https://founders.org/articles/inauguration-prayer-for-governor-ron-desantis/
Our Father in heaven, we bow to you today on this momentous occasion because You alone are God. You are the Creator and Sustainer of all things visible and invisible. You are Sovereign and through your Son, Jesus Christ, You rule and overrule in all the affairs of life.
We thank You for your great love for people whom You have made in Your own image. And we confess that we have not lived as we ought and have sinned against You. But we also confess that with You there is mercy, that you may be feared. Thank you for delivering up Your Son to be the Savior of the world.
We also thank you for the provisions that You have made for us to pursue liberty, joy, and justice in Your world, and for instituting government and all governing authorities for our well-being. In Your wisdom, goodness, and power, you have once again established Governor DeSantis to serve the people of Florida by carrying out his responsibilities in ways that will be good for us. We thank You for all the wonderful things that have been accomplished in his first term, including his leadership and resolve to keep Florida free through the recent pandemic and societal upheaval that plagued so much of our nation; and his compassionate, energetic and effective recovery work in the wake of Hurricane Ian.
Today, as he takes his oath of office to fulfill his duties by Your help, we know that he will need grace from You to meet the challenges that will be thrust upon him as the civil leader of Florida. Grant Governor DeSantis wisdom beyond his years, strength beyond his abilities, and courage to help him to stand firm in every righteous conviction. Enable him to serve with joy, zeal, and in the fear of God.
Father, grant our governor good counsel and the humility to heed it when it will help him to serve the citizens of this state well. Enable him to utilize his office to lead this state in ways that will benefit all Floridians.
Lord, we also ask You to have mercy on our governor’s precious family. We pray for his wife Casey and children Madison, Mason, and Mamie. With all the demands that go with his office grant him the strength and discipline to love and care for them. Watch over and bless this family as he gives himself to serve this state.
So, holy Father, hear our prayers for Governor DeSantis. Receive our praise and answer our requests, because we bring them to you in the Name of Your Son and our Savior, Jesus Christ the Lord. Amen.
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As You Have Been Forgiven
“Merciful LORD, pardon all my sins of this day, week, year, all the sins of my life, sins of early, middle, & advanced years, of omission & commission, of morose, peevish & angry tempers, of lip, life & walk, of hard-heartedness, unbelief, presumption, pride, of unfaithfulness to the souls of men, of want of bold decision in the cause of Christ, of deficiency in outspoken zeal for his glory, of bringing dishonour upon thy great name, of deception, injustice, untruthfulness in my dealings with others…”[1]
This is the beginning of a Puritan prayer entitled SINS. As I preached through the Lord’s Prayer, I came to Matthew 6:12, “forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” Jesus links God’s forgiving us and our forgiving others. When we forgive others we can know that it does not merit God’s forgiving us, for salvation and forgiveness is by grace alone. The emphasis is on forgiveness we receive, due to the work of Christ. When we grasp God’s forgiveness, then we are able to forgive others. Forgiving others reveals that we understand how gracious and merciful God has been to us. We cannot be like the unmerciful servant (Matt. 18:21-35), though he was forgiven much, he would not forgive the one who owed him so little. This parable is a good commentary of 6:12. I am not implying that forgiving others who wrong you is easy, “the flesh lusts against the spirit”. I believe this is one reason Jesus adds verses 14-15 immediately after the Lord’s Prayer: “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” This is the only petition reiterated from the Lord’s Prayer. I believe He reemphasizes forgiveness because He knows we are prone not to forgive. We must remember how often we have sinned against God, and yet He has forgiven us. No one has ever sinned against us as much, so how can we not willingly forgive them? A Christian must forgive, we cannot withhold forgiveness or be bitter in our hearts toward others. Let us demonstrate God’s forgiveness by forgiving others. Christ demonstrated forgiveness as He hung on the Cross. “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.” This IS Amazing Grace! As often stated: “men of grace should above all be gracious.”
[1] (Puritan Prayer SINS, used with permission of Banner of Truth)
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Dying To See Jesus
In this world, there are different types of people who believe they have a relationship with Jesus.
There are those who have had some “encounter” with Jesus, and they wrongly feel there is a connection because they are deceived..
There are other people who genuinely do have a relationship with Jesus, but they have been taught that authentic relationship with Jesus consists of a certain experience or emotion, so they doubt the reality of their salvation.
Then there are Christians who have authentic fellowship with Jesus and are certain of it, but they know they can excel still more.
And then there are people who simply do not know Jesus at all.
Every person is in one of these four groups. But how does one know for certain if he or she has a genuine relationship with the Lord and Savior?
In John 12:20-26, some Gentiles make a request – “We wish to see Jesus” – that prompts Jesus to address the question all people should ask: How can someone have real, authentic fellowship with Him?
Jesus’ response is puzzling at first glance. Most commentators admit difficulty with understanding how Jesus’ answer relates to the request. The link, while on the surface enigmatic, is very powerful. Jesus knows these Gentiles desire fellowship with Him, but His response goes beyond their inquiry. He wants to know them personally.
