Tune and Prepare!

"We have sinned, committed iniquity, acted wickedly, and rebelled, even turning aside from Your commandments and ordinances... We have not listened to Your servants the prophets... Open shame belongs to us, O LORD... because we have sinned against You... Indeed all Israel has transgressed Your Law and turned aside, not obeying Your voice... Your people have become a reproach to all those around us" Dan. 9:5-16 In verses 5-16 Daniel identifies with his people and intercedes on their behalf. That's a common practice in Scripture. For example, Moses interceded for the Israelites after they sinned by worshiping the golden calf (Ex. 32:11- 13). All Paul's recorded prayers are intercessions. In Ephesians 6:18 he instructs us to "be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints." In 1 Timothy 2:1-4 he says, "I urge that entreaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men, for k...

John MacArthur — Grace to You Blessed are a the pure in heart, forthey shall see God. Matthew 5:8 Throughout Scripture the heart is used metaphorically to represent the inner person, the seat of motives and attitudes, the center of personality. But in Scripture it also includes the thinking process, particularly the will. Proverbs 23:7 says, “As [a man] thinketh in his heart, so is he” (KJV). The heart is the control center of the mind and will, as well as emotion. Jesus said that it is in the inner person, in the core of our very being, that God requires purity. This was not a new truth but an old one long forgotten in ceremony and tradition. “Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life,” counseled the writer of Proverbs 4:23. God has always been concerned above all else with the condition of a person’s heart. When the Lord called Saul to be Israel’s first king, “God changed his heart” (1 Sam. 10:9). Until then Saul...