My Wise and Merciful Lord, Your words have great meaning and were given as a light guiding me into a better life. Those who persist in rebelling against You should take a warning from Your words. Those who are faithful to You should find comfort and hope in them. While I might become discouraged at my sinfulness, I still should seek Your help in overcoming it. When I feel the heaviness of guilt, I need to repent and ask for forgiveness. You look at what I am and will become and not what I’ve left behind in repentance and confession. You give everyone the chance to turn from their sins and be restored … if they take Your offer. If I am devoted to You and ask for Your help when I fall, You will be there to lift me up. I cannot count on my past good deeds to save me if I return to sin. I can never think I’ve done enough good because it is my belief in You that overcomes the penalties for my sins.
What the books of Jeremiah and Ezekiel tell me is that what upsets You the most is the taking up of idols. In today’s world those idols are likely to be possessions, power, and status, but the sins I fail to abandon can also be my idols. When I refuse to act on what You tell me to do and mock the restraints You point out in Your Word, I show myself to be unfaithful and will reap the consequences of my sins. Because of Your gift of choice, You will not make me accept Your ways … You only offer me an alternative to achieving a better life. I cannot give the appearance of following You like going to church on Sunday and living out my own ways the rest of the week. If I give the impression of being faithful while living for sin, I am a hypocrite. You warned me that I could not serve two masters. It is easy to say “I surrender all” when I do not have much, but it becomes more difficult when the amount of my possessions increases.
What You want me to do is listen to Your words and obey them. Obedience requires that I put them into practice in the way I live my life. Obedience is the key to establishing a life like Yours. How can I be sure I am leading a righteous life? Only through accepting You as my guide (You were a human and understand my human weaknesses) and accepting Your connection to the Father (who is loving and accepting). By uniting my life with Yours, I can begin to grow into the stature of who You want me to become. As I trust in You, all the benefits of being a child become available to me. When You said, “I am the Way”, some people think Your way is too narrow. Instead of grumbling over having one way to walk, I should say “Thank You” for providing me with a sure way. You are my Way to the Father, my Truth on which to base my life and my source of Eternal Life … I’m all in!! And it’s in Jesus’ name I pray. AMEN!!
John 14:6 Jesus answered, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one come to the Father except through me.”