Fruitful lives
So you must carefully do exactly what the Lord your God commands you. Don’t deviate even a bit! ~ Deuteronomy 5:32 (CEB)
My Father is honored when your life produces a lot of fruit. That's how you show that you are my disciples. ~ John 15:8 (ABP)
KEY IDEA:
We honor God when our lives produce Jesus fruit.
PRAYER:
Lord, thank you for giving me a new year in which I can start to produce more fruit. I really do want to honor you more and more. But I try to deal with the worries of life through unfruitful distractions. I do things which do not emerge from my relationship with Jesus. However, this is a new year and I'm asking for a fresh start. I'm confident that with your fertilizer and pruning I can produce fruit for you in 2018. 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)
