In John 7:29 Jesus speaks publicly about who He is: “You know Me, and you know where I am from. I have not come on My own. But the One who sent Me is true, and you do not know Him. 29 I know Him because I am from Him, and He sent me.” In my life there have been an infinite number of times when God has spoken to me with the kind of clarity that we see in the text above. Sometimes Jesus has spoken to me in prayer, sometimes in my reading and meditating on the Scriptures, other times through other people and events and life experiences, and sometimes in ways that utterly surprise me. Jesus has also spoken to me in my sin, in my shame and guilt of being so unfaithful.
When I read this text above, I wonder once again why I am so capable of ignoring who Jesus is in my life. For I feel deeply what the Apostle Pauls feels when he writes this in his letter to the Romans: “15 I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate…For the desire to do the good lies close at hand, but not the ability. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do” Romans 7:15-20.
So dear friends, join me in prayer that we will all remain close to the Lord. Pray that we will all remain in daily prayer and Scripture reading and meditation. I remember fondly the sermons and books of Billy Graham,
and every time he spoke he always called on us to do three things:
to repent, to confess our sins, and to be born again. Those words have had a lasting impact in my life because they are all Biblical, all from the words of Jesus, and so today I call on us all do do the same, and to pray for one another to do the same.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me a sinner.
From the Bible:
“Jesus answered him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God’” John 3:3.
“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” Romans 6:23.
“Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out” Acts 3:19.
“From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” Matthew 4:17.
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