John includes this episode because he wants to assure his readers that though we have not seen Jesus in person, much like the Greeks at the time they made this request, Jesus wants authentic fellowship with everyone who will come to Him in faith.
In the rest of the text, verses 23-26, Jesus highlights three keys to authentic fellowship with Him.
First, we experience authentic fellowship with Jesus through His saving work.
The Lord begins his response to the Greeks by referring to His saving work: His death on the cross, His burial, and His resurrection from the dead.
Jesus calls His saving work, His glorification. He does this for two reasons. First, because the cross is where God’s attributes in Christ are most clearly put on display. At the cross, we most clearly see God’s love, wrath, grace, mercy, justice, and Law – in all its demands and its penalty on transgressors. The cross instantly brings together all these glorious and perfect attributes, that always seem opposed: law and grace, mercy and justice, love and wrath.
Jesus is also glorified at the cross because of the results of His work. Through Christ’s death, He would bear much fruit. The Greeks coming to see Him were a precursor to that. They were the first installment, as it were, of the multitude of fruit to come.
The only way the Greeks can have any meaningful fellowship with Jesus is if He first dies on the cross. Yes, they could interview Him. However, if they really want to know Jesus, it can only happen by means of His death. Jesus must provide the mercy of God by satisfying the justice of God and open the floodgates of the love of God by bearing the wrath of God.
The cross is where God’s attributes in Christ are most clearly put on display.
Our fellowship with Christ does not depend on a feeling or an experience, but on a crucified Savior who died on a wooden, bloody, Roman cross. It’s crucial we come to understand that because of Jesus’ death and through faith in Him, our relationship with Him is objective reality. We experience authentic fellowship with Jesus through His saving work.
Second, we have authentic fellowship with Jesus through denying ourselves.
Jesus presents the concept of self-denial in a paradox. The person who loves his life loses it, but the person who hates his life keeps it. The first part is the person who loves his life. What does that mean? After all, who doesn’t hang on to the things of this life? That is exactly the question Jesus means to raise in our minds.
The word “lose” is a violent word that signifies destruction. One writer described this word as “definitive destruction, not merely in the sense of the extinction of physical existence, but rather of an eternal plunge into Hades and a hopeless destiny of death.” Those who are living for this life are actively and systematically destroying themselves.
If we want to inherit life and have authentic fellowship with Jesus, we will hate our lives in this world. We will take the eternal perspective and realize that living for the here and now is to waste our lives and to ruin them. The way we protect our lives, odd as it seems, is to let go of it for life eternal. We reject instant gratification and self-centered living, and we wait for eternal life and live a life of self-denial. The goal is life of authentic fellowship with Jesus in His presence forever!
Finally, we experience authentic fellowship with Jesus through following Him.
The person who knows Jesus through His death and resurrection is marked by a life of denying self and following Him. One commentator helpfully noted, “True discipleship involves not only denial of self but also the recognition of the importance of Christ.”
We follow Jesus by following His example. In 1 John 2:3, John wrote, “By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments.” Then he adds in verse 6, “The one who says He abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.” The people who have real, continual, authentic fellowship with Christ live after His pattern.
Our fellowship with Christ does not depend on a feeling or an experience, but on a crucified Savior who died on a wooden, bloody, Roman cross.
So, for example, that means we love one another. Paul wrote in Ephesians 5:1-2, “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you.” Jesus Himself illustrated this in John 13. He washed His disciples’ feet, and then He said to them, “If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I gave you an example that you also should do as I did to you.” Following Jesus, then, means living a life of humble service to one another. It also means forgiving each other. Colossians 3:13 says that we should forgive one another, “just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you.”
Those who follow Jesus will be where He is. This is the heart of the message to the Greeks. Jesus responds, “Do you want to see Me? Do you want to be where I am? Then follow Me. Serve Me. And if you are My servant, you will be in my presence.”
Men and women who have this fellowship with Jesus will be honored by the Father, who will reward the servants of His Son. This promise also strengthens Jesus’ call to self-denial and following Him down the Calvary Road. It is not those striving after honor in this world who receive honor from God, but it is those seeking humility, obedience, and fellowship with Jesus in His sufferings and death and resurrection, who are honored by the Father.
Jesus’ message to the Greeks who wanted to see Him was that the way they could truly see Him was through His cross as they denied themselves and followed Him. Then they would be where He is when He came for His own. Then they would see the glory He had with the Father before the world began. Then the Father Himself would reward them. The only ones who get to see Jesus are those who are dying to see Him by dying daily to themselves and following Him.
The question for each of us is this: Do we, like the Greeks, want to see Jesus?
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John Dagg on Evil Surmising
As I have written elsewhere, we are living through a famine of sound moral reasoning in the evangelical world today. The multiple failures at this point reveal an unbiblical separation between theology and ethics. The idea that one can live rightly while believing wrongly is foolish, and while right belief does not guarantee right living at every point, theology does provide the basis for judging the rightness or wrongness of actions. That is, when a person acts contrary to what he believes his theology provides a corrective if it is allowed to function in that way on the practical level. But when one’s theology is faulty then ethical failure tends to be an outworking of that wrong belief. Rather than provide a needed corrective to bad living, bad theology confirms it.
