Prayer Practice
Cup Prayer –
This
prayer will help you pour your heart out to God (Ps. 62:8). Begin with your
hands folded together like an upside-down cup. Pour out before God all your
fears, anxieties, guilt, sin and shame. Tell Him what troubles you. Take time
to be specific. When you feel like you’ve poured out your heart, flip your
hands over, folding them like an open cup, ready to receive from God. Sit in
silence, asking God simply to fill you with His Spirit. If your mind runs back
to sin, shame, anxiety or concerns of the day, flip your hands back over and
pour it out to the Lord. When you are finished praying, read today’s Scripture
and listen as God shares His heart back with you.
DAILY READING
REFLECTION
Who is Lord?
by Mary McGinnis
As a teenager, I began thinking about how I would spend my life. I thought I had it all figured out. I would go to a Christian University, get my degree, marry my High School sweetheart after graduating, and go on to full time ministry. We would be as devout and committed to each other as my parents, and my children would grow up in a stable God-fearing home.
As a result, I often looked down my nose at others whom I felt did not live up to my standards, rules, and principles. After all, I had it all figured out!
Little did I know that the next 25 to 30 years of my life would turn my life, and my view of the world upside down. As one disaster after another came, I had to re-think what I had thought I had “all figured out.” I had to come to the realization that all my self-imposed step by step rules did not and could not save me, only God could.
In today’s lesson, Jesus challenges the religious leaders of the day to re-think some things too. They were dependent on their set of rules. The rules, though grounded in the scriptures, were embellished with more rules, upon rules, upon rules to make sure they did not violate the rules.
From their hearts of self-righteousness, they challenged Jesus saying, “Why are you doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?”
His response was, “The Son of Man is the Lord of the Sabbath.”
Jesus cut to the heart of the matter! He wanted them to see Him as Lord! But they were so caught up in their own rules and perceptions that they missed who He was!
Our rules and principals can become our gods! We can look to them to rescue us, to save us. We think that strict adherence to our principles and rules will leave US in control, that WE can be the lord of our own lives. We falsely think that if ONLY we (and everyone else) will follow them, everything will be right in the world. And often we are convinced that even God could not act outside of the ways we think things should work.
Since we are limited human beings, we will soon find our perceptions and principles threatened. We find our “rule gods” shown to be lacking, ineffective, and impotent. We feel a loss of control. This loss of control leads to panic, fear, and chaos. We become angry and lash out. We erupt in indignation and hate. Fear makes tyrants of us.
Being a Christian does not come from following a certain set of principles or rules.
How might Jesus be calling you to lean into Him? How might He be calling you to give up your attachment to what you have “figured out?” Is He yearning to reveal new things to you from His immeasurable storehouse of wisdom and greatness? How is He showing you today the incomparable riches of His unfathomable grace? How is He leading you to show that same grace to those around you today? Don’t miss His invitation to allow Him to be Lord in your life today.
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