know Christ – Page 3

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Limited by his humanity, Jesus was still able to expand the kingdom of God

When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.”

Reflect:

Jesus “was amazed.” I read those words and I’m a bit amazed myself. The word “amazed” has connotations of surprise or even shock. How can Jesus Christ, who is the Creator of all the universe, be surprised? How can He who knows all things be shocked?

The ESV says Jesus “marvelled,” which implies he felt a combination of admiration and astonishment. How can the Sovereign God be astonished? What has the Almighty LORD to admire?

I think the key to understanding this statement is to realise that Jesus was both divine and human. His humanity brought limitations upon his divinity. As Philippians 2:7 says of Christ Jesus, “he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.” Jesus’ human brain, with its finite number of neutrons, was unable to know all things. This was a temporary limitation due to his incarnation.

Crucially, it was the limitation of his divinity brought on by his incarnation that also ultimately enabled Jesus, the God-Man, to die.

Jesus was unable to know the centurion’s thoughts, and so Jesus was capable of being amazed by his faith. Yet Jesus still knew the plan of God to bring other Gentiles (as well as this one) from the east and the west into his kingdom, into the family of Abraham, and declared it in advance.

crux:

Limited by his humanity, Jesus was still able to expand the kingdom of God.

Respond:

LORD God Almighty,

You are Almighty, all-powerful, Sovereign, omniscient. Yet your Son chose to humble himself, submitting to the limitations of human life in order to expand the bounds of his kingdom to all who have faith in him.

Thank you for the centurion’s faith in Jesus. May he continue to glorify your Name to all who read his story in Scripture.

Thank you for my faith in Jesus, for my husband’s faith in Jesus. Thank you for enabling us to hear the gospel at that long ago Alpha course, for removing the veil from our eyes so we would believe in Jesus as our Saviour. Thank you for bidding us come from the east into Jesus’ kingdom, to take our place at the banqueting table with the patriarchs of our faith.

Please grant this same amazing faith to our children, to our parents, and to the rest of our relatives. Please grant this marvellous faith to the adults and children who attend our church and to all in our local community. Reveal yourself to them that they may come from east and west to your celebratory feast. LORD, I pray especially for the people of the townships of T to our east and F to our west. Please grant that they may come and hear the good news of Jesus Christ, Lord and Saviour, and they will be welcomed into your kingdom. May our church be faithful in proclaiming his Name. May our faith in Jesus amaze all who witness it.

Make them come, LORD.

Amen.

Authority

The Father has authority over the Son and both have authority over me

Read: Matthew 4

Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendour. “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”
Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’ ” (Matthew 4:8-10)

Reflect:

The devil is also called “the tempter” (4:3) and “Satan” which means “the accuser” (4:10) in this chapter.

Jesus was tempted because, led by the Spirit (4:1) he made himself vulnerable to temptation. But Jesus did not give in to the temptation because he was equipped to repudiate the tempter. Jesus knew Scripture and was able to use it as a sword (Ephesians 6:17) against the devil, remaining sinless.

In his third attempt to tempt Jesus, the devil offered all the kingdoms of the world to Jesus if only Jesus would worship the devil. There is great irony in Satan’s presumption in attempting to barter worldly kingdoms with God’s anointed king, the King of all kings. It was a bit like the tenant of a house offering to give the house to its legal owner for the price of an entire town’s worth of houses.

Satan does have power in the world today. John wrote “we know that the whole world is under the control of the evil one” (1 John 5:19). But even if the devil does have power at present, this power is temporary. He is only a tenant, not the true owner. Satan’s power and authority is limited.

But the devil has no authority at all over Jesus. Jesus knew the only entity with greater authority than himself was his Father in heaven. He deferred to the Father’s authority when he used Scripture as the basis for rejecting Satan’s scheme. In contrast to the

Satan uses this same method to tempt today, just as he also did in the time of Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:1-5). He makes false promises and tricks people into thinking his way will yield power, but he only offers slavery. Like Jesus, I must “not give the devil a foothold” (Ephesians 4:27).

crux:

The Father has authority over the Son and both have authority over me.

