HOPE AND FREEDOM
ISAIAH 66:10 (CEV)
If you love Jerusalem,
celebrate and shout!
If you were in sorrow
because of the city,
you can now be glad.
LUKE 2:38 (CEV)
At that time Anna came in and praised God. She spoke about the child Jesus to everyone who hoped for Jerusalem to be set free.
SUMMARY SENTENCE
Celebrate Jesus, who is the embodiment of the hope that delivers freedom.
PRAYER
Thank you, God, for Jesus, and the freedom that belongs to all as they trust him. Forgive me for latching onto counterfeit forms of freedom and looking for hope in all the wrong places. Help me to let go of all my faulty assumptions and expectations so that I can fully embrace Jesus as the sole source of the hope in my life. I'm going to celebrate this gift. 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)
