The pillars of the earth belong to the Lord;
he set the world on top of them! ~ 1 Samuel 2:8b (CEB)
God made his Son the heir of everything and created the world through him. The Son is the light of God’s glory and the imprint of God’s being. He maintains everything with his powerful message. ~ Hebrews 1:2b-3a (CEB)
KEY IDEA:
The Lord established all of the creation and continues to be in charge of it all.
PRAYER:
Lord, you have made an incredible world. I should trust you to take care of what you created. You are trustworthy, but without good excuse, I try to handle all the problems that come my way on my own. Help me to trust Jesus and his message of hope and love that sheds light on everything. Amen.
Christ the King Sunday
We don’t know what to do, and so we are looking to you for help. ~ 2 Chronicles 20:12b (CEB)
We must keep our eyes on Jesus, who leads us and makes our faith complete. ~ Hebrews 12:2a (CEV)
KEY IDEA:
If you want to grow into a mature believer fixate on Jesus.
PRAYER:
Lord, you are definitely worth watching. I am definitely distracted by all the eye candy in the world. I don't know how to deal with that so I am looking to you for help. And I am asking you to help me keep my eyes on Jesus. I really do want to be shaped by what I see. Amen.
For your own sake, be very careful to love the Lord your God. ~ Joshua 23:11 (CEB)
God is love, and those who live in love live in union with God and God lives in union with them. ~ 1 John 4:16 (GNT)
KEY IDEA:
Make love of God your top priority if you want the love of God to live through you.
PRAYER:
Lord, thank you for loving me -- even when I am so unloveable. I want to be like you but I'm not all that careful about loving you. I am easily distracted by other things which I love instead of you. Help me to turn around and focus on loving you. I'm going to start my days by saying "God is love" just to remind myself of what I'm doing. Amen.
The poor and the homeless won’t always be forgotten and without hope. ~ Psalm 9:18 (CEV)
And so we will always be with the Lord. So then, encourage one another with these words. ~ 1 Thessalonians 4:17b-18 (GNT)
KEY IDEA:
Be encouraged because eventually the Lord will make everything right.
PRAYER:
Lord, you fill me with hope. I need to be reminded of what you are doing because I too easily allow myself to be swallowed by the hopelessness of the world around me. Our leaders are pathetic. Greed runs unchecked. Women are abused.
People take advantage of the poor. But you are coming to make everything right. That is my moment by moment source of hope. 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)
