Heavenly Father, I praise You for allowing us to have memories and to have intelligence and free will to decide. I chose to follow you in late July 1982, and I have not turned back since. I have not always been the most obedient or righteous person I should be, but I have placed my trust in You. I praise You for learning the wisdom of Your word. Help me today to take command of my day and shake the evil from it.
Holy Spirit, Your word tells us: Now may my Lord Jesus Christ Himself and my God and Father, who has loved me and given me everlasting consolation and good hope by grace, comfort my heart and establish me in every good deed and word. But the Lord is faithful, who will establish me and guard me from the evil one. And I have confidence in the Lord, that I do and will do the things His word has commanded me to do. Now may the Lord direct my heart into the love of God and into the patience of Christ. I desire that you show diligence to the full assurance of hope until the end. Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. By faith I understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things visible. And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. [2Thessalonians 2:16,17; 2 Thess. 3:3-5; Hebrews 6:11; Hebrews 11:1; Hebrews 11:3; Hebrews 11:6]
My hope lies within my salvation and belief in God. I have hope to see my grandparents, children who have gone before me, and walk around heaven seeing the full glory of Christ. I have the hope that I will hear upon entering heaven, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.” I want to see Jesus and know that I no longer have to live with a constant war against sin, death, hate, evil, and know that I can now live with the perfection that God created me and mankind for. I don’t envision heaven as a place to sleep and lie on clouds playing harps, but rather a place where I can begin to live the way I was intended to live, truly. I will be able to sing with others and truly spend time worshiping my savior. The things that so easily obsess us and fight against us will be gone.
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)