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4 Favorites, Part 1
John 3:16
Bruce A. Hess
If you would, please take out the word of God and turn in it, in the New Testament, to the fourth gospel, which is the Gospel of John, and chapter number 3. If you don’t have a Bible with you, there should be one under a chair in front of you and you could take that Bible and turn to page 73, in the back part, and you would be right at John, chapter 3.
Today, and for the next three Sundays, we are going to be introducing a new series to you that I have entitled, “4 Favorites.” As part of the introduction to this series, I want to share with you my own personal favorite meal, my favorite entrée. You see a picture of it on the screen. It is a filet steak, cooked medium, with a baked potato with butter only on it. Actually, I took that picture myself, it is from my favorite place in Norman to get a filet steak and that is Saltgrass Steakhouse. When I look at that I say, ‘That is a dish that is a joy to me. It is very delicious.’
But, the series, “4 Favorites” is not about my favorite foods. It is actually about some of my favorite passages from the Bible. You might ask, ‘Why in the world, then, are you showing us what your favorite food is?’ Well, you know, there is actually a number of Bible passages that are especially delicious to me, especially meaningful, but the backdrop of all of this really goes back to the Old Testament, to the book of Jeremiah. In fact, in Jeremiah’s day, I don’t know if you remember this or not, but the Law of the Lord had been misplaced in Israel. It was rediscovered in the time of King Josiah. Jeremiah, in chapter 15, verse 16, says this, regarding the rediscovery, the personal view that he had of it, he said, “Your words were found (God) and I ate them, and Your words became for me a joy and the delight of my heart.” He was basically saying, ‘I digested Your word, I digested Your truth and it was a joy to me, I found spiritual sustenance there.’
So, when we talk about 4 Favorites, there are many passages of the word of God that are a delight to my heart, but I just want to share four of them with you, just among the ones that I enjoy. Today, what I want to share with you is actually one verse, which is John, chapter 3, and verse 16. Now, in order to really begin to share this with you, you have to go back in time with me to the time in which I was eleven years old. Willard and Margaret Grant, a husband and wife child evangelist team came to our town and actually came to our church, Hillcrest Covenant Church in Prairie Village, Kansas. They were presenting a gospel message to us as kids. Willard and Margaret, interesting couple, they did this for forty years, traveling five days a week. They put more than four million miles on their vehicles during that time. When they came to us at Hillcrest Covenant Church, they shared the verse John 3:16 with me and it was a delight to me.
You look at John 3:16 and you might say, ‘Well, this is the most well-known verse in all of the universe.’ A lot of times at athletic events, maybe a baseball game or a football game, you will see someone standing there with a sign that says, John 3:16. A number of years ago a pretty famous quarterback, Tim Tebow, put John 3:16 in the black underneath his eyes. A lot of people have heard the address in the Bible, John 3:16, but not everyone understands what a delight it really is.
Frank Page said this about John 3:16, he said, “John 3:16 is the Mount Everest of Scripture passages from God’s word.”
Ann Graham Lotz said this, “John 3:16 is the North Star of the Bible. If you align your life with it, you can find the Way, (capital W) home.”
Sheila Walsh said this of John 3:16, “All the literature in the world cannot compete with the treasure contained in these 25 words.”
John 3:16 has been called the Hope diamond of the Bible. I absolutely love the words of Max Lucado. He said this, “If you know nothing of the Bible, start here. If you know everything in the Bible, return here.”
So, today we are going to take a look at John 3:16. I would like to read a few verses surrounding that, so I am going to begin reading with verse 14 and I am going to read down through verse 18. I invite you to follow along in your Bible as I read. John writes in verse 14:
“As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”
Now, John 3:16 I know is familiar to many of us, but here is what I want to challenge you to do today, I want you to revisit John 3:16 like it was the first time that you’ve ever heard it. Our approach is relatively simple. We are going to look at two things.
First of all, we are going to look at the backdrop of John 3:16.
Then, secondly, we are going to look at the treasure of John 3:16.
