Devotion
Turn to Me
Frances Taylor
Again we have a prophet spreading God's message of love, begging the people to admit their wrongdoing, and sincerely repent and turn back to him. When you read the Old Testament, you start to wonder if they will ever learn. I wonder what historians one hundred years from now will say about us and our behavior. Will they read the New Testament and find remnants of Christian groups and compare their behavior with the Bible, and find us worthy of the name? I'm not so sure. Not only is there a lot of what I consider very un-Christian behavior by individuals but also by Christian groups towards one another. Perhaps we should reread Joel and the messages given by some of the other prophets and take these messages to heart. God wants us to turn to him. He wants us to take responsibility for our actions, and ask forgiveness so that he can forgive and renew us. God isn't looking for grandiose exhibitions of repentance, but a sincerity of heart. It's how much we are willing to change our behavior. It's how welcoming we will be to the stranger, how much we are willing to help others to grow in their faith as well as how willing we are to grow in our own.
Prayer
Forgiving God, you are so patient with us. We repeat our sinful behaviors again and again. We turn to you today and ask for your forgiveness and the desire to change. Amen.
Night Prayer
Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near:
Inspiration
We seek the Lord and find Him because He is always ready to accept the invitation to live inside our hearts. He loves us beyond our understanding and extends salvation to everyone. We want to share His promise of salvation with the nations and allow everyone to accept Christ as their personal Savior. We will continue to minister to the broken world around us so they may feel God's presence in their lives.
Prayer
Dear God, You make Yourself available to everyone because You love us beyond our understanding. Please guide us as we continue to minister to others so they may also feel Your presence in their lives. In Jesus' Name, Amen.
Devotion
The Transfiguration
Frances Taylor
The feast of the Transfiguration is considered important enough to celebrate it twice a year, once on the second Sunday of Lent and today. In March, I concentrated on how Jesus reveals himself to us; today I would like to think about the apostles and their reaction and to what ours might have been. Peter tells Jesus that it was good for them to be there. The week before, Peter had declared that Jesus was the Christ, but had rejected the idea that he would suffer and die. When they come down from the mountain, Jesus will be approached to heal a boy whom the other disciples had failed to heal. Jesus was giving them a foretaste of the resurrection. They must have been amazed at Jesus as well as the appearance of Moses and Elijah. They wanted to stay there at the top of the mountain. They were enclosed in a cloud and heard the voice of God; of course they wanted to stay there! We can't stay at the top of the mountain any more than the apostles ...
Morning Prayer
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.
Inspiration
Without fear of Jehovah-God, there is not true wisdom. For when you see "LORD" in all capitals in the KJV, that is the translation of the Hebrew word for Jehovah. And there is not true understanding without a true knowledge of the Holy One undergirding it. If we are wrong about God, we are in all important respects, "wrong about everything. "
Prayer
You, O Great Jehovah, are the only true God, and without fearing and knowing about you, all other knowledge is made faulty. And without knowing you personally, pursuit of knowledge is futile and unable to help us. Let us not be like those who are "ever learning but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth, " but let us delve ever deeper into your truths. Amen.
