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MEDITATION:

Written by Robert D. Jones, a contemporary pastor, professor, counselor, author, and speaker. This is an excerpt from his book “Anger: Calming Your Heart.”

Where should we begin our reflections on handling anger? We could start with the varied ways we express our anger—sometimes we vent, sometimes we stew. We could start with why we get angry—what triggers our anger and what drives it. Or we could start with the antidote to anger—godly behaviors that should replace it, such as self-control, patience, and forgiveness. But the best place to begin is with God, and his explicit invitation for us to come to him.

Whatever our situation, whatever our emotional state, we should go to God. As John Calvin put it, “there is no time in which God does not invite us to himself. For afflictions ought to stimulate us to pray; prosperity supplies us with an occasion to praise God.” Negative emotions like anxiety or sadness can’t keep you from God; positive emotions like happiness and contentment shouldn’t keep you from God. God invites you to come.

Anger easily arises when your circumstances bring suffering or when friends, family, or coworkers mistreat you. But God invites you to talk to him. Commit yourself to praying about your anger and seeking God’s help.

PRAYER:

From the Gelasian Sacramentary, a book of Christian liturgy, which is the oldest western liturgical book that has survived.  The book is linked to Pope Gelasius I. It was compiled near Paris around 750.

Almighty God,

hear our prayers

and pour on us your loving tenderness,

that we who are afflicted by our sins

may be refreshed by the advent of our Savior;

through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

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MEDITATION:

Written by Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892), an English preacher, known as the “Prince of Preachers.”. This is an excerpt from the book “365 Days with Spurgeon.”

There are some people who always live upon what they have been. I speak very plainly now. There is a brother in this church who may take it to himself; I hope he will. It is not very many years ago since he said to me, when I asked him why he did not do something—“Well, I have done my share; I used to do this, and I have done the other; I have done so and so.” Oh, may the Lord deliver him, and all of us, from living on “has beens!” It will never do to say we have done a thing. Suppose for a solitary moment, the world should say, “I have turned round; I will stand still.” Let the sea say, “I have been ebbing and flowing these many years; I will ebb and flow no more.” Let the sun say, “I have been shining, and I have been rising and setting for many days; I have done this enough to earn me a goodly name; I will stand still;” and let the moon wrap herself up in veils of darkness, and say, “I have illuminated many a night, and I have lighted many a weary traveler across the moors; I will shut up my lamp and be dark for ever.” Brethren, when you and I cease to labor, let us cease to live. God has no intention to let us live a useless life. But mark this; when we leave our first works, there is no question about our having lost our first love; that is sure. If there be strength remaining, if there be still power mentally and physically, if we cease from our office, if we abstain from our labors, there is no solution of this question which an honest conscience will accept, except this, “Thou hast lost thy first love, and, therefore, thou hast neglected thy first works.”

PRAYER:

From the Mozarabic Breviary. a liturgical rite of the Latin Church once used generally in the Iberian Peninsula (Hispania), in what is now Spain and Portugal.  Developed during Visigoth (Arian Christian) rule of the Iberian peninsula  in the 500s AD.

O Lord,

make us flourish like pure lilies

in the courts of your house,

and make us display to your people

the fragrance of good works

and the example of a godly life;

through your mercy, O our God,

you are blessed,

and live and govern all things,

now and forever. Amen.

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MEDITATION:

Written by Shilo Taylor, a contemporary youth pastor and Christian author. This is an excerpt from her book “A 40-Day Guide to Life in Christ.”

All around us we see love fail. We see relationships end in breakups. We see marriages end in divorce. We see friendships end. Some love us based on our performance. They love us as long as we look good, keep it together, and do what they want. We love people who don’t love us back or maybe they love us but do a lousy job showing it. We let people down and miss opportunities to love well. We think we love, but we doubt our love when our feelings go away and the relationship has challenges. God’s love is nothing like those “loves.” His love endures forever. God’s love is not based on what we do or don’t do. Our choices bring consequences, and they must be faced, but they won’t change God’s love for us. God pursues us no matter how much we reject him. His love for us is unconditional and permanent.

Jesus’ death and resurrection are the grandest acts of love anyone will ever do for you. Jesus left his throne in heaven to come to earth as a humble person who was beaten and killed, a Savior who offered himself on a cross as your sacrifice. Clearly Jesus’ love for you is not empty, mushy, or wimpy. It is strong and unfailing. His death and resurrection took away your sin and gives you true life with him. He can back up his promises to care for you and meet your needs. The love of God changes who we are and how we relate to other people. His love is unfailingly patient, kind, protecting, merciful, and hopeful. His love seeps into us, and then it pours back out of us onto the people around us. His love gives us strength to do things that seem impossible.

