Cleaning house
LENT
Cleanse your heart of evil, Jerusalem,
that you may be saved.
How long will you entertain your destructive ideas? ~ Jeremiah 4:14 (CEB)
So get rid of all the filth and evil in your lives, and humbly accept the word God has planted in your hearts, for it has the power to save your souls. ~ James 1:21 (NLT)
KEY IDEA:
If we are going to experience the benefits of God's salvation we need to get rid of the things which are contrary to him and his ways.
PRAYER:
Lord, I am grateful for the way that you save us. The salvation of Christ is the most glorious gift. But I realize that I am not fully experiencing what you give. There are things in my life that get in the way of having a fuller experience with you. And I know that I cannot get rid of them on my own. So I am looking to you to clean my house.
And I am trusting that you will put things in order so that my life is consistent with you and your ways. 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)
