Heavenly Father, I praise You for allowing the Holy Spirit to inspire the people who wrote the letters and accounts that are now what we consider the Bible. I praise You for the inspiration You gave to those who would put the Bible together for us to learn of Your truths. I praise You that You fill men to help them carry Your truth to each of us and to allow us to gain wisdom and hope from it.
Holy Spirit, You inspired Paul to write to Timothy the following that all of us can learn and grow from: Endure hard times as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No soldier on active duty entangles himself with civilian affairs, so that he may please the enlisting officer. Anyone who competes as an athlete is not rewarded without competing legally. The farmer who labors should be first to partake of the crops. Consider what I am saying, and may the Lord grant you understanding in all things. [2 Timothy 2:3-7] Help me to learn to be focused on my purpose and ministry so that I do not let things that are not of my concern entangle or lead me away from God’s will and the inspiration of Your Spirit in how I am to live. Let me run my race, and push to the end, and let my actions, words, and desires be honoring to You.
I pray and ask that I may be filled with the knowledge of Your will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that I may walk worthy of the You, fully pleasing, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of You; strengthened with all might, according to Your glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; giving thanks to the Father who has qualified me to be a partaker of the inheritance of the saints in the light. You have delivered me from the power of darkness and conveyed me into the kingdom of the Son of Your love, in whom I have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins. You are the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by You all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through You for You. And You are before all things, and in You all things exist. And You are the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things You may have the preeminence. In Your blessed Son Jesus’ name, Amen. (Colossians 1:9-18)