Mercy, kindness, and fairness
The Ninth Day of Christmas
You have always been fair
when you punished us
for our sins. ~ Nehemiah 9:33 (CEV)
God our Savior showed us
how good and kind he is.
He saved us because
of his mercy,
and not because
of any good things
that we have done. ~ Titus 3:4-5a (CEV)
KEY IDEA:
God is merciful, kind, and fair -- even when he is correcting us.
PRAYER:
THANKS: Thank you for treating us so well. Even when we deserve harshness, you are kind.
REGRETS: I'm sorry that I don't fully appreciate your mercy. I still try to act like I'm the one who makes things work out through all the good I do.
INTERCESSION: Help me to think clearly about the magnitude of your mercy, kindness, and fairness. Let that reality sink deep into my heart so that I'm transformed.
PURPOSE: This year I'm going to let your mercy rather than my aspirations drive my life.
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 — my own 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)