PRAYER:

Written by Catherine of Siena (1347-1380), a laywoman, scholastic philosopher, and theologian associated with the Dominican Order.

Holy Spirit, come into my heart; draw it to You by Your power, O my God, and grant me charity with filial fear. Preserve me, O ineffable Love, from every evil thought; warm me, inflame me with Your dear love, and every pain will seem light to me.  My Father, my sweet Lord, help me in all my actions. Jesus, love, Jesus, love. Amen.

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MEDITATION:

Written by Paul Estabrooks, a contemporary Christian author of the daily devotional “Standing Strong Through the Storm.”

Joshua Sauñe had not planned to speak at his brothers’ funeral. Had he planned a speech, it certainly would not have been the one he delivered on that remarkable September day in 1992. “Shining Path is not my enemy, Satan is my enemy,” he told the mourners who packed the Presbyterian Church in Ayacucho, Peru. “The people who killed my brothers need Christ just as you and I do.” The funeral of Quechua evangelist and Bible translator Rómulo Sauñe, his brother Ruben and their cousins Josué and Marco Antonio, was one of the largest Ayacucho witnessed during the decade that the communist guerrilla army known as Shining Path terrorized the city. Nearly 5,000 people, the vast majority of them Quechua-speaking native Americans like the Sauñes, turned out to grieve the fallen Christians, murdered September 5. God was there that day, too, performing silent miracles in the lives of several of the mourners.

Joshua was Rómulo’s only surviving brother and had come immediately from his home in the United States when he heard of the murders. All during the long flight to Peru, Joshua seethed with anger. He later told a friend that, in the very moment he rose to address the crowd, God took away the hatred he felt for the Shining Path terrorists that had caused his family so much suffering. In its place, God gave Joshua a burning desire to carry on the evangelistic work that his brothers, parents, and grandparents had faithfully performed. “I suddenly saw (that) if I was going to fight Shining Path, I should fight with the Bible,” Joshua said. “It was the first time I understood that.” Not long afterward, Joshua abandoned his successful art career in Arizona and moved back to Peru with his family to work with Runa Simi, the indigenous ministry founded by Rómulo and his wife, the former Donna Jackson. Between evangelistic campaigns in the Andes, Joshua and Missy Sauñe have worked to establish community self-help projects and schools for the widows and orphans of Shining Path violence.

PRAYER:

Written by Benedict XVI is a retired prelate of the Catholic Church who served as Pope until his resignation in 2013.

God grant that violence be overcome by the power of love, that opposition give way to reconciliation and that the desire to oppress be transformed into the desire for forgiveness, justice, and peace…May peace be in our hearts so that they are open to the action of God’s grace…May all members of the family community, especially children, the elderly, the weakest, feel the warmth of this feast, and may it extend subsequently to all the days in the year. Amen.

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MEDITATION:

This meditation is from a daily devotional from Worthy Ministries.

A young couple was visiting a renowned jewelry store in New York City. They browsed through cases of magnificent diamonds with their gleaming yellow light along with many other splendid precious stones. Among those beautiful stones, one in particular caught his wife’s eye. It was completely lusterless and didn’t seem to be in the right place.

“That is one terrible looking stone, do you see that?” she said. The curious husband asked a clerk if they could see the stone. The clerk opened the case, took out the stone and held it in his hand for a few minutes. When he opened it, there was a perfectly flawless stone. There was not a place on it that didn’t gleam with the splendor of the rainbow. “How did you do that?”, they asked in surprise. “This is an opal”, he replied. “It is what we call the sympathetic jewel. It only needs contact with the human hand to bring out its wonderful beauty.”

Merely a touch brings out this stone’s beauty. We live in a world where beauty is hidden under pain, sin, and suffering. How many lives only need the warm touch of human sympathy, love, and compassion, to make them gleam with a radiant splendor? Reach out and touch someone today for His glory! Share with them the love of God and not only will they receive a glimmer of joy, but you will gleam with His radiance too! When the Lord asked whom shall I send, Isaiah replied “Hineni (here am I)”.  Let’s say “Hineni” today and be used by the Lord to bring out the beauty of those around us!

