The REP Blog

A Prayer for Good Friday

admin — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 05:01:07 +0000

Then Pilate turned Jesus over to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus away. Carrying the cross by himself, he went to the place called Place of the Skull (in Hebrew, Golgotha). There they nailed him to the cross. Two others were crucified with him, one on either side, with Jesus between them.
-John 19:16-18

O dear Lord, what can I say to you?
Is there any word that could come from my mouth,
any thought? any sentence?
You died for me, you gave all for my sins,
you not only became man for me
but also suffered the most cruel death for me.
Is there any response?
I wish that I could find a fitting response,
but in contemplating your holy passion and death
I can only confess humbly to you
that the immensity of your divine love
makes any response seem totally inadequate.
Your body is broken, your head wounded,
your hands and feet are split open by nails,
your side is pierced.
It is fulfilled. It is accomplished.
Sweet Lord, gracious Lord,
generous Lord, forgiving Lord,
I adore you, I praise you, I thank you.
You have made all things new
through your passion and death.
Your cross has been planted in this world
as the new sign of hope.
Let me always live under your cross, O Lord,
and proclaim the hope of your cross unceasingly.
Amen.

-Henri Nouwen

The Last Supper

admin — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 05:01:27 +0000

As they were eating, Jesus took some bread and blessed it. Then he broke it in pieces and gave it to the disciples, saying, “Take this and eat it, for this is my body.”

And he took a cup of wine and gave thanks to God for it. He gave it to them and said, “Each of you drink from it, for this is my blood, which confirms the covenant between God and his people. It is poured out as a sacrifice to forgive the sins of many. Mark my words—I will not drink wine again until the day I drink it new with you in my Father’s Kingdom.”

Then they sang a hymn and went out to the Mount of Olives. -Matthew 26:26-30

On Thursday night of His last week, Jesus and His closest followers celebrated the Jewish feast of Passover together. The Passover feast was (and is) a commemoration of when God rescued His people from slavery in Egypt, and when He “passed over” their homes, not allowing their firstborn sons to die in the 10th plague as the Egyptians’ sons did.

Every element of the Passover feast was already full of symbolism, but Jesus established a new meaning for the bread and cup of the traditional feast. The bread represented his body, broken for us. The cup represented his blood, poured out for us on the cross. When we celebrate communion together, as many of us will on Good Friday evening, we are continuing this tradition, commemorating the sacrifice that Jesus made for us and participating in something holy and beautiful practiced by countless followers of Jesus over the past two thousand years.

In the Passover feast, they celebrated the freedom of God’s people from slavery in Egypt; we celebrate our freedom from slavery to sin and death. During the Passover feast, they put a lamb’s blood on the doorposts of their house so that their sons would be spared by God; we remember the Lamb’s (Jesus’s) blood being spilled for us so that we may be spared.

Father, today I remember Jesus’ last full day on this earth before His death, the day of the Last Supper that we still remember and practice. Please help me to meditate often today on Jesus’ love and sacrifice as we prepare ourselves to meet together tomorrow. Amen.

One Painful Decision

admin — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 05:01:51 +0000

As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

“Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honor your father and mother.’”

“Teacher,” he declared, “all these I have kept since I was a boy.”

Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth. -Mark 10:17-22

“Sometimes the distance between where you are and where God wants you to be is the one painful decision you refuse to make.” -Craig Groeschel

I find this to be one of the saddest stories in Scripture—the story of someone who was so close, but was unable to take the final step. In asking a difficult thing of him, Jesus was not being unfair or harsh. In fact, the passage tells us that Jesus “looked at him and loved him.” Jesus had compassion on him. What Jesus asked of the man was only what was necessary for him to leave behind in order to follow Christ. For Peter, it was leaving his fishing nets… and his fear. For Thomas, it was leaving behind his need to be convinced, his need to see and touch in order to believe. We must leave whatever rules us in order truly to follow Him.

What are you holding on to?