So, that is all we are really doing today. So, let’s begin by looking at the backdrop of John 3:16. The backdrop of it is actually one of the most fascinating discussions that we have in the Bible. It is a discussion between Jesus and a man by the name of Nicodemus. We learn in the first verse of chapter 3 that Nicodemus was a Pharisee and he is also called a ruler of the Jews. Remember, the Pharisees were these religious experts and when he is called a ruler of the Jews that means he was a member of the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem, which was the Supreme Court of Israel. So, he is a Pharisee, this religious expert. He was a member of the Israeli Supreme Court.
In verse 10, in Jesus’ description of him, we learn that he was actually called, by Jesus, THE teacher of Israel. Not ‘a’ teacher of Israel, but ‘the’ teacher of Israel. He was apparently the number one Tora scholar in all the country. He had the best religious credentials out of anyone else in the nation. What is interesting is, he comes to Jesus, we learn in verse 2 of chapter 3, by night. I mean, here he was this great Pharisee, this great religious expert, this member of the Supreme Court of Israel, the guy was supposed to know everything, religiously speaking, who had the best religious credentials in all of the nation, who was the number one Tora scholar and he wants to come see Jesus under cover of darkness. You know, Jesus wasn’t exactly accepted by most of the religious authorities. So, it is night time and he is looking around, ‘Is anybody going to see me going to see Jesus? Is anyone going to see me?’ He is coming to knock on the door by night.
There is a conversation that breaks out between the two of them and I want you to notice in particular what Jesus says in verse 3 of John 3. Jesus is speaking to Nicodemus and He says to Nicodemus, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Unless one is born again, Nicodemus, you are never going to see the kingdom of God. That word that is translated ‘again,’ there are actually two potential meanings to it, one is to be born again. We’ve heard that phrase a lot. But, the other potential meaning of the word is to be born from above. I really thing that is the essence of what Jesus was attempting to communicate to Nicodemus. Nicodemus, unless you are born from above, you will never see the kingdom of God. Unless you are born from above, Nicodemus, you cannot see the kingdom of God. He is really saying to him, ‘Your religious knowledge, your religious zeal, your religious good works, Nicodemus, are pointless. They are useless, they are utterly worthless when it comes to getting you to the kingdom of God.’
I know that was a shocking statement to Nicodemus. But, here is what is interesting, if that was true of Nicodemus, it is true of all of us. I mean, look at his religious knowledge and zeal and good works. If it was true of him, that his knowledge and zeal and good works are pointless, useless, and utterly worthless to get him to the kingdom of God, it is true of all of us.
All of that backdrop leads us to verse 16, to John 3:16. So, let’s begin to look at the treasure of John 3:16. You notice verse 16 begins with a little word ‘For’ in English. It is a connective, it is an explanatory term. It is taking us back to a statement that occurred in verse 15. Notice in verse 15 it says, “Whoever believes will in Him have eternal life.” Now, he says, “For,” and he is elaborating on that. He is explaining further because when you see that phrase, “Whoever believes will in Him have eternal life,” what does that mean? How does that work? How does all that happen? So, he says, John 3:16, “For,” let me explain further how this works. “For God so loved the world.”
God loved the world. Now, that should shock us, but it doesn’t normally shock us, that statement. But, that is an amazing statement. God, the God of this universe. You know, they tell us that there are billions of galaxies in our universe and trillions of stars and in Psalm 147:4 it says that God knows each one of those stars by name. Sometime just sit and think about that for a moment. Trillions and trillions of stars and God knows every one of them by name. It is an astonishing thing to reflect on.
We miss the immensity of this universe that God created, which tells us something about God, because He created it all. If you just take our own solar system. We live in the Milky Way galaxy. If you just take our own solar system, inside of that, and if you were to climb on a jet and travel at 600 miles per hour, it would take you seventeen years to get to the sun. If you continue to travel at 600 miles per house for 700 years, for seven centuries, you would still be inside of our solar system. Inside the Milky Way galaxy, where we live, they have now mapped 500, 499, other solar systems and NASA tells us that inside of our galaxy there could be one hundred billion solar systems. That is a possibility. When we talk about this universe, we’re talking about an immense God. And God spoke all of this into existence. Just a mind-boggling thing to think about. It says, “For God so loved the world.”
