daily reading 11.1 (Romans 6:11–12)

5-days-a-week through Romans and the letters Paul wrote from Rome in 2024

Our opening prayer for this week:

        Lord, I ask you to be gentle,

        Not to cause me undue strain,

        For your hand lies heavy on me

        And your arrows bring me pain!

        How the weight of guilt I bear

        Drives me headlong to despair!

        When the friends whom I have trusted

        Seem to turn on me with scorn,

        When my heart is crushed with numbness

        Until all day long I mourn,

        Grief is mine no words can tell,

        Anguish I cannot dispel.

        So afraid my feet are slipping,

        All to you I now confess:

        Is my own sin not a factor

        In the roots of my distress?

        Savior, mercy! Hear me cry —

        Lord, I wait for your reply.

        But I cannot keep on waiting —

        Pain too fierce, too strong my foes —

        Be my God, and do not leave me. 

        Send, I beg, in all my woes,

        Lord, whatever you allow.

        LORD, my rescue, help me. Now! Amen.

  

Romans 6:11–12

• So, you too consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
• ¹²  Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its desires.

Helpful notes on Romans 6:11–12 

For yourself pray:

• That in Christ today you resist the sin that has been tempting you the most

For others pray:

• That God gives strength to someone you know who is struggling with the sin/disease of substance abuse

A psalm to listen to and ponder, as time allows:

• Psalm 39 (YouTube, duet, "Where can my hope go?")