“Blessed is he who does not take offense at Me.””

‭‭Luke‬ ‭7‬:‭23‬

Dear Lord God, You are omniscient and we don’t even know ourselves let alone Your wisdom and Your ways. We look at all the time we questioned Your intentions and You love and we are ashamed of our unbelief. Forgive us for those many times we took offense when things didn’t go the way we expected. You are God. We were made by You and then redeemed by You by Jesus’ great sacrifice from our fallen nature. So Lord, free us from our limited expectations. We acknowledge that Your ways are higher and Your thoughts are higher. And You love us more than we can ever comprehend. So, Lord God, Your gracious will be done. We submit to Your will. You must increase. Our self life must decrease. And we will trust in You with all our heart. In Jesus’ name. 

“Blessed be the Lord, who daily bears our burden, The God who is our salvation. Selah.”

‭‭Psalms‬ ‭68‬:‭19‬ ‭

Lord God, we Your children bless You. You have borne our burdens day by day. When we awake in the morning, we realize that You have been faithful. When we lay our head down on the pillow, You have been faithful. For all the days and nights we thought we could not bear another moment, You bore that moment for us. You saved us when we called on Your name and placed our trust and our hope in You to save us from our sins and restore us to our Holy Father God, and You continue to save us this moment when we call on the name of Jesus. We were created to have our being in Christ not apart from Christ. So, Lord God, You are our salvation once for all and day to day. We can rest from all our striving and walk in Christ and in all the good works You’ve prepared beforehand. Especially in these dark and confusing times, we bless You. How kind and faithful You are. We trust You. We rest in Your finished work. In Jesus’ saving name. 

““Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” Matthew‬ ‭5‬:‭8‬

Lord God, on this resurrection morning, we want to shout our praises to You! Christ is risen from the dead!

Lord Jesus, we want to see You. Thank You for appearing to Mary when You rose from the dead. Her pure and simple heart of devotion You honored. You are everything to her and she would rather linger at a tomb because You had been there. Lord Jesus, You live! And today, we pray that we would be among those who follow the Lamb wherever He goes. With a pure heart, we just want to love You and see You, just as You promised. We take the Blood of Jesus to purify our hearts. Give us vision. May our eyes be fixed on You. In Jesus’ most precious name. 

“O taste and see that the Lord is good; How blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!”

‭‭Psalms‬ ‭34‬:‭8‬

Lord God, on this day of remembrance, of recounting all Jesus endured in Gethesmane, and His sacrifice and victory on Calvary, and triumph in the unseen realm, we say, the Lord is good. Lord Jesus, You took the way of the Cross. You conquered death in Your dying, and brought us all Eternal life when Your shed Your life-giving blood for all humanity. Thank You that the tomb could not hold You. Death and Hades could not keep you down. You are resurrection Life, death-conquering Life. Today.

So, Lord Jesus, we rest in You. We put our trust in Your finished work on the Cross of Calvary. We take refuge in You. You paid it all, there is no claim left on me, not Satan, not sin, not guilt, not death. And when the Righteous Judge of All looks on me, He see You and accepts Your righteousness and Your payment and accepts me bound up in Your life. Hallelujah! What Savior You are to me. My life, my refuge forever. O taste and see, that the Lord is GOOD!

In Jesus’ saving name!

“How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, Whose sin is covered!”

‭‭Psalms‬ ‭32‬:1

Dear Lord Jesus, we are so blessed because You willingly laid Your life down for us on the Cross. You are the Lamb of God who took away the sin of the world by shedding Your own precious blood. By Your blood, our transgressions are forgiven and our sins covered. Once for all.  

Thank You Father for looking upon us through the Blood of Your Son. Thank You for accounting His righteousness unto us. What love. We receive this grace with thanksgiving and humility. We haven’t done a thing to deserve this grace, we’ve only given You grief. So Lord God, on this day when the world remembers Christ Jesus’ crucifixion and sacrifice, we honor You in believing and receiving. His blood was shed for me.

We are blessed and blessed indeed. 

“Blessed be the name of the Lord From this time forth and forever.”