PRAYER:

Written by George Whitefield (1714-1770), an English Anglican cleric and evangelist who was one of the founders of Methodism and the evangelical movement.

You who holds the wind in your fists, and the waters in the palms of your hands, accept our thanks for your past mercies. Set apart our travels, and if it is best, carry us with speed to where we should go. Send me wherever and whenever it seems good to your divine majesty.

Raise my heart and make your power known in the hearts of your people. Add daily to your church those who will be saved. They are noted in your book; let them also be written on my heart.  Come Lord Jesus, come quickly. Amen.

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MEDITATION:

Written by N.T. Wright, a contemporary theologian, writer, teacher, and Anglican bishop. This is an excerpt from his book “The New Testament In Its World.”

A Christian worldview generates basic beliefs about God, Jesus, the atonement, resurrection, spirit, the future, and so forth. We might see this set of beliefs as those elements of the Christian faith that transcend culture (though they include the call to be culture makers and culture transformers). They constitute a kind of portable story which Christians take with them wherever they go. And from the basic beliefs there emerge what we may call consequent beliefs, beliefs that vary more widely based on context and environment, as Christians in all places have to navigate and negotiate how to live faithfully in their unique situation.

Part of the urgent task facing global Christianity in our  day is to figure out what is basic (and therefore unalterable) and what is consequent (and therefore open for debate). The New Testament provides the basis for a theology and a worldview in which we can explain and enact, under the guidance of the Spirit, several things universal to human experience: justice, spirituality, relationships, beauty, freedom, truth, and power. A Christian worldview tells us what those things mean, what to do with them, how to enjoy them, and how not to abuse them. A Christian worldview, focused on such topics, will enable us to engage in authentic worship, enact the Christian vocation, and promote the flourishing of humans, individually and together.

PRAYER:

This prayer is from the United Church of Christ Book of Worship.

Grant us, Lord God, a vision of your world as your love would have it: a world where the weak are protected, and none go hungry or poor; a world where the riches of creation are shared, and everyone can enjoy them;

a world where different races and cultures live in harmony and mutual respect; a world where peace is built with justice, and justice is guided by love. Give us the inspiration and courage to build it, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

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MEDITATION:

Written by James Allen (1864-1912), a British philosophical writer. This is an excerpt from his book “As a Man Thinketh.”

And you, too, youthful reader, will realize the vision (not the idle wish) of your heart, be it base or beautiful, or a mixture of both, for you will always gravitate toward that which you, secretly, most love. Into your hands will be placed the exact results of your own thoughts; you will receive that which you earn; no more, no less. Whatever your present environment may be, you will fall, remain, or rise with your thoughts, your vision, your ideal. You will become as small as your controlling desire; as great as your dominant aspiration…

In all human affairs there are efforts, and there are results, and the strength of the effort is the measure of the result. Chance is not. “Gifts,” powers, material, intellectual, and spiritual possessions are the fruits of effort; they are thoughts completed, objects accomplished, visions realized.

The vision that you glorify in your mind, the ideal that you enthrone in your heart—this you will build your life by, this you will become.

PRAYER:

Written by Alfred the Great (871-886), King of the Anglo-Saxons.

Lord God Almighty,

shaper and ruler of all creatures,

we pray for your great mercy,

that you guide us towards you,

for we cannot find our way.

And guide us to your will, to the need of our soul,

for we cannot do it ourselves.

And make our mind steadfast in your will

and aware of our soul’s need.

Strengthen us against the temptations of the devil,

and remove from us all lust and every unrighteousness,

and shield us against our foes, seen and unseen.

Teach us to do your will,

that we may inwardly love you before all things with a pure mind.

For you are our maker and our redeemer,

our help, our comfort, our trust, our hope;

praise and glory be to you now and forever. Amen.

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MEDITATION:

Written by Aiden Wilson Tozer (1897-1963), an American Christian pastor, author, magazine editor, and spiritual mentor. This is an excerpt from his book “Following Hard After God.”

