Assurance of God's Favor - Your Nightly Prayer

Your Nightly Prayer

Assurance of God’s Favor
Your Nightly Prayer for Feb. 27, 2025
by Rev. Kyle Norman

TONIGHT’S SCRIPTURE

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”- Luke 4:18-19

SOMETHING TO PONDER

Each evening, I go into my home office and say my evening prayers. It’s always the same form, taken from the liturgical text of my tradition. In these prayers, there is one petition that always arrests me. “I pray that the work I have done and the people I have met have brought me closer to you, O Lord.” There are times when I feel this deeply, but there are times when I don’t. There are times when I look back at my day and fear I am ending my day out outside of God’s favor or blessing.

Have you ever felt that? Have you ever struggled to accept God’s favorable love and grace for you? I don’t know about you, but when I feel particularly besieged by such feelings, it can keep me up at night. I toss and turn and feel restless inside.

When that happens, we can turn to Jesus’ declaration that the words of Isaiah are fulfilled in our hearing. In Luke’s Gospel, we read that Jesus quotes from Isaiah 61 and declares that the words of Isaiah are realized, fulfilled, and incarnated amongst us. This is a significant passage because not only does Jesus declare himself to be the anointed one of God, the messiah who steps into our world, but he also declares what he brings into our lives.

If Jesus leaves vengeance out of his declaration about our lives, why would we choose to add those words? Jesus’ mission isn’t to display the anger of God. His incarnation isn’t an incarnation of wrath. Jesus comes as the divine emissary of love. As the Spirit-anointed Messiah, this is who Jesus is.

With the bold proclamation of who he is and what he came to bring to his lips, Jesus declares that all those things are fulfilled in our midst. The grand Favor of God is now realized, incarnated, it is present in our hearing. All we need to do is dare to believe it.

YOUR NIGHTLY PRAYER

Precious and life-giving Lord,
I thank you for the assurance of your grace and love. I thank you for coming into my life and whispering good news. I thank you that your word in my life is love, forgiveness, healing, grace, recovery, and redemption. This is who you are as Lord, the divine one, my savior, and my God.

But Lord, as much as I declare this and believe this with all my heart, there are times when my own faults and failings stare at me. There are times when I feel my poverty and insufficiency, and my sins declare that I have fallen from your grace. My heart gets heavy, my spirit sags, and in my humanness, I doubt your favor in my life.

When I feel this way, I pray that you extend your hand of grace. May your words of love and assurance speak louder than my own words of condemnation. Help me to breathe in the atmosphere of grace. As I lay here this night, Lord, I open my heart to your spirit again. I pray that you come to me anew, captivate me in your love, push aside all that keeps me from you, and help me feel the life that only you can provide.

As I rest this evening, help me rest in your gracious presence so that I might rise tomorrow in renewed faith. Inspire my life, not just to receive your good news, but to proclaim it in my life. Help me not just accept your favor but extend it to those around me so that the world may be filled with the knowledge of your love and praise your name evermore.

This I pray in the blessed name of Jesus my Lord.
Amen.

THREE THINGS TO PONDER

1. Jesus comes to proclaim good news – not bad news. Jesus doesn’t speak words of criticism or critique, condemnation or dismissal. Jesus comes to gather us into the redemptive love which he incarnates. He comes to declare freedom for those oppressed and release us from everything that keeps us spiritually ensnared or oppressed. Every negative burden that serves only to sap our spirits, Jesus came to liberate us from.

2. Jesus came to offer recovery and healing in the deepest of ways. His life-giving spirit comes into our lives and provides for us the life that truly is life, a life that cannot be taken away by the faulty things of this world.

3. And more than anything, Jesus came to announce God’s favor – the gift of grace, the effusion of divine love into our lives. If we struggle to accept God’s favor in our lives, all we need to do is return to this passage and see how Jesus speaks a word of assurance for us. This is because Jesus does something very significant when he reads from this passage. When we look at this passage from Isaiah 61, we see that Jesus misses a line. The Word made flesh messes up the words! Isaiah concludes the passage by saying that the Anointed one will proclaim a year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God. But Jesus leaves vengeance out.

The Reverend Dr. Kyle Norman is the Rector of St. Paul’s Cathedral, located in Kamloops BC, Canada. He holds a doctorate in Spiritual formation and is a sought-after writer, speaker, and retreat leader. His writing can be found at Christianity.com, crosswalk.com, ibelieve.com, Renovare Canada, and many others. He also maintains his own blog revkylenorman.ca. He has 20 years of pastoral experience, and his ministry focuses on helping people overcome times of spiritual discouragement.