‭‭Psalms‬ ‭113‬:‭2‬ ‭

Praise the Lord! We love the name of Jesus. The Father highly exalted Him and gave Him this Name which is above every name! That at the Name of Jesus, every knee shall bow, in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father! This Name is the only name that can save us from sin, from Satan, from self, and from the wrath that is to come. This Name saves us when we call, once for all and moment by moment. This Name is life and peace to us, for when we call upon His Name we get the person of the Name. Lord Jesus, we love Your comforting Name. Name to breathe in prayer, calling everywhere, now and always. 

And it is in the precious Name of Jesus we bless and pray.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,”

‭‭Ephesians‬ ‭1‬:‭3‬ ‭

Dear Heavenly Father, thank You for blessing us with Your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. He is everything to us. And every spiritual blessing is found in Him. And thank You for sending the Holy Spirit to us to make Christ’s life our lives so real. We are slow, but You know that. We are stubborn, but You know that. We have a little faith, and even that is a gift from You. But Christ is all in all to us. And You are well pleased in Him. And the Spirit will not fail to make Christ’s Bride ready. It matters not who we are in ourselves, we are Christ’s. We say, Yes, Lord God, Your Will be done on earth as it is in heaven. In Jesus’ name.

3:31 (Romans) “Do we then nullify the Law through faith? May it never be! On the contrary, we establish the Law.”

‭‭Romans‬ ‭3‬:‭31‬

Praise the Lord God! Thank You Lord God for writing the Law upon our hearts instead of tablets of stone. Thank You Lord Jesus for fulfilling all the righteous requirements of the Law and being grace to us to do the same in us. Thank You it is by faith in our Lord Jesus we can walk in these good works that have been prepared for us. It’s not of ourselves or our own efforts, it is by faith in Christ.

Our trust is in You, Lord God. We want to work out our salvation by faith. There is so much to be done, and yet, on the Cross, Lord Jesus, You declared it is finished! So, we want to walk in that finished work just as the children of Israel entered the Promise Land by faith and lived in cities they didn’t build and ate of the vineyards and trees they didn’t plant, help us to enter into the work that you have accomplished and we can give expression to. Oh Lord, by faith, and by Your Spirit, even as You speak courage to our hearts, we take back the territory that belongs to You. Gain all of our hearts. Gain the people of this world Your created. And we declare, we are a people apart, we are for You and for You alone. By faith, we say, Amen, You say, be holy as I am holy. We say, Yes, Lord, we are wholly set apart for You. 

In Jesus’ glorious name. 

3:30 (John) “He must increase, but I must decrease.” 

‭‭John‬ ‭3‬:‭30‬

Dear Lord God, this is all our prayer. We want our lives to reflect Christ. There is still so much of our lives that default back to our soulish ways. Forgive us that there is still so much of self- evident in our living. We give You free reins to rule and reign in our hearts. We lay hold of Your promise that as we offer ourselves to You, You are renewing our minds, and transforming us by Eternal life in Christ. We have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer we who live, but Christ who lives in us! So Lord, give us all perspective of our true lives. And we pray that the testimony of Your life lived out in us is good news to the people in our lives, our families, our coworkers, our neighbors, and those You send our way. We are Yours. Increase Your expression in us all. 

In Jesus’ transforming name. 

3:29 (Galatians) “And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise.”

‭‭Galatians‬ ‭3‬:‭29‬

Lord God, thank You that You have made us heirs according to promise, by faith, as Abraham our forefather. We are the innumerable stars in the sky that You pointed out to Abraham because of Your Son, Christ Jesus our Lord. He was born as a descendant of Abraham, and in Him all the nation are truly blessed. We lift up to You the nation of Japan once again. By faith, the Japanese people, in this late hour of the history of humanity, turn to Christ. Even at the last hour, the thief on the cross turned to Christ by faith, and believed that Christ is King and that He is Resurrection. So Lord God, You opened the eye of the thief to see Jesus, will You also open the eyes of the people of Japan to see Jesus just as You opened our eyes? We are also praying, by faith, because You desire many sons, and Your compassion on mankind is unrelenting. All the nations will be blessed in Christ. Gain the people for we all belong to Christ. He bought us all with His own precious blood shed on Calvary’s cross. We love our Lord Jesus. And it is in His name above every name that we pray.