Respond:

LORD God Almighty,

You are Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, the Almighty.

You have power to rebuke the devil so I do not need to fear his schemes. Please continue to protect me because I belong to you; Jesus has redeemed me from the devil’s slavery.

Please help me to submit to your authority. May I know your word. May your Spirit guide me to know how Scripture applies to my situation.

Be my Rabbi, my Teacher. Show me yourself and inspire me to worship you. How could I not worship you, when you are so great? LORD, help me to surrender to your authority.

May I be willing and eager to walk in your ways, to follow Christ, to be led by the Spirit. Soften my heart to you and take my pride. Open my ears to you, and shut down the voice of the devil. Open my eyes to your glory, and blind me to the tempter’s lures. May I be wholly yours.

Amen.

Details

What the LORD said through the prophets was fulfilled in Jesus Christ

Read: Matthew 2

“In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written.” (Matthew 2:5)

And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called my son.” (Matthew 2:15b)

Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled. (Matthew 2:17)

And he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets, that he would be called a Nazarene. (Matthew 2:23)

Reflect:

It can be hard to re-read such a familiar passage in the Bible carefully, without my attention drifting. But when I think of the author of this gospel, Matthew (the disciple also known as Levi, who had once been a tax collector), I realise that this was a man who paid very close attention to his Rabbi’s story.

Matthew had the skills and talents necessary for being a tax collector: he could pay attention to fine detail, he could remember facts and analyse interconnections. He must have had an analytical brain, must have thrived on minutiae, or at least so it seems from his writing.

For Matthew, the most important details of Jesus’ birth and babyhood are found in the connection between the events themselves and Old Testament prophecies. Matthew finds four occasions in Jesus’ early life, five if I count the “virgin will conceive” reference (2:22-23), where the prophets predicted what Jesus’ life fulfilled. And it is not as if Baby Jesus could exert control over any of these events from the womb or his mother’s arms. The prophets’ words all came true by the sovereign will of the Father.

Isaiah, Micah, Hosea and Jeremiah spoke as the LORD spoke through them. They spoke (unknowingly) of Jesus.

Crux:

What the LORD said through the prophets was fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

Respond:

LORD God Almighty,

You are Sovereign: You make plans, you speak promises; you bring your plans to fruition and your promises to fulfilment. You are the Omnipotent God.

Thank you for your promises through the prophets that help me to see your plan and recognise your Son. Thank you for gifting Matthew with the talents and skills necessary to chronicle Jesus’ life and ministry. Thank you for equipping him to research and record the ways and occasions Jesus fulfilled the prophets’ words. Thank you for revealing yourself in the words of the prophets, in the words of Matthew, and in your Word, Jesus Christ.

Thank you for the skills and talents you have given to me. May I be faithful in using them to proclaim your glory, the glory of your Son. May I know the truth of your word as well as the details of your word, and be confident and capable to share this truth in speech and in writing. May I be faithful in obedience to your word so you are glorified by my words.

May you bless everyone who hears or reads my words with a better knowledge of you and a deeper love for you, for your glory.

Amen.

Kin

The family history of Jesus Christ was the handiwork of God

Read: Matthew 1

Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab,
Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth,
Obed the father of Jesse,
and Jesse the father of King David. (Matthew 1:5-6a)

Respond:

Matthew 1 tells two stories of kinship. The second is most familiar, from the Christmas nativity stories I sing in carols and read in cards. This version – and I’m paraphrasing here – gets the headline: “Pregnant Mary in disgrace almost gets dumped by her fiancé Joseph before angelic messenger intervenes.” So the basic facts of Virgin Mary, Faithful Joseph and Baby Jesus/Immanuel are well known.

The earlier kinship story in Matthew 1 is actually a multitude of stories. These stories are less well known, but they still interest me, especially the verses I’ve quoted above. Matthew edits and crops Jesus’ genealogy here, truncating roughly 300 years of history into two lines. (So Rahab and Naomi were not contemporaries.)

