Are you a person of prayer?
11 Apr 26
Today's devotional: taken from YouVersion, Devotions on F.I.R.E. Year One
Readings:
1 Samuel 7
1 Samuel 8
1 Samuel 9
Luke 13:1-21
Far be it from me that I should sin against the LORD in ceasing to pray for you (1 Samuel 12:23).
Are you a person of prayer?
It has been said that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. This is the case with Samuel, who had a praying mother. Hannah overcomes difficult circumstances through prayer (1 Samuel 1:10-12) and offers another prayer after God honors her petition (1 Samuel 2:1-10). Samuel is grieved that the nation of Israel wants a king to become like the other nations. He shares his disappointment with the Lord and receives the Lord’s assessment of the situation (1 Samuel 8:6-9). As a result of God’s response, Samuel knows how to address the people (1 Samuel 8:10-18). The nation persists for a king (1 Samuel 8:19-20), which leads Samuel to report back to the Lord through prayer (1 Samuel 8:21-22). Both Hannah and Samuel’s lives instruct us how to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17).
Employment Point: Converse regularly with God for His strength and guidance.
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Reflections
As a believer, we cannot run away from prayer. For new believers, a common question they will typically ask is “how do I pray?” or they will comment things like “I don’t know how to pray” or “I don’t pray as well as you do”, etc.
Prayers are never about how fluent we are in praying. The Lord doesn’t listen to one’s prayer based on that. He looks at only one thing. Our heart. You can be praying so smoothly, eloquently or be praying long prayers, etc but those amount to nothing if the heart is set right with God. Think about prosperity gospels. Which of their speakers aren’t able to utter prayers?
We need to discern in this time and age, who we should be listening to, what gets our attention and how much time we are spending with God. If we know His word, we can then discern if whatever we hear is the truth or something that is distorted. So never forget to pray, this is like our daily bread.
“Then Samuel took a suckling lamb and sacrificed it as a whole burnt offering to the Lord. He cried out to the Lord on Israel’s behalf, and the Lord answered him. So the Philistines were subdued and they stopped invading Israel’s territory. Throughout Samuel’s lifetime, the hand of the Lord was against the Philistines.”
1 Samuel 7:9, 13 NIV
- The Lord will never be far from the righteous and He will always answer. We saw how He was with Samuel throughout his lifetime. Blessing him with a smooth sailing life for he was indeed like what Hannah has promised, given his life to the Lord.
- Would we be committed to serve the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul and with all our mind too? That’s what Samuel did and what he asked all the Israelites to do.
“But when they said, “Give us a king to lead us,” this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the Lord. And the Lord told him: “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king.”
1 Samuel 8:6-7 NIV
- it is wisdom to not deal with issues immediately but go seek the Lord first, even if we sometimes feel that it’s wrong. If we start to do things our own way, we are no different from them all, rejecting Jesus as King for one would not and should not disobey what their king and lord commanded of them.
“I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.””Luke 13:3, 5 NIV
- repentant is where it all starts. Recognising that we are all sinners and there’s no way we can do this without the blessing of the Lord.
“The Lord answered him, “You hypocrites! Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?””Luke 13:15-16 NIV
- it perhaps felt quite normal during those times to say no to healing till Jesus explicitly explained it in a way that it opens people’s eyes and hearts as to what was truly happening.
- May we too, not be too caught up with what is the so called “norm” by the world but be discerning enough and to have the courage to do what a true discipline will do
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Moral Divinity
BY OSWALD CHAMBERS
April 11
For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. — Romans 6:5
The proof that I have been through crucifixion with Jesus is that I resemble him in both attitude and behavior. Through his resurrection, Jesus has the authority to impart the life of God to me, and my outward life must be built on this basis. I can receive the resurrection life of Jesus Christ here and now, and it will show itself outwardly in holiness.
Romans 6:5 presents an idea that runs throughout the apostle Paul’s writings: after I’ve made the moral decision to be identified with Jesus in his death, the resurrection life of Jesus fills every aspect of my human nature. Once I’ve decided my old self—the self defined by the heredity of sin—will be identified with the death of Jesus, the Holy Spirit invades me and takes charge of everything. The Spirit isn’t a mere guest in the house; he fills every nook and cranny. My responsibility is to walk in the light and to obey everything he reveals to me.
When I’ve made the moral decision about sin, it is easy to conclude that, yes, I really am dead to sin, because wherever I look inside myself I find the life of Jesus there. Just as there is only one stamp of humanity, there is only one stamp of holiness: the holiness of Jesus Christ. God puts the holiness of his Son into me, and I belong to a new order of spirituality.
Bible in a Year: 1 Samuel 17-18; Luke 11:1-28
WISDOM FROM OSWALD
Jesus Christ is always unyielding to my claim to my right to myself. The one essential element in all our Lord’s teaching about discipleship is abandon, no calculation, no trace of self-interest.
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Reflections
This reminds me on the staff devotion day where one of the questions asked was “There is a credibility that comes if you are consistent in your behaviour, there is a credibility that comes if people see the gospel transforming you.” Do people notice your lifestyle and that of your community? Do they appreciate it, even if they don’t understand it? Share examples.”
If we live the resurrected life, it will be a life totally different from the past. You will have people coming to you and telling you that they find you different but for the better. The Christ in us will change us as we transform day by day. It will be more of Him and less of us.
One of the story that was shared in our group discussion was when people start praying to Jesus when they got really desperate. They may have exhausted all means and asked all kinds of gods but none of them answers. In fact, it is common to hear from pre-believers that they cannot understand why Christians always have this smile on their face, even though they may have worries, challenges, etc. and go about their lives as if nothing is affecting them.
