40 Days of Prayer and Fasting 2006 - Day 12

Focus: The Hope that Perseveres
By Ken Payne, Anastasis

Scripture Reference:

‘Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance , character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given to us' (Romans 5:3-5)

Devotional:

Disappointment is a part of life. We can become disappointed with ourselves, with others and even with God. God will never disappoint us and the hope we have in Jesus Christ is a certain and definite future with God beyond this life in heaven. Women and men of faith, as recorded in Hebrews 11, persevered with faith and died before seeing the ultimate fulfillment of God’s promise to them. So, in this life, we also will need to persevere with faith through our
disappointments with self and with others, through personal failures, or when old temptations we thought we had conquered revive with us.

We will sometimes have to begin again . . . begin again with God, returning to him with repentance and trust in Jesus, receiving once more the love, forgiveness and grace of our heavenly Father. Then we must move forward and perhaps begin again with that person, that relationship, that situation or that ministry.

Alexander Whyte would often use these words: “The perseverance of the saints is made up of ever new beginnings.” I also like these words from a poem by A.A.Procter:
“No star is ever lost we once have seen:
We always may be what we might have been.”

By the grace of God we can begin again and again and again, and, when our hearts desire is to truly follow Jesus, each new beginning moves us forward in growth and maturity, and we grow more like Jesus. “Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Saviour and my God.” (Psalm 42:10).

Prayer Points:
· Praise and thank God for his grace and steadfast love towards us.

· Seek once again the forgiveness of God through Jesus Christ . . . forgiveness when “I have assessed the faults of others as worse than my own without due thought to my own privileges and without knowledge of their hard way.”

· Bring disappointments to the throne of grace.

· Pray for those who struggle with persecution and suffering every day of their lives in Christ; that God will sustain them and that they will be renewed in perseverance and hope.