September 17, 2022 - Romans 5:9a

“And there is still much more to say of his unfailing love for us! For through the blood of Jesus we have heard the powerful declaration, “You are now righteous in my sight.” Romans 5:9a TPT

Lord, we thank you so much for the price that you paid to make us righteous in your sight. It is your standard of righteousness that we must measure up to. We have to compare ourselves to your perfection to see where we are truly lacking. Forgive us for all the times that we have compared ourselves to others and thought that we were doing good. We can always find other people, even Christians in church leadership, that will make us feel like we are measuring up in a great way. But, Lord, that is not right. You have told us that we are not to compare ourselves to others. We all have fallen short of your righteousness. We all have areas that we struggle in. We all have blemishes. Help us not to want to hide our blemishes and pretend they don’t exist. Show us how to walk humbly and confess our shortcomings to you and others when appropriate. We don’t want to try and live our life up on a pedestal only showing people the best of us. Forgive us for our pride. Forgive us for excusing sin. Open our eyes to places that we need to deal with. Give us the courage and strength to bring our failures to you. When we do, we praise you for your forgiveness. But we don’t want to stop at forgiveness, we want you to change us and purify us. When necessary, turn up the heat so that the blemishes that stain us can come to the surface and be removed. Give us a hatred for allowing blemishes to stay in our lives. Anytime we mess up, we want to quickly run to you for forgiveness and when others are involved, we want to quickly ask them for forgiveness as well. We want to allow you to wash us clean as quickly as possible. Help us live in your righteousness.

In Jesus name, amen.