Malachi

You want to be my financial manager? But I struggled with Your principles. Who would actually control “my” money?

Even while I struggled with obedience…You prevented me from getting too lost in secular financial advice. Then as You waited for me and disciplined me for my disobedience, I finally learned who owns it all…and the blessings just keep on rollin’…Thanks!

Too many of us still don’t know the joy of holding onto “our stuff” loosely. Help us figure this “money” thing out.

If we borrow, either individually, corporately or as a nation, consequences surely follow. The lender always owns the borrower.

Break us free from the deadly grip of our national debt. Remind us of the rewards of generous living. Help us learn to give to experience Your great generosity.

AMEN

Scripture: “I am the Lord All-Powerful, and I challenge you to put me to the test. Bring the entire ten percent into the storehouse, so there will be food in my house. Then I will open the windows of heaven and flood you with blessing after blessing.” Malachi 3:10

You chose to share Your name with the man in the home.

When I think of the awesome responsibilities attached to bearing Your name and Your image in the home it is obvious fathers have been given a singular challenge.

Many of us can celebrate the fathers You have given us…for others, our fathers failed us in many ways.

Today we celebrate our fathers and are reminded that You are the only perfect Father. Any father without Your guidance, will struggle to be all that You intended.

Thank You for my father…he instilled a Biblical worldview in me. He taught me the value of work and gave me a strong sense of right and wrong.

Help me honor him on this special day of remembrance. Thank you, “Dad”.

AMEN

Scripture: “He will turn the hearts of the fathers back to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers…” Malachi 4:6

You provide me a place to run when I’m overwhelmed. You provide me a model of what a father should be…thank You for my security.

Everywhere one looks in America there are children growing up in houses without fathers. Absent fathers whether they are physically absent or simply distracted…are a critical cause of the violence and crime we are experiencing. We cannot heal as a nation or return to Your days of blessing without restoring our homes. We need intact homes where parents think of their children ahead of their own selfish agendas.

You promise in Your word You will restore our homes if we repent of our pursuit of “happiness”. We need trustworthy fathers in their lives so that our children can learn to trust their heavenly Father.

AMEN

Scripture: “He will turn the hearts of the fathers back to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers…” Malachi 4:6

In Your perfection, You created male and female and called it “Very good”.  This act formed the basis for society, became the foundation of the family, and functioned to provide stability throughout history.

Today in America, we are trying…and failing dramatically…to redefine this universal, godly standard for marriage and family.

The dismal results show the destruction of the nuclear family and the predictable increase in mental health issues, dramatic increases in crime, more poverty, and the significant “dumbing down” of future generations.

Recent studies of the roots of mass shooters worldwide reveal fatherless boys are the shooters in every case.

Lord, we need to rebuild the American family to restore our civil culture.  Replace the cartoonish “toxic male” with Promise Keepers who model everyday manhood as You created it.  Start with me!

AMEN

Scripture:  “He will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers so that I will not come and smite the land with a curse.” Malachi 4:6

The most important thing You ever did for me…after paying my sin debt…has been to place me in a loving family.  Thank You for nurturing, loving parents.

You created family as critical to a functional society.  A recent secular study, “Why Boys Are Struggling” links 53 mass shooting in developed countries to dad deprived boys. All six mass killings in America murdering more than 10 people from Sandy Hook to Uvalde, fit that description. We’ve been attacking fatherhood since Murphy Brown declared on her TV show she didn’t need a father to raise her baby. Today this relentless attack on families continues as our noble elites declare they cannot define “Woman”.

Lord, we cannot survive this insanity.  Please drive home the importance both parents bring to the well-being of their children.

Kids spell “love”, “T-I-M-E”.  Restore our families.

AMEN

Scripture: “He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents…” Malachi 4:6a