Monday, March 31, 2014

Nashville, Tennessee, United States - Upper Room Daily Reflections - daily words of wisdom and faith “Centering Prayer” for Tuesday, 1 April 2014

Nashville, Tennessee, United States - Upper Room Daily Reflections - daily words of wisdom and faith “Centering Prayer” for Tuesday, 1 April 2014

Today’s Reflection:
[MANY] METHODS OF PRAYER require concentration. Some forms of prayer involve passionate petition. In intercession we earnestly bring our concerns to God. In listening prayer we give rapt attention to what God is saying to us. Mantric meditation employs concentration. The constant repetition of the mantra or short phrase helps the pray-er focus and move into another state of consciousness. Concentration can make us more attentive. Mindfulness meditation can increase awareness.
Centering Prayer does not require constant use of a mantra or consciousness of breathing or any effort of exerted attention. Letting go of all our efforts, we simply sit with the intention of surrendering to God. We wait with openness, turning to God through the use of our prayer word that expresses our readiness to receive the love of God.
--J. David Muyskens, Forty Days to a Closer Walk with God: The Practice of Centering Prayer
From page 84 of Forty Days to a Closer Walk with God: The Practice of Centering Prayer by J. David Muyskens. Copyright © 2006 by J. David Muyskens. All rights reserved. Used by permission of Upper Room Books. http://bookstore.upperroom.org/ Learn more about or purchase this book.
Today’s Question:
Have you practiced centering prayer?
Today’s Scripture:
Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord GOD: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.”--Ezekiel 37:9, NRSV
This Week: pray for those mourning a parent.
-------
Did You Know?
Looking for a time to get away? Rest? Renew? Join The Upper Room this July 13 – 17 for SOULfeast at Lake Junaluska, North Carolina as we engage the Living Psalms. Leadership includes Roberta Bondi, Rob Fuquay, Dana Trent, and more!
-------
Saints, Inc.:
This week we remember:   Martin Luther King Jr. (April 4).
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-68), American Baptist minister and civil rights leader. Born in Atlanta January 15, 1929, Martin Luther King Jr. was educated at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania, and Boston University. In 1954 he became pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, and quickly found himself thrust into the leadership of a bus boycott that lasted more than a year and ended in a U.S. Supreme Court order to desegregate buses and schools.
The experience in Montgomery inspired King to look more closely at Gandhi's nonviolent protest. In 1960 he resigned his pastorate to devote full-time leadership to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which he had helped to form in 1957. Already the most visible leader in the civil rights movement, his courageous conduct in the Birmingham march in 1963 in the face of bitter opposition further elevated his status and gained for the movement the backing of President John F. Kennedy. In the wake of Kennedy's assassination in 1963, the United States Congress passed civil rights legislation. In 1964 King was awarded the Nobel Prize. Adhering strictly to the principle of nonviolence, he organized further protests in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and other states. King was assassinated during a demonstration of support for striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee, April 4, 1968.
King's books include Stride Toward Freedom, Why We Can't Wait,Strength to Love, and The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr., edited by Clayborn Carson.
If Martin Luther King Jr. had taken the Spiritual Types Test he probably would have been a Prophet. King is remembered on April 4.
[Excerpted with permission from the entry on Martin Luther King Jr. by E. Glenn Hinson, from The Upper Room Dictionary of Christian Spiritual Formation, edited by Keith Beasley-Topliffe. Copyright © 2003 by Upper Room Books®. All rights reserved.]
-------
Lectionary Readings
(Courtesy of Vanderbilt Divinity Library)
Ezekiel 37:1 Yahweh’s hand was on me, and he brought me out in Yahweh’s Spirit, and set me down in the middle of the valley; and it was full of bones. 2 He caused me to pass by them all around: and behold, there were very many in the open valley; and behold, they were very dry. 3 He said to me, Son of man, can these bones live? I answered, Lord Yahweh, you know. 4 Again he said to me, Prophesy over these bones, and tell them, you dry bones, hear Yahweh’s word. 5 Thus says the Lord Yahweh to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live. 6 I will lay sinews on you, and will bring up flesh on you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am Yahweh. 7 So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold, an earthquake; and the bones came together, bone to its bone. 8 I saw, and, behold, there were sinews on them, and flesh came up, and skin covered them above; but there was no breath in them. 9 Then he said to me, Prophesy to the wind, prophesy, son of man, and tell the wind, Thus says the Lord Yahweh: Come from the four winds, breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live. 10 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up on their feet, an exceedingly great army. 11 Then he said to me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are clean cut off. 12 Therefore prophesy, and tell them, Thus says the Lord Yahweh: Behold, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, my people; and I will bring you into the land of Israel. 13 You shall know that I am Yahweh, when I have opened your graves, and caused you to come up out of your graves, my people. 14 I will put my Spirit in you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land: and you shall know that I, Yahweh, have spoken it and performed it, says Yahweh.
