Transcript REDEDICATION DEVOTIONAL 2014

REDEDICATION DEVOTIONAL
2014
WEEK 3
Dr. Earl D. Trent Jr.
Week 3
II CHRONICLES 7:14 If my people who are called
by my name humble themselves, pray, seek
my face, and turn from their wicked ways,
then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive
their sin and heal their land
Monday, April 7, 2014 Psalm 42:1-6
1
As a deer longs for flowing
streams,
so my soul longs for you,
O God.
2 My soul thirsts for God,
for the living God.
When shall I come and behold
the face of God?
3 My tears have been my food
day and night,
while people say to me
continually,
‘Where is your God?’
4
These things I remember,
as I pour out my soul:
how I went with the throng,*
and led them in procession to
the house of God,
with glad shouts and songs of
thanksgiving,
a multitude keeping festival.
5 Why are you cast down, O my
soul,
and why are you disquieted
within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again
praise him,
my help 6and my God.
My soul is cast down within me;
therefore I remember you
from the land of Jordan and of
Hermon,
from Mount Mizar.
The fourth directive is to pray. It is so simple a
word and such a profound concept. Many,
many books have been written on prayer, and
we know prayer is essential in our religious
life. The psalmist speaks of an aspect of prayer
that is essential to our Lenten contemplation,
prayer as a deep longing privilege.
The late Harry Emerson Fosdick, the founding
pastor of Riverside Church in NY says this
about the privilege of prayer: like friendship
and family love and laughter, great books,
great music, and great art, it is one of life’s
opportunities to be grasped thankfully and
used gladly. The man who misses the deep
meanings of prayer has not so much refused
an obligation; he has robbed himself of life’s
supreme privilege – friendship with God. As
God’s people our directive is also an invitation
to a friend.
Tuesday April 8, 2014
Luke 7:11-15
11 Soon afterwards* he went to a town called
Nain, and his disciples and a large crowd went
with him. 12As he approached the gate of the
town, a man who had died was being carried out.
He was his mother’s only son, and she was a
widow; and with her was a large crowd from the
town.
13When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for
her and said to her, ‘Do not weep.’ 14Then he
came forward and touched the bier, and the
bearers stood still. And he said, ‘Young man, I say
to you, rise!’ 15The dead man sat up and began to
speak, and Jesus* gave him to his mother.
The directive to pray is to a specific type of prayer. It is
to intercede or what we have come to know as
intercessory prayer. What is intercessory prayer? The
root of it is to be moved within by compassion. In Luke
7:13 it states that Jesus was moved with compassion
when he saw a widow about to bury her only son.
Jesus got involved and interrupted the normal flow of
the funeral procession and turns it into a celebration of
life.
Without compassion there is no intercession. It is
when we are moved by the plight of people in need
that we can begin to pray as intercessors. Then death,
disease, and destruction must give way to the creative
power of abundant life.
Wednesday, April 9, 2014 Ephesians
6: 18-20
18 Pray in the Spirit at all times in every
prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert
and always persevere in supplication for all
the saints. 19Pray also for me, so that when I
speak, a message may be given to me to make
known with boldness the mystery of the
gospel,* 20for which I am an ambassador in
chains. Pray that I may declare it boldly, as I
must speak.
The prayer of intercession starts with compassion, but
it often is completed in a battle. The injunction to put
on the whole armor of God starts with the reminder
that we are in a battle not against mere flesh and
blood, but against spiritual wickedness. It ends with
the injunction to pray. We sometimes think of prayer
as a peaceful retreat, but in the case of crisis we enter
a battle.
Paul is acutely aware and asks the church at Ephesus to
pray for him that he may speak boldly. Intercession
requires a willingness to engage in a time of prayer that
is not simply peaceful bliss, but to embark on an inner
heartfelt wrestling that stretches the soul and builds
true Christian character.
Thursday, April10, 2014 Luke 6:12-16
12 Now during those days he went out to the
mountain to pray; and he spent the night in
prayer to God. 13And when day came, he called
his disciples and chose twelve of them, whom he
also named apostles: 14Simon, whom he named
Peter, and his brother Andrew, and James, and
John, and Philip, and Bartholomew, 15and
Matthew, and Thomas, and James son of
Alphaeus, and Simon, who was called the Zealot,
16and Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who
became a traitor.
The directive to pray to intercede is also an
invitation to go to the mountains. It is
significant how many times Jesus leaves his
disciples and goes to the mountains to have
conversation with the Father. He starts his
ministry in the mountains on a spiritual
battlefield in a lonely hour. It is the loneliness
that can be the most disturbing for us.
We want to be part of a celebratory crowd and
tend to follow the crowd. This can lead to
following fads. Intercession is a directive to step
aside as Jesus did and as the disciples did in the
days after the resurrection and when they waited
for Pentecost.