Boaz married Ruth, acting as kinsman-redeemer to Naomi’s foreign daughter-in-law, and they had a bouncing baby boy, Obed. This is the story from the book of Ruth in the Old Testament, just after the book of Judges. One key moment in this story occurs when widowed Ruth tells her bitter, also-widowed mother-in-law Naomi, “Your God will be my God.” By herself, Naomi has nothing to offer Ruth; but Naomi’s God is the Lord of All.

The previous line, however, tells a rather different story, which has to be pieced together from events in the beginning of the book of Joshua: It stars Salmon, valiant man of Judah, one of the invading, immigrating swarm of Israelites led by General Joshua. In a surprise move, Salmon marries Rahab of Jericho, a woman whose murky past life is now buried in the rubble that is all that remains of her city’s wall. Was Salmon one of the spies, who earlier hid on Rahab’s roof at the top of that wall? How did they deal with a cross-cultural marriage as Israel grew more and more powerful within the promised land and overthrew other cities and cultures? I don’t know, but I wonder. One thing of which I am sure: it was God who made a way for these two people to meet and marry across a cultural and religious divide, by opening Rahab’s eyes to his glory.

Crux:

The family history of Jesus Christ was no accident; it was the handiwork of God.

Respond:

LORD God Almighty,

Father in heaven, you are sovereign over births, deaths and marriages.

You intervened when Rahab needed your help to begin a new life with the people of Israel, when she placed her trust in the God she had only heard about through gossip of plagues and miracles.

You interceded when Ruth needed your help, when she was living as a destitute widow among her mother-in-law’s people, determined to surrender to her mother-in-law’s God.

You involved yourself in Mary and Joseph’s lives when their relationship was on the rocks as they both struggled to live faithfully to you and your plans.

LORD, intervene in my life too. Mould me into a woman whose faith in you is unshakable even in terrible times, because I have witnessed your work in my life, in my family, in my church, in my community, in the pages of my Bible. Build me up in Christ, I pray.

Amen.

Running

Christianity is defined by Christ, not by any human government

Read: 2 John

Watch out that you do not lose what we have worked for, but that you may be rewarded fully. Anyone who runs ahead and does not continue in the teaching of Christ does not have God; whoever continues in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. (2 John 1:8-9)

Reflect:

Today, just after I read 2 John, my husband told me that the ABC has just reported that China has blocked the sale of Bibles – from online stores at least – since Easter Friday, 30 March 2018. It is no longer possible for a Chinese person in China to purchase a Bible in the Chinese language online.

This is both censorship and religious persecution, the preventing of people from freely pursuing their choice of religion. I shouldn’t be surprised. Just yesterday I read in 1 John 5:19, that “the whole world is under the control of the evil one”.

What are the Chinese losing through this heinous act of their government? They are losing access to the revelation of God, the teachings of Christ.

How may Chinese Christians continue in Christ’s teaching if they cannot read it? Only God can make a way, through his Spirit.

The ABC reports that “the most common interpretation” of this pulling of Bibles from online stores is that “it would be replaced with a state-revised edition.” A Chinese government document recently released was quoted as saying the Chinese will ‘enhance’ “Chinese-style Christianity and theology.” From the ABC News article:

According to an official document released by China’s State Administration for Religious Affairs, one of the biggest tasks in the coming years is to enhance “Chinese-style Christianity and theology” by reinterpreting and retranslating the Bible.

The document, titled Principle for Promoting the Chinese Christianity in China for the Next Five Years (2018-2022), was formally launched in Nanjing in eastern China on March 28. Some social media users said Bibles started coming down from the websites on March 30. (abc.net.au)

There is no such thing as Chinese Christianity, just as there is no such thing as Australian Christianity. Christianity is not defined by the nationality of its adherents, but by Christ, our King. Christianity is not white or black or brown, not eastern or western or even Middle Eastern. Whatever the Chinese government publishes and ‘enhances’, they are merely “running ahead” (to use John’s words), not keeping to the truth.

