Weakness and Power
The Fourth Sunday of Advent
Who could possibly compare to the Lord our God?
God rules from on high;
he has to come down to even see heaven and earth!
God lifts up the poor from the dirt
and raises up the needy from the garbage pile. ~ Psalm 113:5-7 (CEB)
Although he was weak when he was nailed to the cross, he now lives by the power of God. We are weak, just as Christ was. But you will see that we will live by the power of God, just as Christ does. ~ 2 Corinthians 13:4 (CEV)
KEY IDEA:
Christ has assumed our weaknesses in order to raise us up to be with him.
PRAYER:
Lord:
THANKS: I'm grateful that you have made yourself vulnerable so that you can rescue us from our weaknesses -- our sin and immaturity.
REGRETS: I have a warped view of power -- assuming that it always means trampling over bad people -- finding their weaknesses and then trampling them. But you embrace the weakness in order to make us strong.
INTERCESSION: Please keep my desire for power and control in check.
PURPOSE: I want to go about dealing with power in the same way that Christ Jesus my Savior does.
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)
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.)