The effectiveness of intercession is always seen
much later, but only when we are willing to step
aside from the whimsical norm of religious piety,
and suffer the lonely hours. Intercession is not so
much a public pronouncement, but an off the
beaten path discussion.
Friday April 11. 2014
John 17
After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up
to heaven and said, ‘Father, the hour has come;
glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you,
2since you have given him authority over all
people,* to give eternal life to all whom you have
given him. 3And this is eternal life, that they may
know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ
whom you have sent. 4I glorified you on earth by
finishing the work that you gave me to do. 5So
now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with
the glory that I had in your presence before the
world existed.
6 ‘I have made your name known to those whom you
gave me from the world. They were yours, and you
gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7Now
they know that everything you have given me is from
you; 8for the words that you gave to me I have given to
them, and they have received them and know in truth
that I came from you; and they have believed that you
sent me. 9I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking
on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom
you gave me, because they are yours. 10All mine are
yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in
them.
11And
now I am no longer in the world, but they are in
the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect
them in your name that you have given me, so that
they may be one, as we are one. 12While I was with
them, I protected them in your name that* you have
given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was
lost except the one destined to be lost,* so that the
scripture might be fulfilled.
13But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things
in the world so that they may have my joy made
complete in themselves.* 14I have given them your
word, and the world has hated them because they do
not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the
world. 15I am not asking you to take them out of the
world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one.*
16They
do not belong to the world, just as I do not
belong to the world. 17Sanctify them in the truth;
your word is truth. 18As you have sent me into the
world, so I have sent them into the world. 19And
for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also
may be sanctified in truth. ‘I ask not only on
behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who
will believe in me through their word, 21that they
may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am
in you, may they also be in us,* so that the world
may believe that you have sent me.
22The
glory that you have given me I have given them,
so that they may be one, as we are one, 23I in them and
you in me, that they may become completely one, so
that the world may know that you have sent me and
have loved them even as you have loved me. 24Father, I
desire that those also, whom you have given me, may
be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you
have given me because you loved me before the
foundation of the world.
25 ‘Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but
I know you; and these know that you have sent me. 26I
made your name known to them, and I will make it
known, so that the love with which you have loved me
may be in them, and I in them.’
John 17 is Jesus great intercessory prayer on behalf of
the disciples present and for us who are to follow. It is
a good example prayer for it is thoughtful about the
future. It is the future with its unknown days, known
traps and potential for failings that we take on in
intercessory prayer. James Weldon Johnson words are
an intercessory prayer.
God of our weary years, God of our silent tears,
Though who hast brought us thus far on the way
Thou who hast by Thy might, led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee
Lest our hearts drunk with the wine of the world we forget thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand, may we forever stand
True to our God, true to our native land
II CHRONICLES 7:14 If my people who are
called by my name humble themselves, pray,
seek my face, and turn from their wicked
ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will
forgive their sin and heal their land
Saturday April 12, 2014 Psalm 24:3-6
3
Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord?
And who shall stand in his holy place?
4 Those who have clean hands and pure hearts,
who do not lift up their souls to what is false,
and do not swear deceitfully.
5 They will receive blessing from the Lord,
and vindication from the God of their salvation.
6 Such is the company of those who seek him,
who seek the face of the God of Jacob.*
To seek God’s the face is the fifth directive.
The people of the ancient Hebrew culture
believed that the face holds the clues to the
will. Seeing a persons’ face can act as
confirmation or denial of their words. They
also believed that God was so holy that one
could not look on the face of God and live.
What they were indicating is that there is a
difference between our will and God’s will.
To seek the face of God is to seek his will not
our own will. That is one of the goals of
worship and why it is included in the 24th
Psalm which was recited as upon entering the
Temple to worship God. It is why we often us
that same psalm as a call to worship. While
currently much emphasis is on “praising” God,
the ultimate goal of worship is to empower is
to do the will of God which we can only do if
we seek his face
Sunday April 13, 2014
James1: 19-27
19 You must understand this, my beloved:* let everyone be
quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; 20for your
anger does not produce God’s righteousness. 21Therefore
rid yourselves of all sordidness and rank growth of
wickedness, and welcome with meekness the implanted
word that has the power to save your souls.
22 But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who
deceive themselves. 23For if any are hearers of the word
and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves*
in a mirror; 24for they look at themselves and, on going
away, immediately forget what they were like. 25But those
who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and
persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who
act—they will be blessed in their doing.
26 If any think they are religious, and do not
bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts,
their religion is worthless. 27Religion that is
pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is
this: to care for orphans and widows in their
distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the
world.
The directive to seek God’s face is to bring
ourselves into subjection. James makes it clear
that it is an internal wrestling and positive
action. The two go together. We confront the
failings within because God’s will is different
than ours. Our will can desire to do “good.”
However we must go beyond the desire to do
“good.” We must act and fully engage
ourselves to do “good” God’s way.