Remember where that thou are fallen; do the first works. Revelation 2:5. When we first come to him, we are on fire even when we don't know the Bible. Then as time goes on, we become complacent. Lord, help me to never forget who you are to me. Let me never forget what you had done for me. You took me out of darkness and brought me into the light. I may not have been like Mary but I was living in the very darkness of the enemy. I was in the very throws of plotting to take my life in a violent way. I thank you for the life I have lived since then but bring me back to my first love. In Your Name, Amen.
Don’t Lose Heart
As we start getting older, our bodies begin to change.
Muscles might ache. Hair might gradually turn gray. Vision and hearing might eventually get less sharp. And we, or someone we love, might even struggle with significant or devastating health challenges.
The apostle Paul once offered some ageless wisdom to the believers in Corinth, Greece, which can still be helpful for us today:
“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.”
2 Corinthians 4:16 NIV
Paul knew what it was like to face hard things; he’d been beaten, shipwrecked, snake bitten, and imprisoned.
Earlier in the letter, he’d said, “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.” (2 Corinthians 4:8-9 NIV)
The ripple effects of sin’s existence in the world might frustrate us physically, but it ...