Pleasing God in 2017
The Eighth Day of Christmas
The Second Sunday in Christmastide
...Worship and serve God with your whole heart and a willing mind. For the Lord sees every heart and knows every plan and thought... ~ 1 Chronicles 28:9 (NLT)
God gives peace... I pray that God will make you ready to obey him and that you will always be eager to do right. May Jesus help you do what pleases God. To Jesus Christ be glory forever and ever! Amen. ~ Hebrews 13:20a, 21 (CEV)
KEY IDEA:
God is the one worth pleasing.
PRAYER:
Lord, as we begin a new year my prayer is that I might please you in 2017. That's my goal. But you know that already. For you know my heart and mind -- all the positive and all the negative. I know that I can't please you on my own so I ask that Jesus would help me. I'm looking forward to a good year of service to you. What higher goal could there be? 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)
