His
Word to obey so that He can bless them.
He is a merciful God (Dan. 9:18) who forgives the sins of His people
when they come to Him in contrition and confession.” Nehemiah prayed this same way when in chapter
one we see that His prayer was over the building of the walls of Jerusalem that
were in ruins.
Dr. Wiersbe completes this section writing “It’s one
thing to pray to the Lord and quite something else to be a worshiping
intercessor. When we see the greatness
and glory of God, it helps to put our own burdens and needs in proper
perspective. By exercising even little
faith in a great God, we can move the hand of God to accomplish wonders that
will glorify His name. Dr. Robert A.
Cook used to say, ‘If you can explain what’s going on in your ministry, God
didn’t do it.”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: This week I have been studying the prayer of
Daniel from chapter nine, and studying a chapter on prayer for the Sunday
school class I go to, and last night the message at our Wednesday night prayer
meeting was also on prayer. I have been
praying that God would do a work in my prayer life. He is answering that prayer.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Listen to what God is teaching me about prayer
and follow it.
Memory verses for the
week: 1 John 5:13a and Titus 3:5a
These things I have written…
that you may know that you have eternal life.
Not by works of
righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy he saved us.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
Question: “Shunem” (2 Kings 4:8).
Today’s Bible
Question: “Who help Paul on his first
missionary journey?”
Answer in our next SD.
11/21/2013 8:25 AM
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