Heavenly Father, I praise You for creating people who can articulate Your principles and enlighten me on the wisdom in Your word. I praise You for the messages Christ gave us that still apply to me today. Help me today to take command of my day, take captive my thoughts, and shake all evil from my day and my thoughts.
Christ told us that His sheep know His voice, but many people today don’t quite understand the illustration as clearly as the people of His time did. During Christ’s time here on the earth, Shepherds would bring the sheep into a central location for all the herds to be penned up at night for protection by some people assigned to guard them. The next morning, the shepherds would come and call for their sheep, which by now his voice would leave the group and follow their shepherd to the fields where they would be able to graze. It did not matter if the sheep were old, young, male, female, black, spotted, or white; they would all leave and follow the voice they were trained to hear. John wrote in what we now know as 1 John 2:27—But the anointing
which you have received from Him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. For as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and just as it has taught you, remain in Him. Paul wrote to the Romans: However, as it is written: “No eye has seen, nor ear has heard, no mind conceived what God has prepared for those who love him”—but God has revealed it to us by His Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man’s spirit within him? In the same way, no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he is not subject to any man’s judgment: “For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him?” But we have the mind of Christ. [1 Corinthians 2:9&16]
Holy Spirit, help me to be like the sheep and know Your voice. Help me to listen and take time to truly meditate on Your word and to grow in wisdom, but always to take time for You to speak to me. Let my Spirit abide, obey, and trust in Your Spirit so that I can grow into righteousness and abide in You, knowing that as Your living temple, Your Spirit is witnessing to me and through me.
Grace and peace will be multiplied to me through the knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord. His divine power has given to me all things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of God who has called me to His glory and excellence, by which He has given to me exceedingly great and precious promises, so that through these things I might become a partaker of the divine nature and escape the corruption that is in the world through lust. For this reason, help me to make every
effort to add virtue to my faith; and to my virtue, knowledge, and to my knowledge, self-control; and to my self-control, patient endurance; and to my patient endurance, godliness; and to my godliness, brotherly kindness; and to my brotherly kindness love. For if all of these reside in me and abound, they will ensure that I will neither be useless nor unfruitful in the knowledge of Jesus Christ my Lord. Help me to diligently make my calling and election sure so that when I add all these areas into my life, I will not stumble and will be able to enter into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, which will be abundantly provided for me. In Jesus’ name, Amen. 2 Peter 1:3-11 MEV version