Morning, September 28
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Bible League: Living His Word
I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well.

What does the LORD want for us? What can we pray for with confidence that the LORD finds it to be an acceptable request? According to our verse for today, there are at least three items.

First, we may pray that someone's soul gets along well. The Apostle John's letter was written to a man named Gaius. Although John did not feel the need to pray for Gaius' soul, since it was apparently getting along well, we can see that it would be a legitimate request.

The soul or heart is the focal point of human existence, for everything we do flows from it (Proverbs 4:23). The soul of an individual person is getting along well when it is indwelt and directed by the Holy Spirit, as opposed to being directed by its own sinful spiritual state (Romans 8:9-10). One can legitimately pray, then, that the LORD would send the Holy Spirit to transform a person's life by indwelling them, filling them, leading them, inspiring them, and so on.

Second, we may pray for the good health of someone's body. In general, the LORD wants us to be healthy. Although there may be exceptional instances when the LORD allows sickness into our lives in order to fulfill some purpose of His, as was probably the case with the Apostle Paul's "thorn in the flesh" (II Corinthians 12:7-10), our verse makes it plain that it is appropriate to pray for good health. Indeed, one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit is the gift of healing (I Corinthians 12:9). It would not make much sense for the LORD to give this gift if He did not want people to be healed.

Finally, one may pray that everything goes well. The LORD not only wants us to be spiritually and physically well, He also wants everything we are involved with to go well. Again, although there may be times when the LORD allows things into our lives that we would rather not have, His general desire and purpose is for our overall well-being. In point of fact, a day is coming when everything will go well for us all the time.

When you think about it and add it all up, our verse for today is just one way of saying that we can pray about every area of our lives.

Bible in a Year
Old Testament Reading
Isaiah 13, 14, 15


Isaiah 13 -- Prophecies against Babylon

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Isaiah 14 -- God's Merciful Restoration of Israel; Judgment on Assyria and Philistia

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Isaiah 15 -- Judgment on Moab

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New Testament Reading
Galatians 6


Galatians 6 -- Bearing One Another's Burdens; Becoming a New Creation

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Reading Plan Courtesy of Christian Classics Etherial Library.
Tyndale Life Application Daily Devotion
These things happened to them as examples for us. They were written down to warn us who live at the end of the age.
Insight
Today's pressures make it easy to ignore or forget the lessons of the past. But Paul cautions us to remember the lessons the Israelites learned about God so we can avoid repeating their errors.
Challenge
The key to remembering is to study the Bible regularly so that these lessons remind us of how God wants us to live. We need not repeat their mistakes!
Morning and Evening by Spurgeon
Psalm 33:13  The Lord looketh from heaven; he beholdeth all the sons of men.

Perhaps no figure of speech represents God in a more gracious light than when he is spoken of as stooping from his throne, and coming down from heaven to attend to the wants and to behold the woes of mankind. We love him, who, when Sodom and Gomorrah were full of iniquity, would not destroy those cities until he had made a personal visitation of them. We cannot help pouring out our heart in affection for our Lord who inclines his ear from the highest glory, and puts it to the lip of the dying sinner, whose failing heart longs after reconciliation. How can we but love him when we know that he numbers the very hairs of our heads, marks our path, and orders our ways? Specially is this great truth brought near to our heart, when we recollect how attentive he is, not merely to the temporal interests of his creatures, but to their spiritual concerns. Though leagues of distance lie between the finite creature and the infinite Creator, yet there are links uniting both. When a tear is wept by thee, think not that God doth not behold; for, "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him." Thy sigh is able to move the heart of Jehovah; thy whisper can incline his ear unto thee; thy prayer can stay his hand; thy faith can move his arm. Think not that God sits on high taking no account of thee. Remember that however poor and needy thou art, yet the Lord thinketh upon thee. For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect towards him.

Oh! then repeat the truth that never tires;

No God is like the God my soul desires;

He at whose voice heaven trembles, even he,

Great as he is, knows how to stoop to me.

Daily Light on the Daily Path
Numbers 6:27  "So they shall invoke My name on the sons of Israel, and I then will bless them."

Isaiah 26:13  O LORD our God, other masters besides You have ruled us; But through You alone we confess Your name.

Isaiah 63:19  We have become like those over whom You have never ruled, Like those who were not called by Your name.

Deuteronomy 28:10  "So all the peoples of the earth will see that you are called by the name of the LORD, and they will be afraid of you.

1 Samuel 12:22  "For the LORD will not abandon His people on account of His great name, because the LORD has been pleased to make you a people for Himself.

Daniel 9:19  "O Lord, hear! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, listen and take action! For Your own sake, O my God, do not delay, because Your city and Your people are called by Your name."

Psalm 79:9,10  Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of Your name; And deliver us and forgive our sins for Your name's sake. • Why should the nations say, "Where is their God?" Let there be known among the nations in our sight, Vengeance for the blood of Your servants which has been shed.

Proverbs 18:10  The name of the LORD is a strong tower; The righteous runs into it and is safe.

New American Standard Bible Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation, La Habra, Calif. All rights reserved. For Permission to Quote Information visit http://www.lockman.org.

Evening September 27
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