grace, thursday

Thursday, November 20

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: Romans 3:21-26

Reading for Reflection:

 

     Cheap Grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession, absolution without personal confession.  Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

     Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that has.  It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods.  It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble.  It is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows Him.  Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock.  Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ.  It is costly because it costs a man his life, and is grace because it gives a man the only true life. (The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

Reflection and Listening: silent and written

Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself     

                                                                                              
Closing Prayer: Show me your glory, I pray to you, that so I may know you indeed.  Begin in mercy a new work of love within me.  Say to my soul, “Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.”  Then give me grace to rise and follow you up from this misty lowland where I have wandered so long.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen. (The Pursuit of God by A. W. Tozer)