Slaves
Look! The Lord does not lack the power to save,
nor are his ears too dull to hear,
but your misdeeds have separated you from your God.
Your sins have hidden his face from you
so that you aren’t heard. ~ Isaiah 59:1–2 (CEB)
You used to let the different parts of your body be slaves of your evil thoughts. But now you must make every part of your body serve God, so that you will belong completely to him. ~ Romans 6:19b (CEV)
Lord, sin has a way of messing up our relationship with you. It is certainly not your fault. You are powerful enough and caring enough to fix things. But you don't force your solutions on us. The fix only comes to us when we start to trust you and serve you. Thank you for your kindness. I want to belong completely to you. I don't want to hold any part of my life back from serving you. This is exciting. This is what I was created to do. I'm expecting to see awesome because of your power to save. Amen.
*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)
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)