I think two thoughts when I see that. Number one, can such a God as this really care about me? I am just a speck in this whole thing. The second thing I think about, if God spoke all of this into existence, what are the chances that He could solve the separation issue between me and God? I think a fairly likely chance He could do that, right? John 3:16, “For God, (out there), so loved the world.” I would suggest that you put your name in there. For God so loved Bruce, for God so loved Bruce. We throw around that word, love, so carelessly at times. We don’t really understand the biblical nature of love very well. We say, ‘I love chocolate ice cream.’ Or maybe I say, ‘I love my shoes.’ Or, as Janet and I were walking in the mall yesterday, we said, ‘We just love the smell of popcorn, popping.’ It is amazing how they try to capture you with that. So, when we see, ‘For God so loved Bruce,’ we don’t really have a good handle on what that means.
The word here is really the word for agape love. It is the verbal form of it. I have shared this definition with us before, but this is the definition, the biblical definition, of agape love. Agape love is a commitment of my will to your needs and best interests, regardless of the cost. That is what it is saying here in John 3:16. For God so loved, it was a commitment of His will to my needs and best interests, regardless of the cost. And, we are going to see, it cost Jesus a lot, right?
A commitment of my will to your needs and best interests, regardless of the cost. By the way, our needs, spiritually…one word…massive.
I can remember when I was first learning about this, when I was eleven years old. As human beings, we face the issue of sin and a rebellious heart and it is a massive problem. Mark, chapter 7, verses 21-23, this is Jesus, Himself, speaking and He says this, and I remember hearing this and wrestling with this as an eleven-year-old, “From within, out of a person’s heart, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, wickedness,” what a list this is, “deceit, eagerness for lustful pleasure, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. All these vile things come from,” where? “Come from within.” And Jesus says they are what defile you and make you, and here are the key words, unacceptable to God.
I can still feel it, emotionally, when I am eleven years old and I realize this. I had a massive problem. I have a sin problem in my life. I have a rebellious heart. You know what is amazing about this, is, we tend to think of these things, you see this list of things, and we think, ‘Well, those are things we’re not supposed to do.’ And we think sin is related just only to what we do. No, it goes deeper than that. Jesus is a divine cardiologist and He ups the ante on us.
In Matthew, chapter 5, verses 21 and 22, He says, “You have heard it taught that you shall not commit murder, but I say to you, if you are angry with your brother, you are guilty of murder.” Oh my goodness! I am harboring on the interior of my being, some anger with my brother and God says, ‘In My eyes you are guilty of murder.’ Wow, that ups things!
Matthew 5:27 and 28, Jesus said, “You have heard it taught that you shall not commit adultery, but I say to you, if you look at a woman with lust, you have committed adultery with her in your heart.” Oh my goodness! We have a massive problem here because it’s not just the things that I do or I don’t do, but it is the very thoughts that I have and it tells me that I have a rebellious heart that makes me unacceptable to God. Even an eleven-year-old needs to hear that. I hope if you have children, they are hearing that.
The Bible gives us a tri-fold verdict about ourselves in Romans, chapter 5. Number one, it says that we are sinners, that is verdict number one, Romans 5:8. We’ve out-stepped, we’ve transgressed, God’s laws, whether it is through our actions or through the very thoughts that are going on in our head and in our heart.
The second part of the tri-fold verdict is that we are enemies of God, Romans 5:10. You say, ‘Well, how does that work? I don’t understand how that works. How do we get to be His enemy?’ Well, because we were rebelling against Him. We’ve been resisting Him, resisting His will.
The third part of the tri-fold verdict that God gives of us, is that we are helpless, Romans 5:6. Basically, I can’t do anything to get myself out of this dilemma. It is a problem.
And, it gets double complicated when we learn from Romans 6, verse 23 that the wages of sin is death. This sin problem, this heart problem that I have, that is massive, as a human being, earns me death. The fate that I have earned, due to my sin and rebellion, is eternal darkness in hell. And, I can remember wrestling with that as an eleven-year-old boy.
I mean, there is no hope for Nicodemus, on his own, that means there is no hope for me. I can remember just being disturbed by that. It is a lot of bad news, you know. But, John 3:16 doesn’t end there.
