Friday February 5, 2021

In the busyness of our everyday lives, we often fail to prepare our hearts and minds for reading God’s word and experience God in this time. Take a moment to allow this prayer to lead you into your time with God today.

As I enter into this time of prayer and reflection, I pause to be still; to breathe slowly; to re-center my scattered senses upon the presence of God.

Holy and loving God, in this new season I invite you to shape my soul with your words and inspire my life with your works. Teach me to walk in the way of peace and grace. AMEN.

Hebrews 10:22-23

Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.

Springtime is not far away. One of the things that many of us do is spring cleaning. It’s a good feeling to get everything in order, clearing the garage, washing the cars, preparing the yard for summer, etc. There is a freeing feeling that allows us to enter summer unencumbered with those sometimes-undone tasks.

But we can get used to a cluttered garage, dirty cars, and myriads of tasks that need to be done but keep getting put on the back burner.

We can also get used to being too far from God, living out patterns and habits that damage us and others, living shallow lives, consuming bitterness or resentment, growing anger or fear, dealing in personal addictions, etc. We can lose or fall away from fellowship with God and sometimes not even know it. Or we have never experienced the joy of what it is to experience God in our lives. It’s also very human when that happens to complain about our circumstances and blame others for the condition of unhappiness and discontent we find ourselves in.

Draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings.

Have our hearts sprinkled to cleans us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.

The power of God’s spirit, the work of Christ, the love of God can wash us, clean us, free us, save us, make for a new day, even “restore to us the joy of our salvation” (Psalm 51), that’s if we choose to respond to this reading and draw near to God.

God, clean me, wash me, restore me; give me grace to begin a new life today, one where I am set free to belong to you and live a new life of joy and peace. Please make it so God, I can not do it for myself. In Jesus Name. Amen.