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
Support or Restoration?
by Mary McGinnis
Has there been a time
in your life when you were embarrassed? What
did your face look like? How is embarrassment
different from feeling ashamed? What does
a person’s face look like if they are full of shame?
I have been in the place of shame in my lifetime. I tried running from it by disconnecting, keeping people at a distance and putting up a wall of self-protection around my vulnerable, shame-filled heart. I could not allow people to look in my eyes for fear they might know me or find out my secrets. I was a painful shy, withdrawn, and lonely.
The beggar in today’s
story felt useless and worthless. He was
unable to support himself since he had been weak and lame since the day he was born,
probably some 30 or 40 years. He sat near
the high traffic entrance to the temple in hopes that some kind person might grant
him enough money to sustain himself for a day with a bite or two of food.
This beggar was full of shame, unable to lift his eyes.
Peter knew the pain of guilt and shame. When the rooster crowed after he had denied Jesus 3 times, Luke says, “The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter. . . And he (Peter) went outside and wept bitterly.”
He remembered how
Jesus had told him, “But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not
fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”
When the beggar asks Peter and John for money, Peter did something amazing. He turns and says to the beggar, “Look at us!” I think Peter was saying, “I see you man! I want to look into your eyes, the same way Jesus looked lovingly into mine!”
Then Peter says, “Silver and gold I don’t have. But what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.” This helpless, hopeless, shame-filled beggar only expected a pittance to help sustain him. But instead of supporting him, Peter reaches out his hand to restore him through the transforming power of the Risen Christ!
The crowd was amazed. Peter realizes that this moment was meant for them. Having been restored from his former pride, he knew many of them were hiding their shame and guilt with their denial, pride and arrogance. Peter draws back the curtain and exposes their grievous sin. They had crucified the Lord of Life, whom God had raised from the dead! Only in exposing this truth could their lives be restored and transformed.
I don’t know where
you are in your life right now. Maybe
you relate to the lame beggar, feeling full of shame and despair, hoping only for some small pittance of support. Jesus wants you to lift your eyes and look deep
into His. See Him looking back at you. He bled and died for you. He has the power to transform you, not just
temporarily for this day, or even this lifetime, but for eternity.
Maybe you relate to the crowd, allowing the haunting scars of shame to twist you up in the lameness of denial and pride. Maybe you have ignored the truth of them for far too long. Realize now, that you too crucified the Lord of Life. All Jesus wants is for you and I to come to Him, humbly confess our grievous, sinful ways, lay them at the foot of the cross, and hear Him say, “It is FINISHED!”
Then fold your hands open like a cup, ready to receive from God.
He is ready to fill you with abundantly more than all you could ask or imagine.
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