Psalm 30: A Psalm. A Song for the Dedication of the Temple. By David.
1 I will extol you, Yahweh, for you have raised me up,
    and have not made my foes to rejoice over me.
2 Yahweh my God, I cried to you,
and you have healed me.
3 Yahweh, you have brought up my soul from Sheol.[a]
    You have kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit.
4 Sing praise to Yahweh, you saints of his.
    Give thanks to his holy name.
5 For his anger is but for a moment.
    His favor is for a lifetime.
Weeping may stay for the night,
    but joy comes in the morning.
6 As for me, I said in my prosperity,
    “I shall never be moved.”
7 You, Yahweh, when you favored me, made my mountain stand strong;
    but when you hid your face, I was troubled.
8 I cried to you, Yahweh.
    To Yahweh I made supplication:
9 “What profit is there in my destruction, if I go down to the pit?
    Shall the dust praise you?
    Shall it declare your truth?
10 Hear, Yahweh, and have mercy on me.
    Yahweh, be my helper.”
11 You have turned my mourning into dancing for me.
    You have removed my sackcloth, and clothed me with gladness,
12     To the end that my heart may sing praise to you, and not be silent.
Yahweh my God, I will give thanks to you forever!
Footnotes:
a. Psalm 30:3 Sheol is the place of the dead.
Psalm 130: A Song of Ascents.
1 Out of the depths I have cried to you, Yahweh.
2 Lord, hear my voice.
    Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my petitions.
3 If you, Yah, kept a record of sins,
    Lord, who could stand?
4 But there is forgiveness with you,
    therefore you are feared.
5 I wait for Yahweh.
    My soul waits.
    I hope in his word.
6 My soul longs for the Lord more than watchmen long for the morning;
    more than watchmen for the morning.
7 Israel, hope in Yahweh,
    for with Yahweh there is loving kindness.
    With him is abundant redemption.
8 He will redeem Israel from all their sins.
Romans 8:6 For the mind of the flesh is death, but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace; 7 because the mind of the flesh is hostile towards God; for it is not subject to God’s law, neither indeed can it be. 8 Those who are in the flesh can’t please God. 9 But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if it is so that the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if any man doesn’t have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his. 10 If Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is alive because of righteousness. 11 But if the Spirit of him who raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised up Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
John 11:1 Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus from Bethany, of the village of Mary and her sister, Martha. 2 It was that Mary who had anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother, Lazarus, was sick. 3 The sisters therefore sent to him, saying, “Lord, behold, he for whom you have great affection is sick.” 4 But when Jesus heard it, he said, “This sickness is not to death, but for the glory of God, that God’s Son may be glorified by it.” 5 Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus. 6 When therefore he heard that he was sick, he stayed two days in the place where he was. 7 Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let’s go into Judea again.”
8 The disciples told him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just trying to stone you, and are you going there again?”
9 Jesus answered, “Aren’t there twelve hours of daylight? If a man walks in the day, he doesn’t stumble, because he sees the light of this world. 10 But if a man walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light isn’t in him.” 11 He said these things, and after that, he said to them, “Our friend, Lazarus, has fallen asleep, but I am going so that I may awake him out of sleep.”
12 The disciples therefore said, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.”
13 Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that he spoke of taking rest in sleep. 14 So Jesus said to them plainly then, “Lazarus is dead. 15 I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, so that you may believe. Nevertheless, let’s go to him.”
16 Thomas therefore, who is called Didymus,[a] said to his fellow disciples, “Let’s go also, that we may die with him.”
17 So when Jesus came, he found that he had been in the tomb four days already. 18 Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, about fifteen stadia[b] away. 19 Many of the Jews had joined the women around Martha and Mary, to console them concerning their brother. 20 Then when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, but Mary stayed in the house. 21 Therefore Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you would have been here, my brother wouldn’t have died. 22 Even now I know that, whatever you ask of God, God will give you.” 23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”
24 Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will still live, even if he dies. 26 Whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
27 She said to him, “Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Christ, God’s Son, he who comes into the world.”
28 When she had said this, she went away, and called Mary, her sister, secretly, saying, “The Teacher is here, and is calling you.”