For God so loved Bruce that He gave his only begotten Son.That word that is translated there, only begotten, is really a compound word in the original. It is really just the word, ‘mono,’ which means ‘one,’ and the word, ‘genos,’ which means ‘kind.’ Literally, it means, one of a kind, Son. He gave His one of a kind Son. The ESV says, His only Son. The NIV says, His one and only Son. We could translate it, His unique Son. If you have a New American Standard, there will be a little marginal note on the side that says unique.
For God so loved Bruce that He gave His unique Son. We learn from chapter 1 of John verse 1 and verse 14 that God became a man, that is Jesus, and He came to this world, right? On a mission, a singular mission and His mission was to die in our place to take our penalty that we had earned.
For God, this incredible God out there, so loved the world, Bruce, that He gave His unique Son. What does that really mean, He gave His Son? We learn from the rest of the New Testament, it expands on that idea, Ephesians 5:2, Christ loved us, a commitment, He said, of My will to your needs, Bruce, and best interests, regardless of what it costs Me. Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us.
I Corinthians 15:3, He, Jesus died for our sins.
Romans 5:8, God demonstrates His love, a commitment of His will to my needs and best interests, regardless of the cost, “God demonstrates His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
2 Corinthians 5:21, “He (God) made Him (Jesus) who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf.” You see, I had sin on me and God took my sin and He put it on Jesus and you had sin, and you had sin, and you had sin, and you had sin and He took your sin and He put it on Jesus. That is what the cross was all about.
1 Corinthians 15 tells us that He died for our sins. But, it doesn’t end there, right? He rose again from the dead. That is a vital element in all of this, because the resurrection of Christ was the divine seal of approval by the heavenly Father of His sacrifice for us.
John 3:16 – For God so loved Bruce that He gave His unique Son that whoever believes in Him. Did you ever notice that word before? The word, whoever? I love that word. Everyone fits in…whoever. Whoever believes in Him. I can very clearly remember wrestling with these truths and, you know, did Christ actually die for me? Does God really want a relationship with me? The one who the tri-fold verdict regarding is that I am a sinner, I am an enemy of God and I am helpless to do anything about it? I remember working through that in my eleven-year-old head.
Reminds me of some lyrics from one of my favorite worship songs by Casting Crowns. It is entitled Who Am I? Part of the lyrics go this way:
Who am I?
That the Lord of all the earth would care to know my name?
Would choose to light the way for my ever-wandering heart?
Whoever believes in Him.
I love what Jesus says in John 6:37 because some people say, ‘No, no, no, not me. I don’t really fit into ‘whoever’’ Jesus says, “The one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out.” I will certainly not reject. Everybody, everybody fits in ‘whoever.’ Whoever includes me, the good news is, whoever includes you. I love the word. It is a heavenly term for, welcome. Welcome.
For God so loved the world, Bruce, that He gave His unique Son, that whoever believes in Him. I don’t know if you’ve ever studied the religions of the world, but all the religions of the world, except for biblical Christianity basically are the same when it comes to how someone obtains salvation and forgiveness before God. All of them, except for biblical Christianity, spell salvation the same way, they spell it d-o. There is something you have to do. That’s what they all say.
In Buddhism, you know, you have the four noble truths and the idea is, we are supposed to live out and do those four noble truths, eventually going through various reincarnations until eventually we hope to get to nirvana. But, it is something we do.
In Islam, you have the five pillars of faith and the idea in Islam is you adhere carefully, you do and live out those five pillars of faith and then you can reach a point of salvation with God.
We could go through all of them. They’re all like this. They all say, regarding salvation, this is the way, do this. Now, they all define the do a little bit differently, but they all say do this. Do this, do this, do this, do that. This is the way, do this. Biblical Christianity is different. Jesus says, I am the Way, and the Truth and the Life, no one comes to the Father, except through Me.
