Love, kindness, compassion
Be true to your name, Lord God!
Show your great kindness
and rescue me. ~ Psalm 109:21 (CEV)
So he returned home to his father. And while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him. ~ Luke 15:20 (NLT)
KEY IDEA:
The Lord is full of love, kindness, and compassion.
PRAYER:
Lord, I am thankful to be the recipient of your love, kindness, and compassion. You freely embrace sinners. I confess that while I am grateful to receive your kindness, I can be a bit like the older son in the prodigal son story that Jesus told in Luke 15 . I don't get as excited when other people receive your mercy and compassion. I desperately want to see people get what they deserve. Please give me a fresh glimpse of your love so that I begin to grasp how deep and wide it is -- so that I'm changed -- so that I am filled with love, kindness, and compassion for sinful people. That is what I want to characterize 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 -- 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.)