Weekly Meditations and Prayer Prompts, February 5-11, 2023

 Sunday, February 5, 2023 5th Sunday after Epiphany

Matthew 5:13-16 (ESV)

You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet. 

You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.  Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. 

Prayer prompt:  Salt and light are not intrinsically valuable per se.  Salt is good (or bad) in a particular context in specific amounts.  A strong light shining directly into your eye is painful, not helpful.  But light reflected off an object that you need or want to see and salt in the right amounts in the right dishes brings out the flavors that you want to taste.  You are salt and light.  Pray that God will put you in the right places at the right times and give you the strength to do the “good works” that will give glory to your Father who is in heaven.  Pray that you may be so blessed to be a blessing to others.

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Monday, February 6, 2023

1 Corinthians 3:5-9 (ESV)

What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each.  I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.  So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.  He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor.  For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building.

Prayer prompt:  So many things in life require our cooperation and collaboration.  There are very few things that we can do without leaning on someone else’s contribution to make the effort productive or fruitful.  Take writing, for example.  Writing appears to be a very solitary activity, until you take into account the people who created the writing tools (pen, ink, paper…or computer and the like).  And who provides the food that the writer eats or who taught the writer how to construct a sentence or to spell?  Ultimately, it all depends on God, but it also depends on intermediary means, on many people.  Paul’s words suggest that we should pray today for our co-laborers, seen and unseen.  Think of everyone who has had a hand in whatever you will accomplish today and pray that they too will receive their wages and reward for what they have contributed to the work that you do.   

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Tuesday, February 7, 2023

Acts 17:24-29 (ESV)

The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by people,  nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all people life and breath and everything.  And he made from one man every nation of people to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place,  that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us,  for 

   ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; 

as even some of your own poets have said, 

   ‘For we are indeed his offspring.’ 

 Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by human art and imagination. 

Prayer prompt: Have you given thought lately to the immensity of the universe?  Have you thought of the abundance and generosity of the physical elements--and of “life and breath and everything” that is a gift of God?  It certainly takes a poet--pagan or otherwise--to put into words how we are related to one another and to God.  The writer of Acts struggles with the limits of human vocabulary and art (gold, silver, and stone) to describe the God who made all this and to whom we belong.  Pray today for a sense of that immensity of being in which we find our own being--that immensity of grace in which we find our own life and freedom to breathe and create.  

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Wednesday, February 8, 2023

Deuteronomy 30:19–20 (ESV) 

I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live,  loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them. 

 

Prayer prompt:  How often have you had life and death set before you?  Though our choices in life rarely seem so binary and freighted with ultimate consequence, every choice we make carries something of this larger choice within it.  Whether we are conscious of it or not, choices move us--even if ever so incrementally--toward one goal or another, one end or another.  Pray that God will show you the longer-term consequences of some of the choices you have to make today.  Ask God where they tend toward life and where they tend toward death.  Especially ask God to show you how to make today’s choices lead you toward life with God.

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Thursday, February 9, 2023

Psalm 119:1–8 (ESV). 

  Blessed are those whose way is blameless, 

who walk in the law of the Lord! 

  Blessed are those who keep his testimonies, 

who seek him with their whole heart, 

  who also do no wrong, 

but walk in his ways! 

  You have commanded your precepts 

to be kept diligently. 

  Oh that my ways may be steadfast 

in keeping your statutes! 

  Then I shall not be put to shame, 

having my eyes fixed on all your commandments. 

  I will praise you with an upright heart, 

when I learn your righteous rules. 

  I will keep your statutes; 

do not utterly forsake me! 

Prayer prompt:  The Psalmist understands the relationship between instructions and a good outcome.  Without rules, it is impossible to know whether the ball is in or out of bounds; and without a map, you never know whether you are on the right road.  The other thing the Psalmist knows is that God is in the details, there to be found by those who seek God with their whole heart.  Model your prayer today after that of the Psalmist.  Ask God to protect your path and teach you where to put your steps so that you do not stumble.  Ask God to be with you on the way; pray in confidence that God will never leave you to pursue your own perilous way or abandon you to your own devices.

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Friday, February 10, 2023

Romans 12:9-12 (ESV)

Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. 

Prayer prompt:  There has been a lot of talk since the publication of Gary Chapman’s The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate (1992) about the different ways of expressing and receiving love: words of affirmation, quality time, giving/receiving gifts, acts of service, and physical touch.  Paul’s point in Romans 12 is that love must be sincere, whatever language is used to express it.  Pray today--constantly--that God will help you to outdo those with whom you interact in expressing your genuine love for them. 

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Saturday, February 11, 2023

Jeremiah 29:4-9 (ESV)

Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon:  Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce.  Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease.  But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.  For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Do not let your prophets and your diviners who are among you deceive you, and do not listen to the dreams that they dream, for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you in my name; I did not send them, declares the Lord.

Prayer prompt:  Are you content in the city (or town or rural countryside) where you reside?  Perhaps content is not the right adjective.  The question is more whether you are a long-termer or short-termer.  Do you actively promote the welfare of the place where you live?  That may seem like an obvious requirement for citizenship in a place, but history shows us that absentee landlords and people who see themselves as temporary inhabitants of a place too often do not have the best interests of the place for which they bear present responsibility at heart.  Pray today that God will show you how to love the place where you are and how best to steward the resources of the community where you live presently.  Pray for the welfare of the city where you are instead of dreaming constantly about the place where you want to move.