Typical examples that we have seen for ourselves includes ex-prison mates becoming pastors or counsellors, helping the ex-convict adapt back to society or even journeying alongside them. It is often a 180 degree change where others may not even believe that they are doing such a thing.
Miracles and transformed lives happen pretty often even in the current times because we have a living God. It is not how big our problems are. It is how big our God is! He is bigger than anything in the world! He guides us and corrects us because He wants the best of us.
Have we said yes to the Lord, to allow Him to proceed His transformation or effect the changes He wants to do in us? If we truly want a risen life, this would have to be done. A full surrender to Him, to just let Him and let be.
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Lent devotion Day 53/53
taken from YouVersion, Lent for Everyone
Lent for Everyone is a devotional created and written by N.T. (Tom) Wright. For each day of Lent, there is a reading chosen from the Gospel of Matthew, plus a reflection by Wright. These readings have grown out of a project encouraging Lent reading in Northern England. This is the second in a three-volume series based on the Revised Common Lectionary of the Church of England.
Today’s reading:
Matthew 22:34-40
EASTER SATURDAY
'So what's your all-time favourite song, then?' I listened as John put his friend on the spot.
They had been discussing music of various sorts and styles. This was a way of getting to the heart of the matter.
'Let me play safe,' the friend replied. I'm not going for something new. I'll stick with "Yesterday", by Paul McCartney.'
John was shocked. 'I thought it would be something by Schubert,' he complained. 'You're always on about him.'
'Yes, I know,' came the reply. 'But actually I think "Yesterday" draws together the whole tradition of earlier song, and say so much in a short space. It's beautiful, and it's packed full of meaning.'
The debate will go on. Some readers will no doubt be as shocked as John was. But the explanation was a good one. We're not talking about a whim here, a sudden passing fancy. We're talking about something that draws a much larger picture together and holds it there.
Questions like this come in many shapes and sizes. What's the best golf course in the world? Which is the finest Shakespeare play? Which Scottish mountain gives you the best walk? But one of the most famous, a question repeated in various forms throughout Jewish literature, is the one the Pharisees asked Jesus: 'Which commandment in the law is the greatest?'
Now we note that this isn't simply a question about the relative importance of the commands against stealing, murder, adultery and so on. The law — Israel's Torah — was not just a list of rules to make life a bit less unpleasant. It was the God-given blueprint for the national life, the life that would make Israel the light of the world. It was, so many Jews believed, a direct revelation from God himself, thus making the Torah almost divine in itself. And part of the point of Torah, for the Pharisees of the time, was that any Jew, anywhere in the world, could follow it. Most Jews couldn't get to the Temple in Jerusalem except at the most once or twice in a lifetime. Any Jew could study, learn and follow Torah.
Jesus' answer to the question was straight down the line. 'Love God with all your heart, soul and mind,' he said, 'and love your neighbour as yourself.' As far as it went, as an answer to the question of the time, it was beyond reproach. These are central to the Old Testament as well as the New, and contain within them pretty much everything else the law prescribes.
But what happens if we read them in the light of Easter?
We suddenly discover that something Matthew has often hinted at comes true in a new way. Jesus came not to abolish the law, but to fulfil it. But how did he fulfil it? Not by laboriously obeying all the biblical commands, one by one, ticking them off on a mental list. Rather, by doing and being all that Israel was called to do and be. He became the defining point, the blueprint and yardstick, for the people of God. In his death on the cross he offered God the full love, obedience and devotion of heart, mind and soul to which Israel had been called. And in that same death he reached out in love to neighbours far and near, to the whole world for whom he was dying. He became not just the teacher of a new, fulfilled Torah. He was the fulfilled Torah in person.
The resurrection of Jesus therefore declares that the law, as summed up here, has been fulfilled to the uttermost — by Jesus himself. And, precisely because of the resurrection, it can be fulfilled anywhere and everywhere. Followers of Jesus don't need to go to the Temple in Jerusalem. They can go to Jesus, which is what they do whenever they love God with heart, mind and soul, and their neighbours as themselves.
And when people say, as they will, that these things are very difficult, then Jesus is on hand, with them always to the close of the age, to explain that the more they look at him and learn from him, the more they will discover what it means to love God, and the more energy and goodwill they will find welling up inside themselves to love their neighbours as well. Jesus' resurrection is the greatest demonstration of the love of God for his whole creation, evoking in us an answering love. And when we glimpse God's new world, in which all are invited to share, we look upon our neighbours, of all shapes, sorts and sizes, with new eyes. These are people for whom Jesus died. These are people we shall learn to love as we love ourselves.
This is what it means to be genuinely human. Easter offers us the direct route to be the people we were made to be. God's people. Jesus' people. People of love.
TODAY
Gracious Lord Jesus, dying for us and rising again: show us more and more how great the Father's love is for us, so that we may be drawn to love him more and more in return; and show us, for his sake and yours, how to love our neighbours as we love ourselves.
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We have finally came to an end of the Lent devotional sharing. Thank you for journeying with me.
Let’s pray:
Thank You Father for dying on the cross for us. Our lives have forever been changed. Help us Father Lord, to always remember why we celebrate Easter, and to keep meditating and reflecting on Your word, not just during the Lent season. May our walk with You be an intimate one and that we be able to grow closer to You as days passed. Thank You Father for Your blessings and love. All praise and thanks be to You Lord. In Jesus’s most loving and precious name we pray. Amen 🙏🏻
Sharing also the song “How deep the Father’s love for us”
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