29 When she heard this, she arose quickly, and went to him. 30 Now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was in the place where Martha met him. 31 Then the Jews who were with her in the house, and were consoling her, when they saw Mary, that she rose up quickly and went out, followed her, saying, “She is going to the tomb to weep there.” 32 Therefore when Mary came to where Jesus was, and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying to him, “Lord, if you would have been here, my brother wouldn’t have died.”
33 When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews weeping who came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled, 34 and said, “Where have you laid him?”
They told him, “Lord, come and see.”
35 Jesus wept.
36 The Jews therefore said, “See how much affection he had for him!” 37 Some of them said, “Couldn’t this man, who opened the eyes of him who was blind, have also kept this man from dying?”
38 Jesus therefore, again groaning in himself, came to the tomb. Now it was a cave, and a stone lay against it. 39 Jesus said, “Take away the stone.”
Martha, the sister of him who was dead, said to him, “Lord, by this time there is a stench, for he has been dead four days.”
40 Jesus said to her, “Didn’t I tell you that if you believed, you would see God’s glory?”
41 So they took away the stone from the place where the dead man was lying.[c] Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, “Father, I thank you that you listened to me. 42 I know that you always listen to me, but because of the multitude that stands around I said this, that they may believe that you sent me.” 43 When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”
44 He who was dead came out, bound hand and foot with wrappings, and his face was wrapped around with a cloth.
Jesus said to them, “Free him, and let him go.”
45 Therefore many of the Jews, who came to Mary and saw what Jesus did, believed in him.
Footnotes:
a. John 11:16 “Didymus” means “Twin”.
b. John 11:18 15 stadia is about 2.8 kilometers or 1.7 miles
c. John 11:41 NU omits “from the place where the dead man was lying.”
-------
John Wesley’s Commentary-Notes for:
Ezekiel 37:1-14
XXXVII The vision of the resurrection of the dry bones, ver. 1- 10. The explication of it, ver. 11-14 A type of the happy coalition which would be between Israel and Judah, ver. 15-22. A prediction of the kingdom of Christ, and of the glories and graces of that kingdom, ver. 23-28.
Verse 1. And set me down - So it seemed to me in the vision. Which is a lively representation of a threefold resurrection:
1. Of the resurrection of souls, from the death of sin, to the life of righteousness:
2. The resurrection of the church from an afflicted state, to liberty and peace:
3. The resurrection of the body at the great day, especially the bodies of believers to life eternal.
3. And he - The Lord.
Verse 7. Prophesied - Declared these promises. As I prophesied - While I was prophesying. A noise - A rattling of the bones in their motion. A shaking - A trembling or commotion among the bones, enough to manifest a divine presence, working among them. Came together - Glided nearer and nearer, 'till each bone met the bone to which it was to be joined. Of all the bones of all those numerous slain, not one was missing, not one missed its way, not one missed its place, but each knew and found its fellow. Thus in the resurrection of the dead, the scattered atoms shall be arranged in their proper place and order, and every bone come to his bone, by the same wisdom and power by which they were first formed in the womb of her that is with child.
Verse 8. Came up - Gradually spreading itself.
Verse 9. Prophesy - Declare what my will is. O breath - The soul, whose emblem here is wind; which, as it gently blew upon these lifeless creatures, each was inspired with its own soul or spirit.
Verse 10. And the breath - The spirit of life, or the soul, Gen. ii, 7.
Verse 11. The whole house - The emblem of the house of Israel. Are dried - Our state is as hopeless, as far from recovery, as dried bones are from life.
Verse 12. I will open - Though your captivity be as death, your persons close as the grave, yet I will open those graves.
Psalm 30
PS 30 He praises God for delivering him, and exhorts others to praise him, ver. 1-5. Recollects his former security, and his prayer when in trouble, ver. 6-10. And stirs himself up to thankfulness, ver. 11, 12. A Psalm and song, at the dedication of the house of David. Title of the psalm. Song - A psalm to be sung with the voice to an instrument. David - At the dedication of David's house, which was built,
2 Sam. v, 11, and doubtless was dedicated, as God had commanded.
Verse 5. Cometh - Speedily and in due season.
Verse 7. Mountain - My kingdom: kingdoms are usually called mountains in prophetical writings.
Verse 9. Profit - What wilt thou gain by it? The dust - Shall they that are dead celebrate thy goodness in the land of the living? Or, shall my dust praise thee?