The doctrine of justification by faith—a Biblical truth, and a blessed relief from sterile legalism and unavailing self-effort—has in our time fallen into evil company and been interpreted by many in such manner as actually to bar men from the knowledge of God. The whole transaction of religious conversion has been made mechanical and spiritless. Faith may now be exercised without a jar to the moral life and without embarrassment to the Adamic ego. Christ may be “received” without creating any special love for Him in the soul of the receiver. The man is “saved,” but he is not hungry nor thirsty after God. In fact, he is specifically taught to be satisfied and encouraged to be content with little…

You and I are in little (our sins excepted) what God is in large. Being made in His image we have within us the capacity to know Him. In our sins we lack only the power. The moment the Spirit has quickened us to life in regeneration our whole being senses its kinship to God and leaps up in joyous recognition. That is the heavenly birth without which we cannot see the Kingdom of God. It is, however, not an end but an inception, for not begins the glorious pursuit, the heart’s happy exploration of the infinite riches of the Godhead. That is where we begin, I say, but where we stop no man has yet discovered, for there is in the awful and mysterious depths of the Triune God neither time nor end.

PRAYER:

Written by A.W. Tozer, author of the meditation.

O God, I have tasted your goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more. I am painfully conscious of my need of further grace. I am ashamed of my lack of desire. O God, the Triune God, I want to want You; I long to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made more thirsty still. Show me Your glory, I pray, that so I may know You indeed. Begin in mercy a new work of love within me. Say to my soul, “Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.” Then give me grace to rise and follow You up from this misty lowland where I have wandered so long. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

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MEDITATION:

Written by Sarah Young and excerpted from her book “Jesus Calling.”

I, the Creator of the universe, am with you and for you. What more could you need? When you feel some lack, it is because you are not connecting with Me at a deep level. I offer abundant Life; your part is to trust Me, refusing to worry about anything.

It is not so much adverse events that make you anxious as it is your thoughts about those events. Your mind engages in efforts to take control of a situation, to bring about the result you desire. Your thoughts close in on the problem like ravenous wolves. Determined to make things go your way, you forget that I am in charge of your life. The only remedy is to switch your focus from the problem to My Presence. Stop all your striving, and watch to see what I will do. I am the Lord!

 When things don’t go as you would like, accept the situation immediately. If you indulge in feelings of regret, they can easily spill over the line into resentment. Remember that I am sovereign over your circumstances, and humble yourself under My mighty hand. Rejoice in what I am doing in your life, even though it is beyond your understanding.

I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. In Me you have everything you need, both for this life and for the life yet to come. Don’t let the impact of the world shatter your thinking or draw you away from focusing on Me. The ultimate challenge is to keep fixing your eyes on Me, no matter what is going on around you. When I am central in your thinking, you are able to view circumstances from My perspective.

PRAYER:

Written by Martin Luther (1483-1546), a German professor of theology, composer, priest, monk and leader of the Protestant Reformation.

Look, Lord, on an empty vessel that needs to be filled.

In faith I am weak – strengthen me.

In love I am cold – warm me and make me fervent so that my love may go out to my neighbor.

I doubt and am unable to trust you completely.

Lord, strengthen my faith and trust in you.

You are all the treasure I possess.

I am poor, you are rich;

You came to have mercy on the poor.

I am a sinner, you are goodness. From you I can receive goodness, but I can give you nothing. Therefore, I shall stay with you. Amen.

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MEDITATION:

Excerpted from the NIV Student Bible Notes “100 People You Should Know: John the Baptist.”

Those who scramble to keep up with the latest trends often have one goal in mind: turn as many heads as possible. Whether it’s sporting the latest fashion, carrying the newest smartphone, or being first in line for the next-generation gadget, the new must stand out to gain attention.

John the Baptist was something new, and he certainly stood out from his surroundings. Though he could have been a priest like his father, he exchanged those linen robes for a garment of coarse camel’s hair. He took to the wilderness, scavenging grasshoppers and wild honey rather than settling in Jerusalem where he could have savored a portion of the offerings people presented to God.

John’s unusual style helped direct attention to his burning message: The Messiah was about to arrive, and people must change their ways. Crowds flocked to hear John, and he baptized them in the Jordan River as a sign of their repentance, thus earning for himself the nickname “the Baptist.” 

How can your lifestyle help prepare people for Jesus?

PRAYER:

Adapted from a prayer written by Sarah Martin, a contemporary Christian author from her book  “The Awe and Wonder of Advent.”

Father, just as You sent John the Baptist to prepare the way for Jesus, help me to clear the path in my heart, too. Show me the distractions in my life that block me from all-out worship of You. I look toward the day where I will see You face to face. I imagine what it will be like. Give me a heart, Lord, that looks for Your coming on a daily basis. Help me to live my life where I’m constantly seeking Your presence. My offering to You today is my righteous life for I know I am only clean because of Jesus. Show me today how I need to be refined, purified, forgiven. Give me the strength to ask for forgiveness and to then change my ways. Amen.

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