grace, monday

Monday, November 17

Come to Stillness: Take a few minutes to allow your mind and heart to be still before God.

          

Opening Prayer: I am sure that there is in me nothing that could attract the love of One as holy and as just as You are.  Yet You have declared Your unchanging love for me in Christ Jesus.  If nothing in me can win your love, nothing in the universe can prevent You from loving me.  Your love is uncaused and undeserved.  You are Yourself the reason for the love wherewith I am loved. (Knowledge of the Holy by A. W. Tozer)

Scripture Reading for the Day: Ephesians 2:1-10

Reading for Reflection:

 

The grace of God says to you and to me, "I can make last place more significant than first place.  I will use prostitutes to teach others about gratitude.  I will use lepers as examples of cleanliness.  I will take men who persecute the church and make them pillars.  I will take the dead and give them life.  I will take uneducated fishermen and make them fishers of men."  God's grace does not exist to make us successful.  God's grace exists to point people to a love like no other love they have ever known.  A love outside the lines. (Dangerous Wonder by Mike Yaconelli)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself

                      
Closing Prayer: My gracious heavenly Father, with gratitude I bow before you today.  I rejoice in the little, ordinary things which so often are accepted by me unrecognized and which so frequently pass unnoticed.  For life itself I give you thanks.  For the breath which I borrow from you, I am grateful.  For the strength to pursue a course of active labor, I offer you my gratitude.  In the name of your Son, my Savior, I pray.  Amen. (Daily Prayer Companion by C. Ralston Smith)