And it is the truth of Christ that sets us free. But perhaps that is exactly what the Chinese government fears. Perhaps the truth of Jesus Christ has the Chinese government on the run.

Crux:

Christianity is defined by Christ our King, not by any human government.

Respond:

LORD God Almighty,

I am heavy hearted as I pray tonight. I fear for what this political decision means for Christians in China. Will the government try to force Chinese Christians to accept the very antichrists that John warned his readers to avoid (1:7)?

LORD, Give them strength. Make their faith powerful as your mighty power. Help them to keep access to your Scripture, your Word, the Bible, in their own language. May they know the truth about Jesus and not be confused by propaganda of a socialist Chinese-ified version that has no glimmer of your glory.

May people in China find your word freely available once again.

LORD, please make my country’s politicians speak up against this censorship and religious persecution. May our politicians be open in their condemnation of this act by the Chinese government.

And may more people in China and in every country read the Bible and meet Jesus Christ on its pages, starting today.

Amen.

Know

As a child of God, I know the Father through his Son

Read: 1 John 5:13-21

We know that we are the children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one. We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true by being in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.
Dear children, keep yourselves from idols. (1 John 5:19-21)

Reflect:

These are the facts of the matter, according to John: We know that we are children of God, “born of God” (5:18); yet the world we live in is (temporarily) under Satan’s power and influence. We will always live in tension, at odds with the world around us, because we belong to God and are kept safe by him, yet our surroundings and our non-Christian peers are in bondage to God’s enemy, suffering under evil’s control.

Furthermore, we know that Jesus Christ the Son of God has come. He has opened and renewed our minds so that we may understand Him Who is True, God himself (as far as limited human minds may understand such a glorious, infinite being).

The Son has come in the flesh and through him we comprehend the Father, in the same way as meeting my eldest son and observing his antics would enable someone to understand my husband’s personality and preferences.

We know God, therefore John instructs us to keep ourselves from idols; from false gods and from lies about God.

Crux:

As a child of God, I know the Father through his Son.

Respond:

LORD God Almighty,

You are true. There is no lie or falsehood in you. You are genuine, authentic, original, unique. You are the real deal: a god who is The God, the one and only God – not an idol, not a mirage. You are the only true God. I worship you.

Please keep me from idols, LORD. May I keep learning about you from your Son. May I understand you better as I learn about your Son. May I be strong in faith to stand firm and withstand the lies of the evil one who has control of the world at this present time.

May I be strong in faith to run away from idolatry, to pursue you and a closer relationship with you rather than seeking the cold comfort of the accuser. May I study diligently your word, reading all you reveal to me in it. May I not be distracted by false gods, false promises, false hopes.

May you be my all in all.

Amen.

Son

God sent his only Son because only his Son could be our Saviour

Read: 1 John 4:7-21

This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. (1 John 4:9)

This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Saviour of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. (1 John 4:13-15)

Reflect:

This Easter Sunday I rejoice once again that God sent his one and only Son, Jesus Christ, into the world. God did this as a demonstration of his love whereby he ensured that I may live through Christ. Hallelujah! What a Saviour!

I celebrate once again that I have the assurance of the Spirit within me, by which I testify, together with John, that Jesus is the Son of God. Jesus is divine, an inseparable member of the Trinity, God himself, Immanuel.

Jesus was not some sleight-of-hand magician, not some Vegas-Style-hypnotist, not a circus show freak. Nor was Jesus merely a man like any other. Jesus was and is and ever will be the one and only Son of God.

God sent his only Son to us because only God could open the way to eternal life. Only God would demonstrate true love on a cross. For this end, God would love us by living with us and for us, by rising again to life.

Crux:

God sent his only Son because only his Son could be our Saviour.

Respond:

LORD God Almighty,

You are the Holy Creator, utterly different to your sin-stained creation. Yet you sent your Son, your very own Son, your one and only Son – essence of your essence – into the world to be our Saviour, so we may live just as he was raised to life.

This is such good news, such glorious news! Thank you.

Thank you for a Saviour who is perfect in every way, who demonstrated divinity to us, dwelling among people yet not just a person.

