WELCOMING
HOSEA 14:3 (CEV)
Our LORD, you show mercy to orphans.
EPHESIANS 2:19 (CEV)
You Gentiles are no longer strangers and foreigners. You are citizens with everyone else who belongs to the family of God.
SUMMARY SENTENCE
The Lord welcomes all -- even the most disenfranchised.
PRAYER
God of all, you call everyone a member of your family -- even me. Soften our hard edges; fill us with humility and love in order to welcome strangers and aliens among us. Let our prayer of thanksgiving today not be for our own prosperity, but for the honor of caring for all your children. Amen. (Daily Texts, Ground Up Grace edition)
*ABOUT THE
DAILY TEXTS
The Daily Texts have been published by the Moravian Church since 1731. In 2011 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)
