Dear God, yesterday was a good day. I participate in this app called “We Tree” that has you give your daily “pulse” on how you’re doing mentally, emotionally, and physically (not spiritually), and then you have confidants you share it with. There is a pastor in our town that I check in through this app almost every day. I am supposed to rate myself on a scale of 1-5 in six different areas and then say what I am grateful for and where I need help. As a point of principle, I try to only use a “5” when it is a day where that topic is as good as it gets. Well, yesterday was 5s across the board. After a couple of tough weeks, it was nice to be able to share that. But I don’t want to overlook the prayers that you answered to make yesterday so good in several ways. Thank you Father, Jesus, and Holy Spirit, for loving me and all of us so much.
Here are the verses for this third Sunday of Lent that Sacred Invitation: Lenten Devotions Inspired by the Book of Common Prayer has for me.
- AM Psalms: 93, 96
- PM Psalm: 34
- Jeremiah 6:9-15
- John 5: 1-20
- 1 Corinthians 6:12-20
Psalms 93, 96 – It’s easy for me to overlook the culture of the times these psalms were written. The people back then had many gods and there were gods for everything. Look at the Greeks. Gods for love, the ocean, etc. It was wholly unique to have one God that supplanted all of these other gods. I wonder what kinds of “psalms” were written by these other cultures to their gods. I know there had to have been. In humans, there is a natural desire to worship you. It’s baked in at some level. Even then Native Americans had spirits they worshipped before they were told about the one true God. So that’s what I thought about this morning as I read about you being “robed in majesty.” Or Psalm 96:4-5 when it said, “For great is the LORD and most worthy of praise; he is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the nations are idols, but the LORD made the heavens.
Jeremiah 6:9-15 – Oh, Lord, help me to be found faithful to you in any given moment. Sharing your love. Praying, serving, persuading, and suffering for your name.
John 5:1-20 – I don’t think I’ve noticed this before, but, off of the top of my head, I cannot think of a time when Jesus proactively went to someone and healed them. It seems that someone was always asking to be healed before Jesus would respond, but, in this case John tells us, “When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, ‘Do you want to get well?” The event was so much of a surprise to the man that he didn’t even know who Jesus was. From his perspective, a complete stranger had just walked up to him and casually healed him: “The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.” Give me your eyes to see so that I might proactively notice suffering and offer your healing with your power.
1 Corinthians 6:12-20 – Modern American Christians tend to think that sexual immorality only came about with the sexual revolution in the 1960s. But whenever Jesus or any of the apostles write about immorality, sexual immorality is usually the lead-off hitter. It’s insidious. And now our society and the modern church is grappling with the LGTBQ+ issue. Where do we draw the lines? Well, this is nothing new. Help me, Lord, to worry more about the soul and discipleship of the person than their sexual activity. I firmly believe that if they can be brought into relationship with you then the Holy Spirit will work out any sexual issues they have just like he has worked them out with me.
Make me, Father, the man you need me to be for the world around me today.
I offer this prayer in Jesus and with the Holy Spirit,
Amen
Emails to God 