We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of His will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives. Col. 1:9
Something about the start of the New Year makes us all want to live this year better than the last. We make resolutions. We start new disciplines. It feels like striving to do more and be better. Honestly, all of that sounds exhausting.
What if instead of trying to improve, this year we turned our hearts toward God and allowed God to do what only God can do: transform us to be more like Him? It won’t be a perfect or quick process. There will be ups and downs. But what a year it would be if our focus wasn’t on doing more but on receiving more.
These are personalized, paraphrased scriptures prayers from Colossians 1:9-14. As you pray, notice God’s part is to fill, strengthen, qualify, redeem, and forgive. Our part is to respond to Him.
Father,
This year continually fill me with the knowledge of Your will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives so that I may live a life worthy of the Lord and please You in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God.
Strengthen me with all power according to Your glorious might so I may have great endurance and patience. I will give thanks to You, Father. You have qualified me to share in the inheritance of Your holy people in the kingdom of light.
You have rescued me from the dominion of darkness and brought me into the kingdom of the Son You love, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Today, by Your Spirit, I choose to receive everything You have for me and be transformed by it. I want to strive less and rest in the fullness of my inheritance in Christ more.
by Sylvia Gunter
used by permission
© 2024 Sylvia Gunter. Taken from Strength To Equal Your Days: A Year of Prayers and Blessings. An archive of past devotionals is available at www.thefathersbusiness.com
FURTHER READING
- Renewed and Revitalized – A Devotional by Terry Stead
- A Resolution Worth Keeping – New Year Devotional by Jon Walker
- Down the Road – a Poem for the New Year
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