Open Our Ears

admin — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 05:01:52 +0000

“Other seed fell into the good soil, and grew up, and produced a crop a hundred times as great.” As He said these things, He would call out, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” -Luke 8:8

Henri Nouwen writes:

“From all that I said about our worried, overfilled lives, it is clear that we are usually surrounded by so much outer noise that it is hard to truly hear our God when he is speaking to us. We have often become deaf, unable to know when God calls us and unable to understand in which direction he calls us.

“Thus our lives have become absurd. In the word absurd we learn the Latin word surdus, which means “deaf.” A spiritual life requires discipline because we need to learn to listen to God, who constantly speaks but whom we seldom hear.

“When, however, we learn to listen, our lives become obedient lives. The word obedient comes from the Latin word audire, which means “listening.” A spiritual discipline is necessary in order to move slowly from an absurd to an obedient life, from a life filled with noisy worries to a life in which there is some free inner space where we can listen to our God and follow his guidance.

“Jesus’ life was a life of obedience. He was always listening to the Father, always attentive to his voice, always alert for his directions. Jesus was “all ear.” That is true prayer: being all ear for God. The core of all prayer is indeed listening, obediently standing in the presence of God.”

Father God, please make me “all ear” for You. Help me learn to hear You and obey. Especially this week, help me to make time and space in my life so that I can hear Your voice. Amen.

Open Our Eyes

admin — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 05:01:19 +0000

Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; but they were kept from recognizing him.
[...]
And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself. As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus acted as if he were going farther. But they urged him strongly, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay with them.

When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?” -Luke 24:13-16,28-32 (if you want, you can read the entire story here).

What a mysterious story this is! It occurs right after Jesus’ resurrection, when He appears a number of times to different groups of His followers. I love what these men say after Jesus disappears from their sight: “Were not our hearts burning within us…?”

Jesus promised that He would be with us always, but often we fail to recognize His presence and His work in us and around us. We tend think of His promises to be with us as nice words that Jesus spoke to give us hope, rather than as a description of the reality of His constant presence. Our eyes are sometimes just as blind as these men’s were. But also maybe you, as these men did, have felt your heart “burning” in you when Jesus revealed Himself in a particularly clear way to you or showed you something in His Word.

We are now entering the Passion Week—the week of Christ’s suffering and death. What better time is there to concentrate on experiencing Jesus’ presence in our lives and keeping our eyes open for Him?

God, please open my eyes to Your presence in my life and Your work in the world around me. As I enter into the week of Your passion, help me to experience Your presence, love, and transforming work in my life. Help me to make time to wait on You this week, and as I do, please reveal Yourself to me. Amen.

You Will Never Fall

admin — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 05:01:59 +0000

As we prepare for worship, would you pray this prayer and take a few moments to meditate on the passage of Scripture we will be studying?

Father God, please open my ears to hear what you have to say to me this morning. As I read Your Word and consider it, help me see what You want to do in my life. Amen.

“His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

“For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins.

“Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall, and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” -2 Peter 1:3-11

Questions to consider:
-Peter says that God has given us everything we need for life and godliness. How has God provided for you recently?
-Of the things Peter says we should add to our faith, which areas are you doing well in? Which areas do you struggle with?
-What next step do you think God wants you to take in order to grow in those areas?

Be Still And Know

admin — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 05:01:39 +0000

…the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed. -Luke 5:15-16

“Be still, and know that I am God!
I will be honored by every nation.
I will be honored throughout the world.” -Psalm 46:10

Sometimes being quiet before God seems almost impossible. We are surrounded by constant noise and activity. But even Jesus—even when His ministry was increasing and the crowds were pressing in—often withdrew to solitude. It is important to fulfill our responsibilities well, but far too frequently, what we do and how we do it are not in obedience to God because we refused to stop, listen, and hear what He desires from us. How can we do what He asks if we cannot hear?

Is it possible that God is less interested in receiving our well-intentioned activity than He is in receiving our whole hearts?

Before you do anything else today or get involved in a project or activity, would you take just five minutes to be completely still and silent before God? It will be difficult, but even if you don’t notice anything happening, it will be changing you. If your mind wanders, just focus it back by meditating momentarily on a single aspect of God’s nature, such as His mercy or His sovereign power. If people are around, you can even lock yourself in the bathroom for five minutes and sit quietly on the floor. Don’t wait…