Rejoice in God's gift
Rejoice in the Lord your God! ~ Joel 2:23a (NLT)
Let us praise the Lord, the God of Israel,
because he has come to help his people and has given them freedom.
He has given us a powerful Savior
from the family of God’s servant David. ~ Luke 1:68-69 (NCV)
KEY IDEA:
Rejoice in God's gift of a powerful Savior.
PRAYER:
Lord, I want to honor you for all your gifts -- above all that of Jesus, your only Son, whom you sent to be our Savior. I don't deserve a Savior -- especially since I am such a screw-up. But perhaps that's the point. You are so generous that you give broken and self-centered people what they don't deserve. You give us a powerful Savior who frees us from captivity to sin and brokenness. That is worth a joyous shout -- and perhaps even a Christmas carol. Amen.
*ABOUT THE
DAILY TEXTS
The Daily Texts have been published by the Moravian Church since 1731. In 2011 I started posting these Bible verses for my spiritual formation students at Pacific Islands University. In the process of responding to the verses, I found the rhythm of looking for a common thread and writing a prayer based on that key idea to be helpful for my own soul. The prayers are more or less modeled on the TRIP method, which is what I ask my students to do in their journaling. ~ Brad Boydston
TRANSLATIONS
ABP = Authorized Boydston Paraphrase -- a freestyle biblical adaptation -- somewhere between paraphrase, commentary, and sermon
CEB = Common English Bible (©2011, the Common English Bible)
CEV = Contemporary English Version (©1995, American Bible Society)
MSG = The Message (©1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson)
NIRV = New International Reader's Version (©1996, 1998, Biblica)
NIV = New International Version (©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011, Biblica)
NLT = New Living Translation (©1996, 2004, 2007, 2013, Tyndale House Foundation)
