Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Generosity

God, be merciful to me. Be kind because my soul trusts in you. ~ Psalm 57:1 (ERV)

You people are so bad, but you still know how to give good things to your children. So surely your heavenly Father will give good things to those who ask him. ~ Matthew 7:11 (ERV)

Lord, somebody once said, "You can't out-give God." As trite as that sounds, it is true. We think of ourselves as generous people. But really, we are stingy, compared to you. Please remake me into someone who is generous like you. Start today. Give me a kind soul. Fill me with a merciful spirit. I know that you give to those who ask. And this is what I am asking for. I pray in the name of Christ Jesus, who gave his life so that we might have life. Amen.

Challenging Words
  • Out-give -- to give more than, to be more generous than someone
  • Trite -- a remark that is overused, sounds insincere because it is said so often, unoriginal, overused
  • Stingy -- the opposite of generous, unwilling to give or spend

DAILYTEXTS.ORG

*ABOUT THE
DAILY TEXTS

The Daily Texts have been published by the Moravian Church since 1731. In 2015 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)

EEB = EasyEnglish Bible (©2015, MissionAssist)

ERV = Easy-To-Read Version (©2006, World Bible Translation Center)

GNT = Good News Translation (©1992, American Bible Society)

MSG = The Message (©1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson)

NCB = New Catholic Bible (©2019 by Catholic Book Publishing Corp.)

NCV = New Century Version (©2005, Thomas Nelson Inc)

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)

NRSV = New Revised Standard Version (© 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.)

NTE = New Testament for Everyone (©2011 Nicolas Thomas Wright.)

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