October 29 -- John 14: 15-22 "'If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. 'I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.' Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, 'Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?'"
Prayer focus for today: Today's scripture may seem like just another passage of dialogue, but look deeper. Jesus is laying out the plan of the Trinity. God's perfect design to allow us to worship Him as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit all in ONE Holy God. As I was praying over today's Scripture reading and prayer time, it struck me that many of you reading this are being pulled in many different directions. Often we take time to read things like emails, text in a social media post, texts and messages from friends and work, yet we really don't take time to let anything soak in. It seems to me we have become a society living like a pinball machine being knocked around by the latest "incoming assault", yet most of us never stop to realize it's happening.
Take, for example, those of you who have been faithfully reading Scripture and praying with us since July when we began sharing these daily posts. How often do we get pulled into reading the words, agreeing with the prayer requests, but then quickly swiping or scrolling on to the 'next thing' without really giving time to pray - both speaking and listening. We all say we want that personal relationship with Jesus, yet many of us are using Him like a genie in a bottle -- we want to make a request then hope if we 'rub Him the right way', the genie will pop out and grant all our wishes. God is not like that. Pray today -- ok, I mean truly stop all other things going through your brain and pray. Ask God to forgive you for being distracted from your relationship with Him and ask Him to give you the strength to develop a new, better habit in rejecting the pull of social media habits. I truly believe if we would pray and commit to fixing our relationship with Jesus, all other relationships would fall into place as our habits become Christ focused, and not world focused. I love you all and am praying with you today.
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