Colossians 1:9-14

If you’ve ever been confused about how to intercede for someone, Paul’s prayer in Colossians is appropriate for every person and every situation. Because it fits perfectly with God’s will, you can ask these requests with great confidence–both for yourself and for others:

To be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding. Not only do we need to know God’s plan for our lives; we also require discernment to distinguish His guiding voice from our own self-directed notions.

To walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, pleasing Him in all respects. Our lives should be patterned after the One we follow, with the goal of bringing Him glory and delight.

To bear fruit in every good work. Instead of being wrapped up in our own jobs, possessions, pleasures, and plans, we should be contributing to others’ lives.

To increase in the knowledge of God. By reading His Word, applying it to our lives, and observing His ways, we’ll gain a deeper understanding of the Lord.

To be strengthened with His power in order to remain steadfast. The Christian life can be lived only with the Holy Spirit’s power.

To joyously give thanks for all He’s done for you. Believers should be characterized by joy and gratitude.

Too often we focus our requests on important temporal needs but miss seeing the deeper spiritual work God wants to do. Imagine how effective your prayers will be if you’ll shift the emphasis of your petitions to the Lord’s desires. He’ll transform you and the people for whom you intercede.

An important manuscript long thought lost was rediscovered hiding in a Pennsylvania seminary on a forgotten archival shelf. The recovered manuscript was a working score for a piano version of Ludwig van Beethoven’s “Grosse Fuge,” which means “grand fugue.” Apparently, grand is an understatement. The work is known as a monument of classical music and described by historians as a “symphonic poem” or a “leviathan”—an achievement on the scale of the finale of his Ninth Symphony. The work is one of the last pieces Beethoven composed, during the period when he was completely deaf. The markings throughout the manuscript are in the composer’s own hand.

In fact, such markings are a particular trademark of Beethoven, who was known for near obsessive editing. Unlike Mozart, who typically produced large scores in nearly finished form, Beethoven’s mind was so full of ideas that it was never made up. Never satisfied, he honed his ideas brutally.

A look at the recovered score portrays exactly that. Groups of measures throughout the 80-page manuscript are furiously canceled out with cross-marks. Remnants of red sealing wax, used to adhere long corrections to an already scuffed up page, remain like scars. There are smudges where he rubbed away ink while it was still wet and abrasions where he erased notes with a needle. Dated changes and omissions are scattered throughout the score, many of these markings dating to the final months before his death in 1827.

I believe there is something encouraging about the labored work of a genius. Beethoven wrestled notes onto the page. For him composing music was a messy, physical process. Ink was splattered, wax burned, erasers wore holes in the paper. What started as a clean page became a muddled, textured mess of a masterpiece ever in progress.

At times when I read the words of 2 Corinthians 5:17 I am jarred by the finality of it: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” Upon calling on Christ as Lord, the Christian has been made into something new. Before she have even tried to live well, before she has even labored as a disciple, the marred and muddied scene of her hearts has been made clean and new. The Father has handed us the masterpiece of his Son and told us that when He looks at us He sees perfection.

Though I stand amazed at this grace, it is also easy for me to stumble at the thought of it. I imagine God handing me a clean paper and asking me to hold it in a world full of ink and dirt. And I immediately wish I would have been more careful. I picture the white page given to me and think of all of the smudges and eraser marks I’ve added to it, some of them from lessons learned the hard way, others merely from bumping into life as I walk along.

If truth be told, life is far messier than we would like it to be. People get angry and depressed and sick. We struggle with remaining hopeful in the dark and seeing through bouts of self-deception. Our lives don’t turn out how we planned them, and the roads we choose aren’t as straight as we would like them to be. Even so, the Christian’s hope is that God is faithful through the mess. “For we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28).

Someone has called Beethoven’s masterpieces works of “three-dimensional” art. There is a texture and a character to his manuscripts that display an artist who went beyond merely writing the notes, but stretched himself, and the page itself, to make a symphony. All the more, life in Christ is fleshed out of us. Our scuffs and blotches are wrought with the work of one who descends into the mess of life to shape us. Like a composer willing to labor over his pages, the potter’s hands are not afraid to get dirty. Our lives, which may be glued with corrections and shaped with notations, can be marked with the signs of the master ever at work.

Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

 Morning “He arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that meat forty

days and forty nights.” / 1 Kings 19:8

 All the strength supplied to us by our gracious God is meant for service, not

for wantonness or boasting. When the prophet Elijah found the cake baked on

the coals, and the cruse of water placed at his head, as he lay under the

juniper tree, he was no gentleman to be gratified with dainty fare that he

might stretch himself at his ease; far otherwise, he was commissioned to go

forty days and forty nights in the strength of it, journeying towards Horeb,

the mount of God. When the Master invited the disciples to “Come and dine”

with him, after the feast was concluded he said to Peter, “Feed my sheep”;

further adding, “Follow me.” Even thus it is with us; we eat the bread of

heaven, that we may expend our strength in the Master’s service. We come to

the passover, and eat of the paschal lamb with loins girt, and staff in hand,

so as to start off at once when we have satisfied our hunger. Some Christians

are for living on Christ, but are not so anxious to live for Christ. Earth

should be a preparation for heaven; and heaven is the place where saints feast

most and work most. They sit down at the table of our Lord, and they serve him

day and night in his temple. They eat of heavenly food and render perfect

service. Believer, in the strength you daily gain from Christ labour for him.

Some of us have yet to learn much concerning the design of our Lord in giving

us his grace. We are not to retain the precious grains of truth as the

Egyptian mummy held the wheat for ages, without giving it an opportunity to

grow: we must sow it and water it. Why does the Lord send down the rain upon

the thirsty earth, and give the genial sunshine? Is it not that these may all

help the fruits of the earth to yield food for man? Even so the Lord feeds and

refreshes our souls that we may afterwards use our renewed strength in the

promotion of his glory.

 

Evening “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved.” / Mark 16:16

 Mr. MacDonald asked the inhabitants of the island of St. Kilda how a man must

be saved. An old man replied, “We shall be saved if we repent, and forsake our

sins, and turn to God.” “Yes,” said a middle-aged female, “and with a true

heart too.” “Aye,” rejoined a third, “and with prayer”; and, added a fourth,

“It must be the prayer of the heart.” “And we must be diligent too,” said a

fifth, “in keeping the commandments.” Thus, each having contributed his mite,

feeling that a very decent creed had been made up, they all looked and

listened for the preacher’s approbation, but they had aroused his deepest

pity. The carnal mind always maps out for itself a way in which self can work

and become great, but the Lord’s way is quite the reverse. Believing and being

baptized are no matters of merit to be gloried in–they are so simple that

boasting is excluded, and free grace bears the palm. It may be that the reader

is unsaved–what is the reason? Do you think the way of salvation as laid down

in the text to be dubious? How can that be when God has pledged his own word

for its certainty? Do you think it too easy? Why, then, do you not attend to

it? Its ease leaves those without excuse who neglect it. To believe is simply

to trust, to depend, to rely upon Christ Jesus. To be baptized is to submit to

the ordinance which our Lord fulfilled at Jordan, to which the converted ones

submitted at Pentecost, to which the jailer yielded obedience the very night

of his conversion. The outward sign saves not, but it sets forth to us our

death, burial, and resurrection with Jesus, and, like the Lord’s Supper, is

not to be neglected. Reader, do you believe in Jesus? Then, dear friend,

dismiss your fears, you shall be saved. Are you still an unbeliever, then

remember there is but one door, and if you will not enter by it you will

perish in your sins.

Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved.    Mark 16:16

 Mr. MacDonald asked the inhabitants of the island of St. Kilda how a man must be saved. An old man replied, “We will be saved if we repent and forsake our sins and turn to God.” “Yes,” said a middle-aged woman, “and with a true heart too.” “Yes,” rejoined a third, “and with prayer”; and a fourth added, “It must be the prayer of the heart.” “And we must be diligent too,” said a fifth, “in keeping the commandments.” When each of them made their contribution, feeling that a very decent creed had been made up, they all looked and listened for the preacher’s approval, but they had aroused his deepest pity.

The secular mind always maps out for itself a way in which self can work and become great, but the Lord’s way is quite the reverse. Believing and being baptized are not matters of merit to be gloried in—they are so simple that boasting is excluded. It may be that the reader is unsaved—what is the reason? Do you think the way of salvation as laid down in the text is dubious? How can that be when God has pledged His own word for its certainty? Do you think it too easy? Why, then, do you not obey it?

Those who neglect it are without excuse. To believe is simply to trust, to depend, to rely upon Christ Jesus. To be baptized is to submit to the ordinance that our Lord fulfilled at Jordan, to which the converted ones submitted at Pentecost, to which the jailer yielded obedience on the very night of his conversion. The outward sign does not save, but it portrays our death, burial, and resurrection with Jesus and, like the Lord’s Supper, is not to be neglected. Reader, do you believe in Jesus? Then, dear friend, dismiss your fears—you will be saved. Are you still an unbeliever? Then remember there is only one door, and if you will not enter by it you will perish in your sins.

Family Reading Plan  Ezekiel 38  Psalm 89