For God so loved Bruce that He gave His unique Son that whoever believes in Him. Let your eyes go back up to verse 14. We read this. It makes mention of something that Moses did in the wilderness. This really takes us back to an event in the Old Testament that occurs in Numbers, chapter 21. You can go back there if you would like to read about it. It happened in the wilderness where the people of Israel had been rebellious before the Lord. So, the Lord sent upon them, I can’t even imagine being in the midst of this, but a plague of poisonous snakes. How many people love snakes? A few of you out there put your hands up. You are unusual people. A plague of poisonous snakes and the idea was, because of their rebellion before God, they were going to be bitten by the poisonous snakes and when you are bitten by the poisonous snake, you are going to die. Pretty hopeless situation. But, God tells Moses, ‘Here is what I want you to do, Moses. I want you to make a bronze snake and I want you to put it on a pole. Then, here is what I want you to tell the people after they have been bitten by that poisonous snake, ‘If you will gaze at that bronze snake on the pole, and believe by doing that, that I will heal them and they will live, I will heal them and they will live.’
That is what He is saying. He is saying, “As Moses lifted up the bronze snake in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up.” That is an idiom, in that day, for crucifixion, being lifted up. The idea He is communicating here is, sin is like a deadly, spiritual snake bite that we have gotten and it is going to end in death. But, if we will look to Jesus, and believe, He will spiritually heal us and we will live.
John 3:16, For God so loved Bruce that He gave His unique Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish. Now, when He is talking about perishing here, He is not talking about annihilation. He is talking about perishing by being utterly lost and in an eternity of darkness in hell. A place where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth as Jesus said. A place where we take an eternal plunge into the hopelessness of eternity apart from God. Yeah, they told me about that. We need to be telling our children about that. You’re not too young to learn about that when you are eleven. It is reality. It is reality.
For God so loved the world, Bruce, that He gave His unique Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, and here we come, but have eternal life. You know, what is life’s number one issue? If I was going to say, what are some of the issues in life, we would have all kinds of things come up, right? We could probably make a pretty long list. I’ve been through some health issues in recent months, but the number one issue in life is death. That is the greatest enemy that we have.
My favorite quote by a human being is a quote by a Canadian scientist by the name of G.B. Hardy. I’ve shared this before. He just sort of takes all of the issues of life and he says this, ‘I only have two questions, number one, did anyone conquer death? Number two did he make a way for me to do it too?’ What a great summary of the number one issue of life and the greatest enemy we face. Only two questions, did anyone conquer death? Answer, yes! Number two, did he make a way for me to do it, too? Answer, yes! Yes!
For God so loved the world, Bruce, that He gave His unique Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. Now, when we talk about eternal life, some people say, ‘I don’t know if I want eternal life. My life hasn’t been so pretty. I don’t want any extension of the current life struggle I’m going through.’ That is not what it is talking about. It is talking about a future era that we would enter into when there would be no thieves, no drunkenness, no injustice, no broken families, no heartbreak. A place where there would be unbridled joy. Anyone want to be there? Yeah, I would like to be there.
Paul’s description in 1 Corinthians, chapter 2, verse 9, says this regarding this eternal state, “No eye,” I love this, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has imagined,” and some of us have great imaginations, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love Him.”
John 10:28, Jesus’ words again, “I give eternal life to them and they will never perish.” There is a way that you can make a very emphatic construction in the original language. It is called an “ou me” [the Greek construction] phrase. It is what you have right here. You could easily translate it this way, I give eternal life to them and they will never, absolutely never, ever perish. That is encouraging to my heart. That is encouraging to my heart.
The truth of the matter is, we are learning here, that some will perish and some won’t perish. So, the question is, what is the dividing line? What determines who perishes and who doesn’t? Well, there are two destinies, right? Verse 16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His unique Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”
Look at the last verse of the chapter, verse 36. “He who believes in the Son has eternal life: but he who does no obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”
I remember this being laid out before me and I oh, so remember the response that I had.
As we look at all this today, we need to have some life response to it. I am going to suggest two forms of life response. The first one would be a life response for those of us who know Jesus as our Savior. We have believed in Him. We’ve put our trust in Him as we’ve looked at Him. And, that is, that we rejoice afresh about the Savior. That is the first life response we ought to have having looked at all of this. I mean,
Jesus paid it all. All to Him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow.
