Daily Prayer Guide ~ May 1 - Praying as Gods Good Creation.

Read:

Genesis 1:26-28, 31

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

²⁷ So God created mankind in his own image,

in the image of God he created them;

male and female he created them.

²⁸ God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.

³¹ God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.

Psalm 139:14-15

¹³ For you created my inmost being;

you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

your works are wonderful,

I know that full well.

Ephesians 2:10

“For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

Consider:

Anytime God does something it is good, and when he created us, he said it was very good. 

To know that you and I are made by God and that God considers us and our lives to be very good is a wonderfully encouraging truth. 

It is easy today to think “well, I and my life are not really all that important” and that is exactly the negative thoughts that our enemy would like to echo in our hearts.  God’s Word tells us something completely different, to remind us of who we are in Christ. 

You were made in his image to have a significant and special place over all the rest of creation.  We are blessed by God and given the responsibility to care for and help our world around us to grow and flourish.  When God saw who we were, and in relation to everything else he had made, he declared to the heavenly hosts that we were ‘very good’.  You are the best of the best of God’s creation. 

He also knows you intimately and completely.  He knows how you are completely put together, your physical and emotional self.  He knows your talents, personality, your skills and capacities.  He knows you because he knit you together, he gave you the wiring you have.  You are wonderfully and fearfully made, with meaning, value and significance to God himself.  He never makes sub-standard, his workmanship is always masterful and ‘par-excellence’. 

He did not make us to be his trophy, but his method.  He wants our lives to be useful and purposeful, to do the good works that he has had in mind for us all along.  Our lives are the myriad of methods for him to demonstrate his love, goodness, compassion, truth, hope and all of his attributes to the physical world around us.  The good works he intends our lives to produce were never to be our own, but his good works demonstrated through our lives.  For us to be God’s good workmanship in Christ is to be his hands and feet, his voice and heart to the world around us. 

When the day comes that we are able to reenter the world freely, we can enter as his presence to do his work so the world may know his goodness. 

 “The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for.” ―Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Prayer: Father, Thank you that you made me and called me very good.  That in Christ, I have significance and purpose that you will use to make much of your presence in our world today.  Forgive me when I doubt the truth of who you made me to be and the role you created me to live in.    

·      In your words, Thank God for making  you and calling you his good workmanship.

·      Express to him what it means to you that he has given your life purpose.

·      Ask him to forgive you for the times and ways you have listened to the lies that tell you that you are not important or valued.

·      Ask that He would use your life to demonstrate his presence in the world  today.

·      Pray for our medical personnel who are caring for ill, help them know that he is using their lives to care for those he made.  Ask they bring healing to those lives.

Father, May we always know that we are your workmanship whom you love greatly.  Help us live in the significance and purpose you have placed over our lives.  Help us be your hands and feet, voice and concern for others around us today.   Amen