Category Archives: bible

A Warm Heart

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Diane Griffiths / CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)

 

This is my offering for our Circuit Daily Devotions this week.  This is a shortened version, if you want to hear the full version, you can find it here

On Sunday it will be Aldersgate Sunday, commemorating the day John Wesley’s life changed forever.  The day that he had an experience of God that ‘warmed his heart’. You can read more about it here.

This is an account of his day from his diary

Wednesday May 24, 1738.

What occur’d on Wedn. 24, I think best to relate at large, after premising what might make it the better understood.  Let him that cannot receive it, ask of the Father of Lights, that he would give more Light both to him and to me.

I think it was about five this Morning, that I opened my Testament on those words, “There are given unto us exceeding great and precious Promises, even that ye should be partakers in the divine Nature.” 2 Pet. i. 4.  Just as I went out, I open’d it again on those Words, “Thou art not far from the Kingdom of God.”  In the Afternoon I was asked to go to St. Paul’s.  The Anthem was, “Out of the Deep have I call’d unto thee, O Lord: Lord, hear my Voice.  O let thine Ears consider well the Voice of my Complaint.  If thou, Lord, wilt be extreme to mark what is done amiss, O Lord, who may abide it?  But there is Mercy with thee; therefore thou shalt be feared.  O Israel, trust in the Lord: For with the Lord there is Mercy, and with him is plenteous Redemption.  And he shall redeem Israel from all his Sins.”

In the Evening I went very unwillingly to a Society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s Preface to the Epistle to the Romans.  About a Quarter before nine.  While he was describing the Change which God works in the Heart thro’ faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warm’d.  I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for Salvation: And an Assurance was given me, That He had taken away my Sins, even mine, and saved me from the Law of Sin and Death.

– John Wesley

The Message puts 2 Peter 1:4 like this:

Don’t Put It Off

3-4 Everything that goes into a life of pleasing God has been miraculously given to us by getting to know, personally and intimately, the One who invited us to God. The best invitation we ever received! We were also given absolutely terrific promises to pass on to you—your tickets to participation in the life of God after you turned your back on a world corrupted by lust.

And the part of Luther’s Preface to the Letter of Saint Paul’s Letter to the Romans reads

Faith is a work of God in us, which… makes us completely different people in heart, mind, senses and all our powers…

Translated by Bro Andrew Thornton, St Anselm Abbey

We are going to use a combination of these to guide our time with God as we reflect on what it means for us in our situation.

If you would like a text version of the meditation, you can find it here: 200522

 

The anthem is Psalm 130. This is a beautiful modern rendition of that Psalm

God Living in Me

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holy spirit in me

John 14:15-21 (GNT)

The Promise of the Holy Spirit

15 “If you love me, you will obey my commandments. 16 I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, who will stay with you forever. 17 He is the Spirit, who reveals the truth about God. The world cannot receive him, because it cannot see him or know him. But you know him, because he remains with you and is in you.

18 “When I go, you will not be left all alone; I will come back to you. 19 In a little while the world will see me no more, but you will see me; and because I live, you also will live. 20 When that day comes, you will know that I am in my Father and that you are in me, just as I am in you.

21 “Those who accept my commandments and obey them are the ones who love me. My Father will love those who love me; I too will love them and reveal myself to them.”

Good News Translation (GNT)Copyright © 1992 by American Bible Society

Jesus was God living in the world.
The Holy Spirit is God living in me.

We are not left alone
God is still with us
here now.

God’s helper
with us always

God’s breath breathing in me.

Breathe in and through me Lord,
that I may breathe your life,
that you may fill every cell of my body,
ever present within me.

Breathe in me now
equipping,
changing,
strengthening
making me more like you

 

Dhanushka Jayaweera / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)

If centering prayer is your thing, or even if it isn’t, try sitting with God and gently inviting as you breathe, “Breathe in… and through me Lord”.  Feel God’s breath in you and hear his voice. Give God the opportunity to change you, reassure you, fill you with his presence.

 

The Good Shepherd

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You,
climbing over the walls,
you’re up to no good.
No one who is genuine comes that way.

Why are you here?
What trouble are you coming to cause?
You are not a person that I should have in my life,
but someone to run from.
You do not have my best interests at heart.

The one the gatekeeper knows though,
who is welcome and admitted freely,
you are the care giver,
the love shower-er,
the peace keeper.
The one who loves me and cares for me so deeply,
passionately
and wants the best for me.

I recognise you,
the sound of your voice,
the tread of your foot,
the shape of your presence,
your call to me.
You lead me to the place of safety,
the place where I can be my best self,
the person you made me to be.

I run to you,
follow you,
the one I know
and can trust with my all.

You are my gate,
the trusted path,
the one who takes me to the place of life –
in all it’s fullness,
true life,
real life,
with you life.

I’ll come with you
and choose life
not destruction.

Bless me Lord,
bless us
as we discern
what to hear
who to follow.

May we hear your voice
know your love
and live in your peace
as we walk in your ways

 

 

John 10:1-10 (GNT)

The Parable of the Shepherd

10 Jesus said, “I am telling you the truth: the man who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in some other way, is a thief and a robber. 2 The man who goes in through the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 The gatekeeper opens the gate for him; the sheep hear his voice as he calls his own sheep by name, and he leads them out. 4 When he has brought them out, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him, because they know his voice. 5 They will not follow someone else; instead, they will run away from such a person, because they do not know his voice.”

6 Jesus told them this parable, but they did not understand what he meant.

Jesus the Good Shepherd

7 So Jesus said again, “I am telling you the truth: I am the gate for the sheep. 8 All others who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. 9 I am the gate. Those who come in by me will be saved; they will come in and go out and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only in order to steal, kill, and destroy. I have come in order that you might have life—life in all its fullness.

Good News Translation (GNT)Copyright © 1992 by American Bible Society