A Deeper Christian Life

Scriptural references: *Psalm 101 *Matthew 5:22, 28 *Matthew 22:1-14 *Ephesians 4:30 *1 John 3:3 For much of my devotional time with the Lord this past week, I have been prayerfully contemplating Psalm 101, which the English Standard Version prefaces with the heading: I Will Walk With Integrity. This morning, as I began to pray-read this Psalm again, I got the sense to read it as a declaration of the Triune God to the Church. As I did so, it increasingly felt like a letter to the Church right out of the Book of Revelation. I would humbly exhort you thus: If you hope to walk closely with the Lord Jesus Christ and have intimate fellowship with Him, please heed this rendering of Psalm 101, which I have based on the ESV translation (despite some of the early Elizabethan English usages, which I believe He wanted, in order to set the right tone): Verse 2: “Hear, all ye who fear the Lord: Truly, I say unto thee: ponder the way that is blameless, that ye may walk therein. Then will I feel welc...

Another wonderful way to get to know your Lord more deeply and more intimately is to pray, or pray-read, the Scriptures. This is an ancient practice within the Christian tradition, with many contemporary practitioners throughout the ranks of the Christian Church. In this particular form of this exercise, I will draw from some inspiration the Lord gave me through a teaching from Frank Viola in one of his messages on his Deeper Christian Life Network. The gist of this exercise involves pray-reading, rewording and reciting Romans 8:28-39 as something of a love letter and word of reassurance from God the Father to you (and me), the individual believer. Here's my particular interpretation (based loosely on the rendering found in the Legacy Standard Bible): Starting now with Romans 8:28: “Thomas, you know that, for those who love Me  –  and that includes you  –  I make everything in your day, everything in your life, work together for good, for those I have called accordin...