Thank you, God my father, that you work in me, both to will and to work for your good pleasure. By the works of the law no one is justified, but by God’s grace I died to the law so that I might live to God.  I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me. The life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

What God has begun in me with his spirit, he will finish in me by his spirit. The righteous live by faith. Jesus, the Christ, redeemed me from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for me, so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to me, so that I would receive the promised Holy Spirit through faith.  For in Christ Jesus, I am a son of God through faith. I was baptized into Christ. I have put on Christ. I am one with Christ.

Today I prepare my mind for action. I am sober minded. I set my hope fully on the grace that is brought to me today by the revelation of Jesus Christ. Today, by God’s grace, I am holy in all my conduct, knowing that I am ransomed from the futile ways inherited from my forefathers not with perishable things but with the precious blood of Christ.  My faith and my hope are in God.

God has purified my soul through faith in Christ that I am loved and able to love others earnestly from a pure heart since I’ve been born again, not of perishable seed but of inperishable, through the living and abiding word of God.

All flesh is like grass. Grass whithers and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever. And this word is the good news that is been preached to me. So I put away all malice and self, and long for the pure spiritual milk that by it I may grow up into salvation.

I believe that Jesus is the Christ, and that he is my savior, and that he is the son of God, my Heavenly Father.  Long ago, God, the father, spoke through the prophets, but in the last days he has spoken through his son, whom he has appointed heir of all things, through whom he has created the world.  Jesus is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.

Of the Son, God the father says, “your throne, oh God, is forever and ever. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness, therefore, God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond all your companions. ”   God, the father, has crowned Jesus with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet.

Therefore, I pay close attention to the word I have heard lest I drift away from it. I do not neglect God’s great salvation for me. I keep my eyes and thoughts fixed on my Lord Jesus and his word.

Jesus is crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.   He of him and by whom all things exist, brought many sons to glory, and as the founder of my salvation was made perfect through suffering.  For he sanctifies; and we who are sanctified all have one source. That is why he calls me brother. He says, “behold, I and the children God has given me.”

Because I share in flesh and blood, Jesus himself likewise partook of the same things that through death he might destroy the one who has power of death, that is the devil, and deliver me from slavery of the fear of death.  He helps me. He was made like me in every respect so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, our father, to make propitiation for my sins. He is able to help me when I am tempted because he himself was tempted.

Thank you, Lord, that by your grace with the presence of your spirit and by the power of your living word you have opened my eyes, so that I have turned from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God; that I have received forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in Jesus, the Christ.

Jesus is the apostle and high priest of my confession. He was faithful to the mission appointed to him by God, our heavenly father.  Christ is faithful over God’s house as a son and I am his house. Today I hear his voice and my heart is soft to his words and his love.  I hold fast to the confidence I have placed in Jesus as the Christ, and I boast in him as my hope. I believe and I have the rest of God for my soul. Rest, peace and hope.

I am confident that my Lord, who has begun a good work in me, will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. The love of God will abound in me in knowledge and all judgment so that I will approve things that are excellent, and that I will be filled with the fruit of righteousness by Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God my father!

In humble mind I esteem others better than myself, for it is God that worketh in me both to will and to do his good pleasure. By his grace and presence I am blameless and harmless, a son of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom I shine as light in the world; holding forth the word of life.

I worship God in the spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and I have no confidence in the flesh. I press toward the mark  for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. If anyone be otherwise minded, God reveal it to them.

The Holy Spirit, the earnest of my inheritance, guarantees that I am his and he is mine. Thank you, God the spirit, that today I am filled with you and have life by you. Today, by god’s grace, I have the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of God.  The eyes of my understanding are enlightened so that I know the hope of God’s calling and the riches of the glorious inheritance that is mine as one of his saints.

Today, I perceive the exceeding greatness of his power towards me displayed in the birth and life and resurrection of my Lord Jesus, the Christ. Today Christ dwells in my heart and I am rooted and grounded in his love. I am loved by God. I don’t deserve it, but it is a gift of God. He predestined me, called me, justified me, and is glorifying me.

Thank you, Lord that you daily make intercession for me with the father. Today I receive with meekness the engrafted word which is able to save my soul. Today I thank you for my daily bread.  I bow before your word and let the word wash me and fill me and renew my mind so that I would think today with the mind of Christ.

I kneel before you, father, and look into your word and I remain there. I persevere. Your word becomes alive in me and rules in my thoughts.  I do the work of God and believe that Jesus is the Messiah. He is my Lord; I belong to God; I am no longer my own; I’ve been bought with a price!  Thank you, Lord, for my salvation and for your presence in me conforming me into the image of my Lord Jesus.

“The prince of this world comes, but he has nothing on me ”

More Ed opinion: The world offers a multitude of methods to deal with our thinking.  Philosophies, religions and physical mixtures are put forth to take care of or help relieve or enhance our felt needs. Some seem to work for some people for a time but looking at humanity in a general sense all these coping methods are abject, sensational  failures.

For me, hallelujah, God’s salvation through grace is the only way with supernatural power that lasts! It has some thing, the divine influence of God on the individual’s behalf, that nothing else has.  By God’s decree and for his “names sake “, his reputation in other words, he is committed and perfectly able to bring real and eternal freedom and rest and joy and love to the lives of each of those who are his.  He lifts his children up from the miry clay of our past, cleans us, and hides us in Christ. We continue in this world but are no longer of it.

Ed opinion:  listened to a mini concert of some old music from my era: John Denver, Elvis, Andy Williams, Beach boys, etc. Some of the lyrics and melodies got me thinking.

Thinking tenderly of all the emotions stirred up in my earlier years. Of all the comings and goings,  finding and seeking, courting and marrying, then living. All the mistakes, sins, failures, victories, and epiphanies that the music of our youth talked about then.  But now in my older years I can hear and recognize the feelings and the beliefs behind them.

Lord, give me the strength, courage and revelation to act on these new “understandings” in a godly way that I would now be wise in your sight.   I see the beauty and power and overwhelming benefit of “God’s way” in regard to healing and being free in our thought life. In every life there is mental “stuff”: strongholds, high places, pretentions, and arguments, that holds itself up against the knowledge of God.   Wealth and fame only increase the drama of the consequences if these issues are not resolved and brought into submission and disciplined according to the ways and word of God.