As those of us who know Him as our Rescuer from sin and judgment, men and women, the truth of John 3:16 should reawaken our awe of God. It should re-energize our worship. It should rekindle our love for Jesus. It should rejuvenate our gratitude. It should realign our priorities. It should reassure our hope. It should restore our trust in His promises. The truth of John 3:16 should recharge our prayers. It should restrain us from sinful practices. It should reshape our view of the things of the world. It should renew our aim to honor Jesus with our life. It should revitalize our investing in the kingdom of God. It should re-animate our sharing of the gospel. We need to rejoice afresh about the Savior.
The second life response would be for those who have not yet trusted in Jesus as their Savior, and that would be to trust Christ for salvation. That is exactly what eleven-year-old Bruce Hess did at 8632 Broadmore in Overland Park, Kansas, which is my house, in my bedroom, on my bed. You don’t have to be any place special to look to Jesus as the one who is the solution for our spiritual dilemma and the debt of death that we have earned. You could do that right where you are seated right now if you haven’t ever done it.
You know, too often we tend to run from God. Isn’t it interesting how we tend to do that? Yet, the truth is, Jesus is the greatest friend we could ever have who is there to help us with the greatest problem that we have.
Max Lucado tells a story of a cow who stuck her nose into a paint can and couldn’t shake it off. Just think about that imagery, you know, the snout goes into the paint can and she can’t get it off. If you are a can-nosed cow you can’t really breathe well, you can’t drink or eat. He said, both the cow and her new born calf were in danger. It was a serious bovine bind. I just love the way he writes. A bovine bind. People set out to help, but when the cow saw the rescuers coming, she set out for the pasture. They pursued but the cow kept escaping. They chased the cow for three days. Each time the posse drew near, the cow would run. Finally, using pickup trucks and ropes, they cornered and de-canned the cow.
You know what? As human beings, we are often exactly like that. We stick our noses where we shouldn’t and we find ourselves in a serious pickle before God and we will run from Him, but He still pursues us. We run from the very one who can help, but He doesn’t give up. He loves, He pursues, He persists. He goes on to write this. Every so often, a heart starts to soften and he says, let yours be one of them. And one of them was mine, at the age of eleven.
I would say to you, if you’ve never trusted in Christ, let John 3:16 guide you home. For God so loved the world, loved you, that He gave His unique Son, that whoever, that includes you, believes in Him, should not perish, but have eternal life.
These are God’s words. Eat them. Embrace them. Believe them and they will be a joy and a delight to your heart.
Let’s pray together. Father, we just thank You again for the word of God, the power of it. We thank You for this incredible verse. Just one verse from the hand of God. We would pray that if there are any who have not looked to Jesus as their rescuer from sin and judgment, they would do so by faith, looking to Him right now and for those of us who know You, Father, we would simply say, let us rejoice afresh about the savior that we have. We pray these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Questions for Reflection on this message
John 3:16
1. As best as you can remember, where and when did you first hear John 3:16? Elaborate
2. What other New Testament verses/passages come to mind that help communicate the core truth of the gospel. Make a list.
3. If someone were to claim, as some do, that John 3:16 indicates that Jesus was created by God (i.e., “begotten”)—how would you respond? What New Testament passages might you use to prove your point?
4. If there are trillions of stars and God knows each by name (Psalm 147:4), what does that mean for us? His knowledge of our needs, His providence in the universe and our lives? Reflect.
5. When does eternal life actually begin…at the point of faith or at the point of death? Discuss.
6. Re-read John 3:16 and John 10:28. Spend some time returning praise to God for His great salvation.
7. John 3:16 should cause us to rejoice afresh…it should catalyze us to:
Reawaken our awe of God; Re-energize our worship; Rekindle our love of Jesus;
Rejuvenate our gratitude; Realign our priorities; Reassure our hope; Restore our trust in His promises; Re-charge our prayers; Restrain us from sinful practices; Re-shape our view of the things of the world; Renew our aim to honor God with our life; Revitalize our investing in God’s kingdom; and Reanimate our sharing of the gospel.
This next week use the above as an outline for prayer before the Heavenly Father.