self centeredness on Receiving Love

“Would I rather be feared or loved? That’s easy. Both. I want people to be afraid of how much they love me.”

Almighty God, we come to You now as Your children because we know we are broken and sinful and need You so much. We have broken our relationship with You and have done things that have hurt You, other...

Loving and forgiving God, we want to answer your invitation to experience a Christ-centered life. Yet all too often, our lives are much more centered around our ourselves than around Jesus. Jesus send...

Each of us, Lord, has failed to fully observe your beauty. We fall in love with our own image and are left disappointed and alone. Please be faithful to us, Jesus, even when we turn from You. We...

Lord God, You have called us to yourself and made us into a people. We belong to you, and we belong to one another. But in our self-focused lives, we have forgotten that. We have lived for ourselves. ...

Prayer of Adoration Gracious God – our Father: Sufficient and sovereign, yet, compassionate and kind; You tell us the truth while the world lies to us; You give us light and hope, while all around u...

Lord, we confess that we are tempted to be relevant, to be popular, and to be powerful. In our pride, we seek to be recognized as great. Humble us and remind us that we are your beloved children, who ...

Prayer of Adoration Father God … our Abba: You seek us with relentless love – coming after us in Your Son, Jesus. When we are in the pits – You draws us up and out; When we are broken – You fix u...

AIM Commentary Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? "Hear O Israel..." The Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4-9) commands the Israelites to love the Lord their God with h...

Eternal God, Your love for us is without end, yet our love for you and for one another is weak, often interrupted by self-centeredness ... distrust ... vindictiveness. Whenever we come together to...

Self-hatred and self-love are equally self-centered.

Prayer of Adoration Lord – Creator, Savior and Sustainer: You called our names and we answered. When we were lost – You found us. When we were sick – You healed us. When we were blind – You open...

Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? Small Town Boys The towns in this area were small and close together, but they were not particularly large.  As such, even a few thousa...

Taste and see that the Lord is sweet. He was made sweet to you because he liberated you. You had been bitter to yourself when you were occupied only with yourself. Drink the sweetness.

Gracious and eternal God, You are holy, You are mighty, You are worthy of all praise. We try to follow You, we try to listen to You, we try to love You, but we fall short time and again. Our self-cent...

Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? Small Town Boys The towns in this area were small and close together, but they were not particularly large.  As such, even a few thousa...

O Lord, We marvel that you would take on flesh and blood in order to be crucified, killed, and buried for us. You humbled yourself and submitted to the hatred of sinful men, accepting the thorns, the ...

Dear Lord, we come before You today as Your children. We praise You as the God of all creation and the giver of life. You have made us, saved us, and called us to be Your people and to serve in Your K...

Our hearts love to manufacture glory for themselves.

Lord God, You have created us all in Your image and have loved your creation with an everlasting and costly love. But all too often we are blind and fail to see Your image in others. We exclude those ...

Great and gracious God, we have run after things and others instead of coming home to You. We have lived as though we were the centers of our universe. We have avoided the harder issues in life so o...

Lent 2021: A 40-day Heart Restoration Nature, Law, & Holiness Bonus Content: Video prep session with Austin Hill on Psalm 19 . Password: %h+CNTJ7 AIM Commentary Ancient Lens What can we ...

Free us, Lord, from our obsession with ourselves long enough to care for others; to be so concerned about the well-being of the human community that me don’t have to worry about our place, our church,...

Happy are those whose self-centered lives have been crushed and reshaped by the Master's hand to be full of mercy.

Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? "Hear O Israel..." The Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4-9) commands the Israelites to love the Lord their God with heart, soul, and m...

Compassion means to suffer with, but it doesn't mean to get lost in the suffering, so that it becomes exclusively one's own. I tend to do this, to replace the person for whom I am feeling comp...

Great and loving God, we know that one day all peoples will worship you on your mountain. We struggle to live into that reality. We turn inward, thinking mostly of ourselves rather than giving you glo...

Self-absorption in all its forms kills empathy, let alone compassion. When we focus on ourselves, our world contracts as our problems and preoccupations loom large. But when we focus on others, our wo...

Almighty God, throughout our days you seek us, yet we dismiss your presence. You stand ready to reveal yourself to us, yet we are distracted by our self-interests. Forgive our selfishness. Holy Spirit...

Heavenly Father, we confess that we too often center our lives around ourselves and our immediate needs, and that this blinds us from being aware of the needs of our neighbors. Help us to know our tru...