Thank you for a Saviour who is kind, gentle, compassionate, just, wrathful, deeply grieved by sin and its effects.

Thank you for a Saviour who knows me, sees me, hears me, cares for me and reaches out for me, walks with me.

Thank you for my Saviour, Jesus Christ, your one and only Son.

Amen.

Flesh

Jesus Christ came in the flesh so his flesh could die for my sins

Read: 1 John 4:1-6

This is how you can recognise the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. (1 John 4:2)

Reflect:

This Easter Friday, it is good for me to reflect upon what it means that “Jesus Christ has come in the flesh.” Later on, John commends the divinity of God to his readers as a crucial doctrine (4:15), but here John is emphasising Jesus’ humanity.

Jesus is not solely the Son of God, he is also a Man, enfleshed. This duality of nature is the doctrine of Two Natures. So why should believing this doctrine be a defining mark of Christians?

Jesus Christ has come in the flesh: we no longer wait (as contemporary Jews still do) for a Messiah. We have one – he has come and he has died on a cross.

Jesus Christ has come in the flesh: he was subject to suffering and temptations just as I am, yet he never sinned. Jesus died sinless and innocent, the perfect, blemish-free sacrifice for sins.

Jesus Christ has come in the flesh: he is truly human so his death for my sins is a true one-to-one correspondence for the death I should have died for my sins. He came in flesh so he could truly take my place and carry my burden.

Jesus Christ has come in the flesh: his death was a real death, not some mystical or metaphorical experience, but a real loss of life. He took his last breath, his heart stopped beating, his blood began to coagulate and separate into red blood and plasma. He was really alive with a human body, and really dead with a human corpse.

Jesus Christ has come in the flesh: able to bear my sins in his body on the cross.

Crux:

Jesus Christ came in the flesh so his flesh could die for my sins.

Respond:

LORD God Almighty,

It’s Easter Friday and you know I was half-expecting the Bible passage I read today to providentially refer directly to Jesus’ death on the cross. I was almost surprised when it didn’t. (You know you’ve stunned me with the timeliness of my Bible reading before.) Yet I don’t feel compelled to read on right now, there’s so much meat here for me (oops, seriously, that was an unintended pun, God).

LORD, I can’t get my head around the fact that Jesus Christ, true God of true God, came in the flesh. Yet I know it is a fact. Jesus Christ was always true God; he was and now is and always will be true man as well. How this might be, I do not know, but I do know that it is true: Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. He came in the flesh to die for me and for all who believe in him.

You know this is a sticking point, a stumbling block, for my father. He doesn’t believe that One who is God could also die as a man. Please help him to accept this truth, LORD. Grant him your Spirit, the Spirit of truth, so that his spirit will acknowledge Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. Please do not let him listen any more to the spirit of the antichrist, the spirit of falsehood. Save him, LORD, as you have saved me, by the death of your Son, Jesus Christ, who has come in the flesh.

Amen.

Rest

God is great and the good news about his Son gives rest to my heart

Read: 1 John 3:19-24

This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. (1 John 3:19-20)

And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. (1 John 3:23)

Reflect:

This passage answers some of the questions raised earlier in verses 6 and 9 of this chapter, which say that Christians stop sinning. According to John, if my heart feels guilty, then my feeling shall be corrected by my mind, which knows that God is greater than my heart, greater than my shame.

I stop sinning because Jesus has taken away my sin (3:5). Jesus did this by fulfilling the law; not abolishing it (Matthew 5:17), but refining and redefining it in himself.

Jesus said the whole law is summed up in two commands: to love God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength; and to love my neighbour as I love myself (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:29-31). Now John reframes this summation of the law. John says, paraphrasing Jesus (John 6:29), that God’s commands are two-fold: to believe in the name of God’s Son, Jesus Christ and to love one another.

If I consider the parallels between these two two-fold summations of the law, I can see how the second interprets the first. John’s “one another” defines Jesus’ “neighbour” as fellow believers, I think, based on John’s previous use (3:10, 3:16) of “brother and sister”. (Which doesn’t mean that Christians should not love non-Christians, merely that this love is not a primary command.)

