Prayer Practice
Breath Prayer – Take 2-3 minutes today to pray a simple breath prayer. Get somewhere quiet and relaxing. Breathe in deeply, and then breathe out fully. As you breathe in, ask God to fill you with His presence, grace, love, peace, etc. Consider using the list of spiritual fruit in Galatians 5:22-23. As you breathe out, offer to God the things you need Him to take from you – sin, doubt, shame, anxiety, fear, etc. Pray this way for just a few minutes, trusting God to work, and then begin reading today’s Scripture.
DAILY READING
REFLECTION
GRASP
by Kelsey Bacon
I wear a bracelet on my wrist. I have worn one every single day for about 3 and a half years now. The bracelet was inspired by Pastor Joe Valentino, who also wears a similar bracelet on his wrist. The bracelet is stamped with a word or a phrase and the point of it is to make this word or phrase your intention for a season, to make it your reminder of something--whatever you feel God is calling you to focus on.
Initially, I thought I would get a new bracelet every year and focus on a new word every year. But God quickly showed me that he would guide me through the seasons, and not me. So I complied, and kept my first two bracelets longer than expected. And it's just been in the last few months that I felt called to a new word, so I purchased my third bracelet, the one I am wearing today. And the word on this bracelet is GRASP. The inspiration behind this word is Ephesians 3:17-18--"And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have the power, together with all the Lord's holy people, to GRASP how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." My prayer for this word, for this bracelet, was to every day be reminded of God's love, to recognize that I don't take the time to realize how big it is, and to be filled with the true glory of the hugeness of it.
This whole passage speaks to the hugeness of God's love. When I think about Christ dwelling in our hearts, I am reminded of a sermon preached several years ago by a well known pastor named Matt Chandler from The Village Church in Texas. He preached a series on Ecclesiastes, and in one of his sermons he described how there is a groove in our souls the size of eternity, and how nothing can fill it but Jesus. And when we try and fill that groove with other things--money, relationships, work, any earthly satisfaction--it will inevitably leave us feeling empty because the groove is the size of eternity and things of this earth are not. Only Jesus is. So when I think about how Christ dwells in my heart, I think about how he and only he fills my soul. He and only he satisfies me. He and only he lives eternally within me.
And when I think about God's love filling that groove, being so enormous that it's the size and shape of eternity in our souls, even though it's impossible for our minds to understand, I do grasp it a little better. I do see how only God's love can fill me because only God's love is that wide and long and high and deep.
Reflect: Pray today and ask God to show you his love for you. Ask him to open your eyes to how huge and deep his love is for you, and thank him for that love.
"Quenched" sermon from The Village Church's Ecclesiastes series: https://subsplash.com/thevillagechurch/lb/mi/+62fcaad?autoplay=true
1 comment:
I listened to this sermon today - what a great message. Thank you for sharing, Kelsey. I don't think I will ever look at King Solomon the same after hearing this!
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