Archive for March, 2010
Prayer: Colossians 1
Wednesday, March 24th, 2010 | Lent Meditations, Spiritual Disciplines | No Comments
As with the prayer from Ephesians 3 in an earlier meditation, a few words in the following prayer from Colossians 1:9-14 have been changed to make it a conversation between you and God; the unchanged version of prayer can be found here. After you pray the prayer below, try praying it for one or two other people by replacing “I” and “me” with their names into the prayer.
Father God, I ask You to give me complete knowledge of Your will and to give me spiritual wisdom and understanding so that the way I live will always honor and please You, and my life will produce every kind of good fruit. All the while, help me grow as I learn to know You better and better.
I also pray that I will be strengthened with all Your glorious power so I will have all the endurance and patience I need. May I be filled with joy, always thanking You, Father. You have enabled me to share in the inheritance that belongs to Your people, who live in the light. For You have rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of Your dear Son, who purchased our freedom and forgave our sins.
Thank You, God! Amen.
Our True Identity
Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010 | Lent Meditations | No Comments
All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ. Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son. He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins. He has showered his kindness on us, along with all wisdom and understanding. -Ephesians 1:3-8
Yesterday we talked about how easy it is for us to slip into pride or envy when we compare ourselves with others. Sometimes we become so concerned with who we are not and what we don’t have that we miss out on the truth about who we are and what we do have. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians is full of beautiful reminders of our true identity in Christ.
According to Paul, this is who you are in Jesus:
Chapter 1
A saint (holy one)
Predestined to be adopted as God’s child
Redeemed and forgiven
Lavished with God’s grace, wisdom, and understanding
Chosen
Included in Christ
Marked with God’s seal, His Holy Spirit
Part of the Church, Christ’s Body
Chapter 2
Alive with Christ
Saved and seated with Him in the heavens
God’s workmanship (handmade by Him)
Near to God through Christ
Fellow citizen of God’s household
Chapter 3
God’s heir
A member of Christ’s Body
One who shares in the promise of Christ
Rooted and established in love
Chapter 4
Sealed for the day of redemption
Forgiven
Chapter 5
Light (not darkness) in God
Holy and blameless!
What an amazing list! Because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, that is how God sees you when He looks at you. You are loved.
Pride & Comparison
Monday, March 22nd, 2010 | Lent Meditations | No Comments
This is what the LORD says:
“Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom
or the strong man boast of his strength
or the rich man boast of his riches,
but let him who boasts boast about this:
that he understands and knows me,
that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness,
justice and righteousness on earth,
for in these I delight,”
declares the LORD. -Jeremiah 9:23-24
“Pride is essentially competitive—is competitive by its very nature—while the other vices are competitive only, so to speak, by accident. Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. We say that people are proud of being rich, or clever, or good-looking, but they are not. They are proud of being richer, or cleverer, or better-looking than others. If everyone else became equally rich, or clever, or good-looking there would be nothing to be proud about. It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest.”
-C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too. You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had…he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. -Philippians 2:3-5,7
Knowing who we really are is freeing. And what a mix we are! We are utterly helpless and completely dependent on God’s grace for every single breath that we take, yet we are also the sons and daughters of the King of the universe! We cannot possibly say that we are greater than another person, for on our own we are nothing and have nothing. On the other hand, in Christ we possess everything—so how could we be less than another? Either way, comparison is meaningless!
Father, it is so tempting to compare myself to others and develop pride or envy. Please forgive me for the times when I have sinned in this way. Help me to see myself as You see me—as Your child, forgiven, free, and loved in Your sight. May Your love be the only thing that matters to me. Amen
The Greatest Must Become Your Servant
Sunday, March 21st, 2010 | Lent Meditations | No Comments
As you prepare for worship this morning, would you read the following passage and meditate on it? What would you do if you knew it was the last day of your life? What would you want to say or leave behind? There was a vast array of things Jesus could have said or done, important final moments He could have had with His closest followers. Yet this is what He chose:
John 13:1-17
1It was just before the Passover Feast. Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love.
2The evening meal was being served, and the devil had already prompted Judas Iscariot, son of Simon, to betray Jesus. 3Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; 4so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. 5After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.
6He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”
7Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”
8″No,” said Peter, “you shall never wash my feet.”
Jesus answered, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.”
9″Then, Lord,” Simon Peter replied, “not just my feet but my hands and my head as well!”
10Jesus answered, “A person who has had a bath needs only to wash his feet; his whole body is clean. And you are clean, though not every one of you.” 11For he knew who was going to betray him, and that was why he said not every one was clean.
12When he had finished washing their feet, he put on his clothes and returned to his place. “Do you understand what I have done for you?” he asked them. 13″You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. 14Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. 15I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. 16I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. 17Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them.
The Prayer of St. Francis
Saturday, March 20th, 2010 | Lent Meditations, Spiritual Disciplines | No Comments
The following prayer is attributed to Saint Francis of Assisi (1181-1226). As we pray it, it reminds us that God intends for us to be agents of His change in the world, carrying His light and love into dark places. We are instruments in His hands, divinely empowered to be His people and do His work.
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.
Entirely New
Friday, March 19th, 2010 | Lent Meditations | No Comments
Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price… -1 Cor 6:19-20
“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you know that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of–throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself!” -C.S. Lewis, Counting the Cost
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God… -2 Cor 5:17-18
God wants to re-create us, to make us a new creation in Christ. We are like clay being shaped by the Potter (Is 64:8). We are like silver or gold refined in a fire until it is pure (Zech 13:9, Job 23:10). Each of these metaphors is not only constructive, but also destructive. For something to be re-created, it must first be destroyed. For clay to be shaped, it must be pounded. For gold to be refined, it must be melted and purified by fire.
To continue the refining gold analogy: We don’t need a little polishing; we need a complete melting and recasting. What things does God want to purify out of you? As He reshapes you, what do you think He wants the end result to look like? (If you’re not sure, check out Romans 8:29.)
The most beautiful part of all of this is that God is reshaping us so that we are ready to be His temple, His home. As Lewis said, He intends to come and live in us Himself!
Father God, please help me today to submit to your reshaping work in my life, even when the process is painful. Thank you for preparing me so that I can be your home.
A Larger Life
Thursday, March 18th, 2010 | Lent Meditations | No Comments
“The terrible thing, the almost impossible thing, is to hand over your whole self–all your wishes and precautions–to Christ. Christ says ‘Give me All. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half measures are any good. I don’t want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down. I don’t want to drill the tooth, or crown it, or stop it, but to have it out. Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked–the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: My own will shall become yours.’” -C.S. Lewis, Counting the Cost
“My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” -Paul, Ephesians 2:20
“Are there no other stories in the world except yours; and are all men busy with your business? … How much larger your life would be if your self could become smaller in it…! …How much happier you would be, how much more of you there would be, if the hammer of a higher God could smash your small cosmos, scattering the stars like spangles, and leave you in the open, free like other men to look up as well as down!” -G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
Father, help me to believe what is true: that You are the source of all joy and the path to real life. Show me what it would mean for me to live richly in Your life instead of living for self. When You show me the next step, please give me the courage and grace boldly to take it. Amen.
Church Home Page