For example, if one holds to an antinomian view of grace in salvation, then living immorally is fortified by cavalier platitudes like “once saved, always saved” and “since where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, let’s continue in sin so that grace may abound.” Yet, if grace is rightly understood as working a change in the believer so that he pursues a life of holiness, then immoral attitudes and actions can be corrected by the sound theology of that understanding.
In many ways our evangelical forebears understood this relationship far better than we do today. As such, they can help provide some help to us sharpen our moral reasoning. One such helpful teacher from our Baptist heritage is John Dagg. He was the first Baptist theologian in the southern United States to write a systematic theology. Along with that he produced A Treatise on Church Order which he considered to be the Second Part of his Manual of Theology.
A lesser known volume that Dagg wrote is his Elements of Moral Science. The book is a rich resource in thinking and acting Christianly. Though some of the specifics may be dated, the principles Dagg teaches are timeless. One such principle is the wickedness of evil surmising. He addresses this issue in chapter 8, section 8 of his book, which is found on pages 195-197 of the 1860 edition. While we do not hear much about this topic in our day, Dagg demonstrates that sincere Christians should work hard to avoid falling into this pattern of immoral judgment.Evil Surmising
Reputation is the opinion of the community; and since I am one of the community, my opinion concerning my neighbor, is a part of his reputation. If I think less of him than I ought, I so far do wrong to his reputation. Hence we do wrong to others, when we judge them too unfavorably; and the wrong is not confined to them, but rebounds on ourselves. The habit of judging unfavorably, hardens the heart against the social affections and sympathies, on which our happy intercourse with others greatly depends. It is directly opposed to the charity which “thinketh no evil;”1 and tends inevitably to cut us off from the sympathies and affections of others, and the approbation of heaven. “Judge not, that ye be not judged; for with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged; and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.”2
Love to our neighbor will incline us to admit his sincerity, and attribute to him no other motives than those from which he professes to act. We resent the wrong, if others ascribe to us motives which we disclaim; and we ought, therefore, to avoid such judgment of others. Some men earn a reputation for insincerity, to which they are justly entitled, and there is no necessity that we should be blind to their true character; but there is no merit in being the first to suspect the evil designs of others. Some persons pride themselves on their deep insight into human character; and when some unlovely feature, before unsuspected, has been disclosed, they are ready to exclaim, I told you so; but they do not inform us how many times they have suspected evil which never existed. They are perhaps deceived as often as the less suspicious; but if they are not, it is better to be deceived sometimes, than to cultivate in ourselves the habit of thinking evil; to keep the mind in perpetual disquiet, with the apprehension of suffering wrong from all who approach us; and to banish all confidence from the intercourse of human society. To deal with honest men as if they were rogues, is a maxim which savors of the wisdom from beneath, rather than of that which cometh from above. The peace and happiness of human society depend much on the cultivation of love and mutual confidence; and it is better that men should be surprised and shocked by occasional abuse of confidence, than that they should be perpetually prepared for it by sleepless suspicion.
Much of the strife which disturbs society, originates in evil surmising. An injurious suspicion once entertained, cannot be concealed without great difficulty. If not expressed in words, it produces a cautiousness in action, by which the other party is led to suspect and resent its existence. Mutual suspicion being engendered, a fire is kindled within, which refuses to be smothered. If you would avoid strife and rage, check the very beginnings of evil surmising.
Since the most virtuous have imperfections, it is unjust, because of one failure, to judge the whole character corrupt. Peter denied his Master; but he notwithstanding loved and honored him, and suffered martyrdom in his cause. We ought not to judge a man destitute of any particular virtue, because he fails to exercise it in some one instance; and if it should be proved that he is totally destitute of a particular virtue, we ought not thence to conclude, that he is destitute of all virtue. Even the truly pious may have a sin that does easily beset them;1 and those who have not renounced all for Christ, may, like the young ruler whom Jesus loved,2 possess traits of character worthy to be loved and admired.
We should be careful not to suffer our estimate of others to be determined by their regard for us. “Sinners love those that love them;”3 but righteous judgment is not founded on considerations so selfish. If a man. has treated me unkindly, it does not follow that he is a bad man. Unkindness to me is not worse than unkindness to any other person; and if we strike from our list of friends all who have ever treated any one amiss, we shall have few names remaining. If we detect with keen perception, and decry with bold vociferation, the faults of our enemies or opponents, while we are blind to the faults of our friends, and those of our party; we do not judge according to righteousness. We should school ourselves to estimate every man, not by his bearing toward us, but by his true character.[1]1 1 Cor. 13:5.
2 Matt. 7:1, 2.
1 Heb. 12:1.
2 Mark 10:21.
3 Luke 6:32.Tweet Share