Father,
It is simply amazing
to consider. Jesus was dead, but He now lives. On the third day, He sat up in
that tomb and walked out. And creation hasn't been the same ever since.
Creation still
groans, but it groans in hope. The day will come when the last vestiges of Your
curse will be removed. And creation will once again be the pristine Garden that
it once was.
And while it's true
that we also still groan, we also groan in hope. On that same day that creation
is restored, we, likewise, will be freed from all of death's power to ruin
life, and the last bits of sin that we still wrestle with will be destroyed.
And all of this is
because of what Jesus has done. He stared death in the face, didn't flinch and
won. And now, we have a tremendous gift, real life now and more of it later.
And so, Father, we
ask that You would grant us the grace that we need so that we would live more
in keeping with reality, more in keeping with what Jesus has done. Yes, there
are still battles to fight, but we ask for the grace to fight those battles with
death and remaining sin encouraged by the certainty of victory. Grant to us the
ability to hope even when the evil one whispers lies in our ears about how
hopeless the situation is. Grant us the grace to believe that we really are
more than conquerors through Him who loved us at the Cross and who changed
everything at the tomb.
And we ask Father
that You would give us tender hearts that see the plight of so many for whom
these things are so foreign. They have no Gospel. They have no Savior. And so,
they have no hope, for this life or the next. Grant to us the compassion needed
to reach out to them with Good News, the Good News of someone who has crushed
their enemies and offers them real living now and something even better than
that later.
Grant us these
things so that our lives would reflect more and more of the glory of who You
are as Father, Son and Spirit. Amen.