Each day we release a prayer starter which is just a word or a phrase intended to help set a trajectory for your prayers. Our desire is that these prayer starters would serve to keep your prayers from becoming too conventional and repetitious (repetition is not a bad thing but familiarity can bring complacency). Our hope is that these prayer starters would bring a freshness and vitality as we strive to grow in the grace of prayer together. Today, I want to give you an example of how I use these in my own prayer life in the hopes that it would bring clarity and serve as a template for your ongoing use.
The Love Of Jesus...
The Love Of Jesus is everlasting and unchanging. It melts my heart and sets aflame my affections. How could I ever have dreamed that infinite would love finite? Can it be that one so beautiful would pursue my deformity? Could one so pure love one so filthy? The Love Of Jesus provides the means for me to be adopted as his brother.
How can I measure The Love Of Jesus? How far is it from heaven to earth? Is relinquishing equality with God a thing to be comprehended? Can you measure the humiliation of the incarnation? Can pain be assessed in the garden? Can suffering be quantified? Can you calculate the grace I have been afforded through Jesus?
The Love Of Jesus is the light by which I see, the joy and peace I know and is complete and blessed assurance because of my confidence in Him. The Love Of Jesus makes divine union reality through pardon of sin and guarantees the renovation of my nature because of His faithfulness. The Love Of Jesus is my refuge and hope.
The Love Of Jesus is water and blood. It is the fountain for cleansing. It is the foundation on which to build. It is too wise to err, too kind to injure and too tender to crush. It is the fruit I bear. It is the yoke I seek. It is my only hope in life and death. I am His handiwork and a bearer of His image. I am His and He is mine.
I long for the day when we see the glory of The Love Of Jesus. When we see the pure revelation and it outshines all of creation. When The Love Of Jesus replaces corruption with incorruption, mortality with immortality, natural with spiritual, and shame with glory.
The Love Of Jesus changes everything. He experienced anguish that I might have joy. He was exiled that I might be made a citizen. He was forsaken that I might be made a friend. He endured hell that I might attain heaven. He was stripped that I should be clothed. He was wounded that I might be healed. He was tormented that I might be comforted. He went into darkness that I might have light.
The Love Of Jesus is beyond compare and it brings me to my knees in both sadness and praise.