Monday March 15 - Day 27

Seeking His Righteousness In Our Communities
Seek God…to intervene to bring forth justice.

“Oh Lord, reshape our minds to value Your goodness. Penetrate our hearts with Your compassion.”

So we express our faith by presenting the same appeals for justice before Your court, day after day.” Page 42.

Please look at the circle at the top of the page 42. Today is “day 2” of the theme “Seeking His Righteousness In Our Communities.” Please notice that the city in the circle is in darkness and the light is off to the side and partial. Each day the light moves to the center toward the top of the buildings and becomes brighter.

The lesson we can graphically see from this illustration is that one prayer on a topic most often is not enough. God is a God of persistence, and we are called to be like Him. Daniel prayed ‘through’ for 21 days and finally an angel from heaven arrived with his message. The angel messenger needed help from Michael, one of the chief princes. Daniel was participating in warfare in the heavens. (…Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth…) We are called to the same perseverance, day after day.

Another illustration of perseverance is found in II Kings 13:14:19. Elisha told King Joash to strike the ground with the arrows in his hand. The King struck the ground 3 times “and the man of God was angry with him.” “You should have struck the ground 5 or 6 times, then you would have struck Aram until you would have destroyed it.” (total victory)

Don’t hold back! Go for total victory in your prayer life! As the circle at the top of each illustrates, let us ‘strike the ground’ with the arrows of prayer that we hold in our heart and speak with our mouth….day after day until the picture the Lord has given us is clear, bright and complete.

Charles Daugherty
Serve The City

Monday, March 15 – Day 27

Seeking His Righteousness In Our Communities
Seek God…to intervene to bring forth justice

Day after day we see injustice; we hear injustice; we feel injustice. The sights and sounds of injustice flood our lives from every direction -coming from neighborhoods, family, work-places, radio, TV...... Sometimes before I get too anxious about it all, I know I just need to turn off the TV and instead re-focus myself on who God is. He is the God of justice. His Word says so. His promises are true. His character shows it and His love reassures us that at some point His justice will be done in every situation. "Vengeance is mine...says the Lord" (Hebrews 10:30). Even as we see people continue their wicked ways in cauldrons of evil, we know that at the end of their days they will have to stand before a righteous, holy Judge (God) and give account for their lives. .....talk about having a bad day!

But in the meantime - I can, you can, as a community of believers we can cry out to God Almighty for Him to break the schemes of the enemy and overthrow evil. We can know that we are heard when we appeal to the Lord for His goodness and His love to intervene in our city, our courts and our legislatures. There is no God like our God. He is worthy to be praised.

Tawnya Gardener
The Salvation Army