honor

Opening Prayer: Thank you, O Lord, that my salvation and my honor depend on you and not on me.  What a relief to know that I do not have to earn or achieve either of those.  Therefore, my soul can find rest in you alone.  Thanks be to you!  Amen.

Scripture: Psalm 62:7

Journal: What does it mean to you that your salvation and your honor (value) depend on God alone?

Reflection: How fine, how beautiful, our true likeness is, which God carries with Him all the time and which He so much longs to show us!  Out of love He has had respect for what we willed and has chosen to wait.  The likeness can only be the likeness to his Son, who in advance of us lived out a true sonship and was obedient to the Father’s will, right up to death on the cross.  From His prayer, from His striving, living and dying, we learn how to pray. (Teach Us to Pray by Andre Louf)

Prayer

Closing Prayer:  My salvation and my honor depend on God; he is my mighty rock, my refuge.  Trust in him at all times, O people, pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge. (Psalm 62:7-8, NIV)

with

Opening Prayer: God is our refuge and our strength, and ever-present help in trouble.  Therefore we will not fear though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though the waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging. (Psalm 46:1-3)

Scripture: Psalm 46:1-11

Journal: How aware of God’s presence are you on a minute by minute basis?  What disrupts that awareness?  What nurtures it?

Reflection: I am with you—always.  There is no time, and no season, when I am not with you.  I am with you in good times and bad, in joy and in pain.  I am with you night and day, in darkness and in light.  I am with you in growth and in struggle.  And I am even with you when things are dull and mundane and ordinary.  No matter what happens, I will never leave you—ever.  I will never forsake you.  I will never abandon you.  I am with you always.  The only question is: Are you always with me?

Prayer

Closing Prayer: O God, thank you for the promise that, regardless of the mood, or the season, or the circumstances, you are always with me.  Help me to always be with you.  Amen.

narrative

Opening Prayer:  Lord Jesus, help us to see that beneath every behavior lies a narrative—a story that drives that behavior which we have convinced ourselves is true.  Thank you, Lord Jesus that you came to deconstruct the narratives within us that are false and replace them with ones that are true.  After all, it is the truth that sets us free.  Help us to live in your truth, Lord Jesus, and not in the false stories we have been telling ourselves for far too long.  Amen.

Scripture: Luke 10:38-42

Journal: What are the narratives that lie under this story?  What story do you think Martha was telling herself?  What was she believing that caused her to react and respond the way that she did?  Has is her story your own?  What is the truth Jesus is trying to convey?

Reflection:

narrative

beneath 

every behavior

lies a goal

and beneath

every goal

lies a belief

and beneath 

every belief

lies a narrative

a story 

that fuels us

that sets our feet

in motion

a story

we tell ourselves

that makes us

believe certain 

things are true

the problem is

that often they

are not

come Lord Jesus

way, truth, and life

and tell us 

the real story

the truth 

that will set us free

Prayer

Closing Prayer: Lord Jesus, help me to see that if I am not free, it is because I am believing something that is not true.  Help me to know the truth which sets me free.  Amen.

transformed

Opening Prayer: Lord Jesus, change me—from the inside out.  Make me a new person, a new creation.  Help me to leave to life of the flesh behind that I might become more and more the beautiful creation you dreamt of in the beginning.  Amen.

Scripture: 1 Peter 4:12-19

Journal: How has God been transforming your life recently?  In the past year?  What specific things can you point to?

Reflection: Christ said: “Deny thyself,” and in spite of that, Peter denied his Lord.  When Christ warned him: ”Thou shalt deny me,” and he insisted that he never would, Peter showed how little he understood what there was in himself.  But when I read his epistle and hear him say: “If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye, for the Spirit of God and of glory resteth upon you,” then I say that it is not the old Peter, but that is the very Spirit of Christ breathing and speaking within him.

     I read again how he says: “Hereunto ye are called, to suffer, even as Christ suffered.”  I understand what a change had come over Peter.  Instead of denying Christ, he found joy and pleasure in having self denied and crucified and given up to the death.  And therefore it is in the Acts, we read that, when he was called before the Council, he could boldly say: “We must obey Christ rather than men,” and that he could return with the other disciples and rejoice that they were counted worthy to suffer for Christ’s name. (Absolute Surrender and Other Addresses by Andrew Murray)

Prayer

Closing Prayer: Forgive me, O God, when I am controlled by fear, rather than being controlled by love.  Help me to be so captured by my love for you that I am willing and able to bear anything for your will and your glory.  Amen.

repentance

Opening Prayer: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.

Scripture: Luke 22:54-62

Journal: Where and how is Jesus calling you to repentance these days?

Reflection: Peter denied his Lord thrice, and then the Lord looked upon him.  And that look of Jesus broke the heart of Peter, and all at once there opened up before him the terrible sin that he had committed, the terrible failure that had come, and the depth into which he had fallen, and “Peter went out and wept bitterly.”

     Oh!  Who can tell what that repentance must have been?  During the following hours of that night, and the next day, the Sabbath—oh, in what hopeless despair and shame he must have spent that day!

            My Lord is gone, my hope is gone, and I denied my Lord.  After that life of love, after that 

Blessed fellowship of three years, I denied my Lord.  God have mercy upon me!

     I do not think we can realize into what depth of humiliation Peter sank then.  But that was the turning point and the change: and on the first day of the week Christ was seen of Peter, and in the evening he met him with the others.  Later on at the Lake of galilee he asked him: “Lovest thou me?” until Peter was made sad by the thought that the Lord reminded him of having denied him thrice.  Then, Peter said in sorrow, but in uprightness: “Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee.” (Absolute Surrender and Other Addresses by Andrew Murray)

Prayer

Closing Prayer: Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.  (Psalm 51:10)

deny

Opening Prayer: Lord Jesus, help me always to choose you, instead of me.  Help me to start today.  Amen.

Scripture: Luke 22:24-34

Journal: What is your response to the scriptures today?  Where and how is God asking you to deny yourself?  In what ways might you be denying him?

Reflection: Notice how Christ uses the word deny twice.  He said to Peter the first time, “Deny self”; he said to Peter the second time, “Thou wilt deny me.”  There is no choice for us; we must either deny self or deny Christ.  There are two great powers fighting each other—the self-nature in the power of sin, and Christ in the power of God.  Either of these must rule within us. (Absolute Surrender and Other Addresses by Andrew Murray)

Prayer

Closing Prayer: Lord Jesus, forgive me when I choose ease or comfort or fear over choosing you.  Help me to die to self that I might live for you.  Amen.

word

Opening Prayer: How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! (Psalm 119:103)

Scripture: Proverbs 4:20-22

Journal: Where and how has God’s word been sweet and life-giving to you lately?  What is he saying to you today?

Reflection: All his words contain supernatural mysteries and are full of heavenly sweetness, if only they have a diligent reader (one who knows how to suck honey out of a rock, and oil out of the hardest stone). —Bernard of Clairvaux

Prayer

Closing Prayer: Your word, O Lord, is eternal, it stands firm in the heavens.  Your faithfulness continues through all generations; you established the earth, and it endures.  Your laws endure to this day, for all things serve you.  If your law had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction.  I will never forget your precepts, for by them you have preserved my life. (Psalm 119:89-93)