Thank you, Lord, for your rest. I take your yoke upon me and learn from you, for you are meek and lowly, and I find rest for my soul; for your yoke is easy and your burden is light .

I abide in you and your word abides in me. I keep your word in front of me. I watch your word like I would watch a channel marker. I live in the love you have for me -filled and anointed, guarded and guided.   Your joy is in me and I am full of the joy of the Lord. Thank you, Lord, that you chose me and appointed me that I should go and bear fruit; fruit that would last.

Thank you, father, for the gift of the Holy Spirit, the spirit of truth, who proceeds from the father and bears witness about my Lord Jesus, and guides me into all truth. The Spirit of God declares things to come and glorifies the Lord Jesus and fills me with righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.

Lord Jesus, I believe and I worship you as the Messiah. I have been bought by you. I am no longer my own. I belong to you. I hear your voice and I follow you.  You are my shepherd and I want for nothing. Your rod and your staff they comfort me. You anoint my head with oil. My cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy follow me all the days of my life and I dwell in the house of God forever.

Ed’s opinion: I don’t know a lot about God. I can’t explain him or answer all the questions about how or why, but one thing I know is that, “though I was blind, now I see”. God has done something in me and I am thankful for that. By god’s grace and through his power, presence, and his word, my mind has been renewed and I have been transformed.

All the promises of God find their “yes “in Christ. God the father calls me to Jesus as my savior and lord, and by the father’s grace I am established, anointed, sealed and filled with God the Spirit. The spirit testifies to me that I am in Christ and if in Christ, then in Christ forever, maybe some days not perfectly but over time purposefully.

Thank you, Lord, for your salvation. Thank you for your presence with me now and from before the foundation of the world. I bow before you as Lord of heaven and earth.    I don’t understand or know  all the “how’s”,  but I believe your word and I have seen your hand in my life. In so many ways your spirit has testified to my spirit. Thank you for giving me a measure of faith and for encouraging and enabling me to believe.

ed opinion:  we must have correct knowledge of our father God as well as a zeal for him. We must come to know and understand and submit to God’s righteousness.

God’s word (with some paraphrasing): for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. Righteousness based on faith says, “don’t look for Christ up there or down there, but realize that Christ is as near you as the word”.  He should be on your lips and in your heart.  Confess with your mouth your lord Jesus’s words and believe in your heart that God, your father, raised him from the dead, and you are saved.  With your heart you believe and are justified, and with your mouth you agree with what your Lord says. Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame; for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Believe that Jesus is the Messiah.

God is for me, who can be against me? Will he not with Christ graciously give me all things?  It is God who justifies; who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who is interceding for me.

Who can separate me from the love of Christ? Tribulation, distress, persecution, or famine, nakedness, danger, sword?  No, in all these things I am more than a conqueror through Christ who loves me. I am sure neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate me  from the love of God in Christ Jesus my Lord.

“This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood. “Luke 22:20

“I will make with them an everlasting covenant; that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me. “Jeremiah 32:40

I, by God’s grace and proclamation will not turn away from God. Christ sealed the covenant with his blood. He purchased my perseverance. Jesus bought my perseverance.

God the spirit works in me what God the son obtained for me. The father planned that I would endure, the son bought it, and the spirit applies it. All of them infallibly!

(note: I believe some of these statements are quotes from John MacArthur)

God is totally committed to my eternal security. “He leads me in paths of righteousness, for his name’s sake. ”

By the Spirit of God in me I put to death the deeds of the body and I live.  All who are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God. I have received the Spirit of adoption as a son, by which I cry Abba, Father.  The Spirit himself bears witness with my spirit that I am a child of God, and if a child, then an heir, heir of God and fellow heir with Christ provided I suffer with him in order that I may also be glorified with him.

The suffering of this present time is not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed in me. The whole creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. The Spirit of God helps me. The spirit intercedes for the Saints according to the will of God. I know that all things work  for my good because I love God and I’m called according to his purpose. I am predestined to be conformed to the image of God’s son in order that he may be the firstborn among many brothers.

I want to talk for a moment about something that I call our “stuff”. By our stuff I mean the various arguments and opinions and beliefs and practices that we hold in our mind.  If these are negative thought patterns, I believe the Bible calls these areas of our mind strongholds or arguments or lofty opinions or pretensions or high places . II Corinthians 10:3-5

In the context of this post, I’m talking about those beliefs we have that are negative in nature. My definition for negative would mean anything that causes us to think or believe things that disagree with God.

It seems that often to compensate for something we think we are lacking, or because of some mistreatment or perceived mistreatment, we build up a story offense, a reason to be angry or hurt; bitterness, hatred, sourness, etc. often result.  Here is how one woman described that type of mindset becoming a part of her thinking and ultimately her character and her personality:  “She (my grandmother)  infected my mother with this violent acrimony, and I, the grand child, also became horribly contaminated by it.  It is as if a venomous liturgy were composed among us, and we recited it day after day, religiously. It became to us larger than the real world. Our entire focus is upon the bitterness and anger felt toward the perpetrator and any associated things.”

I believe the quotation stated above describes one way that strongholds are planted in our mind. They are put there liturgically when a story of offensive treatment is steadily repeated.  I believe these liturgically planted  thought bases become a strong hold in us where all the bitter thoughts and conclusions can remain secure and festering in us and then sally forth from time to time to cause us to react in the flesh and tear and wound our relationships.

They are liturgically planted and they can be overwhelmed (made to obey Jesus words) by liturgically planting the word of God in our mind.  The word of God brings life and the light to our thinking and ultimately to our feelings.