By your teachings, Lord,
I am warned;
by obeying them,
I am greatly rewarded. ~ Psalm 19:11 (CEV)
Train yourself to be godly. ~ 1 Timothy 4:7 (NLT)
KEY THOUGHT:
Consider yourself to be in training -- constantly developing new skills in godly living.
PRAYER:
Lord, thank you for coaching me through your Word. I'm still a bit of a whimp. I am an on and off again person when it comes to training. So I would ask that you would help me build consistency in my workouts. Give me joy in them and encouragement so that I can become a Christ-like person. Amen.
I call out to High God,
the God who holds me together. ~ Psalm 57:2 (MSG)
Stay with it to the end. You won’t be sorry; you’ll be saved. ~ Mark 13:13b (MSG)
KEY THOUGHT:
It pays to stay with God.
PRAYER:
Most High God, thank you for keeping my life from falling a part. I confess to indulging in discouragement. It's so disheartening to see evil thriving -- to see bad people in power -- to see vulnerable people hurt. Hold me together so that I can turn from sorriness to joyful salvation. I pray in the name of our Savior Jesus. Amen.
The 3rd Sunday in Lent
God said:
Solomon, I’m pleased that you asked for this. You could have asked to live a long time or to be rich. Or you could have asked for your enemies to be destroyed. Instead, you asked for wisdom to make right decisions. So I’ll make you wiser than anyone who has ever lived or ever will live. ~ 1 Kings 3:11-12 (CEV)
But more than anything else, put God’s work first and do what he wants. Then the other things will be yours as well. ~ Matthew 6:33 (CEV)
KEY IDEA:
Make God's agenda your first priority and he will bless you with more than you can imagine to ask.
PRAYER:
Wise and generous God, thank you for including me in your agenda. I confess to the struggle I have of including your agenda in my life. Grant me the wisdom and energy I need to reprioritize my life so that it all lines up with your agenda. I am going to strive to pursue Jesus and his kingdom as my top priority. Amen.
You, God, are the source of all of life. We thrive through the light that radiates from you. ~ Psalm 36:9 (ABP)
So, whoever has the Son, has life; whoever rejects the Son, rejects life. ~ 1 John 5:12 (MSG)
KEY THOUGHT:
Our ability to live well is tied to our receptivity toward the life God gives.
PRAYER:
Jesus, you are the way, the truth, and the life. Thank you for giving even when I am not so good at receiving. Help me to focus on what it means to have your life flowing through me. I'm going to live well because of you. 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)