Likewise, “believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ” clarifies what it means to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength. We love God primarily by believing in His Son.

And when I believe in God’s Son Jesus, I know that God is greater than me and he has sent his Son to take away my sin. I stop sinning because my sin is no more – abolished not by the abolishing of the law, but by its fulfilment by Jesus Christ. Sin is lawlessness (3:4) and since the law is fulfilled in Christ and through my belief in him, there can be no more lawlessness in me, no more sin in me.

Aaah! Now my heart is free to rest.

Crux:

God is great and the good news about his Son gives rest to my heart.

Respond:

LORD God Almighty,

Great is your name; great is your glory.
You are greater than me; greater than the condemnation of my heart within me; greater than anything I can conceive or imagine; greater than infinity.
You are greatly to be praised.

I believe in the name of your only Son, Jesus Christ, my Lord.

I believe that somehow you, who are more-than-infinite, became less, lowly, a human infant born of the virgin Mary, conceived by your Holy Spirit’s essence.

I believe that Jesus suffered cruelly according to the decision of Pontius Pilate. I believe Jesus was crucified on a Roman cross; that he died there at Golgotha, the place of the skull. I celebrate this as Easter Friday.

I believe that the body of Jesus was buried in a fresh grave by those who sought to honour him.

And I believe that Jesus rose again to life on the third day, which I celebrate as Easter Sunday.

I believe that Jesus was seen alive by honest eyewitnesses before he ascended to heaven, to the God-realm. I believe Jesus is sitting even now at your right hand. I believe that one day Jesus will return to earth to judge all people, including those who have already died and those still alive on that day.

I believe, LORD. Please deepen my belief in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Remain

I remain in Christ because I remember the Christian gospel

Read: 1 John 2:24-28

As for you, see that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. And this is what he promised us: eternal life. (1 John 2:24-25)

Reflect:

John gives a direct command here to his readers. He tells me I must ensure that what I “have heard from the beginning” stays in me. I am responsible.

What is this message that reached my ears? It is the gospel, the good news.

In words of one syllable, it is this: Christ died to save me from my sins so that I may be right with God.

The Big Words version: The gospel of salvation told me that the forgiveness of my sins (justification) and imparting of Christ’s righteousness (imputation) was made possible by God’s free gift (grace) to me, through my faith in the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ in my place (substitution), which turned away God’s wrath (propitiation).

So how do I ensure that this message “remains in me”?

I study and learn more about this gospel message (so I understand all those Big Words that End in SHUN). I read the Bible closely and see Christ’s death on my behalf portrayed throughout its pages. I partake in Holy Communion. I celebrate Easter, gathering with my local church body. I talk about the gospel with my husband, my children, my fellow believers, my co-workers, my friends. Through prayer, I talk about the gospel with my God.

I take responsibility for loving God with all my mind and soul as well as with all my heart and strength.

Blessedly, all this learning, remembering, celebrating, meditating and talking has a flow-on effect, according to John: it ensures that I stay in Christ and in the Father. Christ promised me eternal life, and I have it now as I remain in him.

Crux:

I remain in Christ because I remember the Christian gospel.

Respond:

LORD God Almighty,

May your name be praised in all the world.

You saw my horrible sin and were justly angry at me. Yet you expended your wrath not on me but on the body of your Son, Jesus Christ, as he hung crucified, bearing my sin and shame in his body.

You are just – terribly, fearfully just.
You are merciful – wonderfully, generously merciful.

You are Sovereign, Saviour and Spirit, Three in One, the Holy One.

I acknowledge you. May I always remain in you, and in so-doing enjoy eternal life.

Thank you for this eternal life which you have birthed in me through the hearing of the gospel and faith in your Son. Keep me in your Son always, eternally alive because I am eternally in him who grants me life.

May I continue to live in Christ, so I may be confident and unashamed – confident in Christ’s sacrifice and unashamed with Christ’s righteousness – before Jesus when he comes.

Amen.