Saved
Give up your crooked ways
and your evil thoughts.
Return to the Lord our God.
He will be merciful
and forgive your sins. ~ Isaiah 55:7 (CEV)
Later that day Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “I will give half of my property to the poor. And I will now pay back four times as much to everyone I have ever cheated.”
Jesus said to Zacchaeus, “Today you and your family have been saved..." ~ Luke 19:8-9a (CEV)
KEY IDEA:
Salvation belongs to all who turn from ways that are contrary to God and toward God and his ways.
PRAYER:
Lord Jesus, thank you for the salvation that belongs to all who turn to you. For you have already saved us through the sacrifice of the cross and the glory of the resurrection. I need to live more fully into my salvation. I need to completely turn from everything that you don't like. Keep me motivated and moving your direction. I'm going to enjoy living the life of a saved person. 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)
