Daily Devotion for January 10, 2016

Prayers
Scripture
Lord's Prayer
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever.
1. Rise up, O men of God!
Have done with lesser things.
Give heart and mind and soul and strength
to serve the King of kings.
2. Rise up, O men of God!
The kingdom tarries long.
Bring in the day of brotherhood
and end the night of wrong.
3. Rise up, O men of God!
The church for you doth wait,
her strength unequal to her task;
rise up, and make her great!
4. Lift high the cross of Christ!
Tread where his feet have trod.
As brothers of the Son of Man,
rise up, O men of God!
Music by William H. Walter, 1825-1893
Lyrics by William P. Merrill, 1867-1954
For Unity in Sunday Worship
Father of mercy, your love embraces everyone, and through the Resurrection of your Son you call me and all who pray with me into your wonderful light. Dispel our darkness and make us a people with one heart and one voice, forever singing your praise,
in Jesus, the Christ, our Lord.
Prayer to Remove Hardness in My Heart
Precious Lord God, I am deeply distressed at my failure to know you as fully as I want to. I do things that I do not want to do and I think things that I regret. Sometimes I feel like a phony Christian, for there is a hard place in my heart that urges me to live, not in your Spirit, but in the world. Please, God, I beg of you, in your mighty power, melt the hardness of my heart. Of my own free will, I ask you into the deepest crevice of my being, that I may be filled with your love and holiness. I depend on your without any backup plan, Lord; for you and only you have the power to change me.
Sunday Prayer to Christ
Oh Christ, you are continually worshiped in heaven and on earth, in all times and at all hours; you are patience, compassion and mercy; you love the righteous, you have mercy on sinners, and you call all men to salvation, promising them all things to come: Receive my prayers, this Sunday, as I celebrate Your resurrection; make my life conform to your will; sanctify my soul and body, order my thoughts, and give me victory in all trials and sadness, both today and in the week to come; protect me and bless me, and all of those who worship you this day, so that we may come to unity of faith and knowledge of your glory. For you live and reign, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, God now and forever,
Doxology (Traditional Anglican)
Praise God from whom all blessings flow,
Praise Him all creatures here below,
Praise Him above ye heavenly host,
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.
Think of the day ahead in terms of God with you, and visualize health, strength, guidance, purity, calm confidence, and victory as the gifts of His presence.


Psalm 55:16-19, 22 (NKJV)
Cast Your Burden on the Lord
As for me, I will call upon God,
And the Lord shall save me.
Evening and morning and at noon
I will pray, and cry aloud,
And He shall hear my voice.
He has redeemed my soul in peace
from the battle that was against me,
For there were many against me.
God will hear, and afflict them,
Even He who abides from of old. Selah
Because they do not change,
Therefore they do not fear God.
Cast your burden on the Lord,
And He shall sustain you;
He shall never permit the righteous to be moved.
Notes on the Scripture
Daily Prayer doesn't usually include first-person material in the Daily Devotion, but the site itself has had trouble the past few days, so . . . what could be more appropriate? For anyone who missed it, we were disconnected from our server for three weeks and, for the first time since the site began operation 7 1/2 years ago, there was no Daily Devotion. We have a contingency written into the software, for the site to show a random devotion from the past if this should happen; but I'm sure a lot of people were disconcerted to find that, every time they refreshed the page, or left and came back, the Daily Devotion would change! And when I say “I'm sure”, it is not a figure of speech. When we finally got service restored, there were about 500 emails in the IN box, about 50 of which were from confounded people, wondering why the day’s Devotion kept jumping around.
So now, not only do we not have any future devotions ready, but also we are looking at a long mass of emails. (Please be patient if you have sent us a question or donation or comment in the past three weeks.)
I was, naturally, tempted to freak out the entire time. And even though we’re now fully functional, I'm looking at three weeks of backlogged work. But you know what? There is going to come a day when Daily Prayer no longer exists. There will come a day when the internet no longer exists, not to mention the earth, the sun, and all of the burdens and woes that go with them. And even more scary, the profoundly complex biochemical machine that makes up my body.

ut the answer to all fears and all the trouble and hassle of life, that takes up so much of our focus during the day, lies in Psalm 55. God will sustain us. Not for an hour and not for a day, but forever. And the converse is also true: Nothing that is “not-God” can or will sustain us.
The solution to our temporary problem of being cut off from the Daily Prayer server was to get service restored. We click on a light switch to solve the problem of having a dark room. If the light switch doesn't work, we seek a longer-term solution by replacing the light bulb. If the switch fails, we solve a yet longer-term problem by replacing it. If the power is out, the solution is even longer-term, and if the power station has been bombed, the solution might take months or years: but the solution exists.
We are guaranteed to fail eventually. Our odds of dying? 1 out of 1. The chances that the sun will eventually disappear? 100%. There is nothing that will sustain us except the immortal, invisible, eternal God. Why, then, do we put our hope in a political party, or educational system, or science? In a word, Satan. Not that there is anything at all wrong with learning mathematics or voting in an election; but we must always keep our problems, and the solution to our problems, in the perspective of eternity.
As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.
For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
1 Corinthians 13:8-12 (ESV)

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