Verse 11. Sackcloth - Given me occasion to put off that sackcloth, which they used to wear in times of mourning, Esth iv, 1 chap. xxxv, 13 Isaiah xxxii, 11 Joel i, 13. Girded - With joy, as with a garment, surrounding me on every side.
Verse 12. My glory - My tongue
Psalm 130
PS 130 The psalmist confessing his sins, expresses his hope in God, ver. 1-6. And exhorts Israel to hope in him, ver.7, 8. A song of degrees.
Verse 3. Mark - Observe them accurately and punish them as they deserve. Stand - At thy tribunal.
Verse 4. Forgiveness - Thou art able and ready to forgive repenting sinners. Feared - Not with a slavish, but with a childlike fear. This mercy of thine is the foundation of all religion, without which men would desperately proceed in their impious courses.
Verse 5. I wait - That he would pardon my sins.
Verse 6. They - Whether soldiers that keep the night-watches in an army, or the priests or Levites who did so in the temple.
Verse 7. Israel - Every true Israelite. Plenteous - Abundantly sufficient for all persons who accept it upon God's terms.
Romans 8:6-11
Verse 6. For to be carnally minded - That is, to mind the things of the flesh. Is death - The sure mark of spiritual death, and the way to death everlasting. But to be spiritually minded - That is, to mind the things of the Spirit. Is life - A sure mark of spiritual life, and the way to life everlasting. And attended with peace - The peace of God, which is the foretaste of life everlasting; and peace with God, opposite to the enmity mentioned in the next verse.
Verse 7. Enmity against God - His existence, power, and providence.
Verse 8. They who are in the flesh - Under the government of it.
Verse 9. In the Spirit - Under his government. If any man have not the Spirit of Christ - Dwelling and governing in him. He is none of his - He is not a member of Christ; not a Christian; not in a state of salvation. A plain, express declaration, which admits of no exception. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear!
Verse 10. Now if Christ be in you - Where the Spirit of Christ is, there is Christ. The body indeed is dead - Devoted to death. Because of sin - Heretofore committed. But the Spirit is life - Already truly alive. Because of righteousness - Now attained. From ver. 13, St. Paul, having finished what he had begun, chap. vi, 1, describes purely the state of believers.
John 11:1-45
Verse 1. One Lazarus - It is probable, Lazarus was younger than his sisters. Bethany is named, the town of Mary and Martha, and Lazarus is mentioned after them, ver. 5. Ecclesiastical history informs us, that Lazarus was now thirty years old, and that he lived thirty years after Christ's ascension.
Verse 2. It was that Mary who afterward anointed, &c. She was more known than her elder sister Martha, and as such is named before her.
Verse 4. This sickness is not to death, but for the glory of God - The event of this sickness will not be death, in the usual sense of the word, a final separation of his soul and body; but a manifestation of the glorious power of God.
Verse 7. Let us go into Judea - From the country east of Jordan, whither he had retired some time before, when the Jews sought to stone him, chap. x, 39,
Verse 40.
Verse 9. Are there not twelve hours in the day? - The Jews always divided the space from sunrise to sunset, were the days longer or shorter, into twelve parts: so that the hours of their day were all the year the same in number, though much shorter in winter than in summer. If any man walk in the day he stumbleth not - As if he had said, So there is such a space, a determined time, which God has allotted me. During that time I stumble not, amidst all the snares that are laid for me. Because he seeth the light of this world - And so I see the light of God surrounding me.
Verse 10. But if a man walk in the night - If he have not light from God; if his providence does no longer protect him.
Verse 11. Our friend Lazarus sleepeth - This he spoke, just when he died. Sleepeth - Such is the death of good men in the language of heaven. But the disciples did not yet understand this language. And the slowness of our understanding makes the Scripture often descend to our barbarous manner of speaking.
Verse 16. Thomas in Hebrew, as Didymus in Greek, signifies a twin. With him - With Jesus, whom he supposed the Jews would kill. It seems to be the language of despair.
Verse 20. Mary sat in the house - Probably not hearing what was said.
Verse 22. Whatsoever thou wilt ask, God will give it thee - So that she already believed he could raise him from the dead.
Verse 25. l am the resurrection - Of the dead. And the life - Of the living. He that believeth in me, though he die, yet shall he live - In life everlasting.
Verse 32. She fell at his feet - This Martha had not done. So she makes amends for her slowness in coming.
Verse 33. He groaned - So he restrained his tears. So he stopped them soon after, ver. 38. He troubled himself - An expression amazingly elegant, and full of the highest propriety. For the affections of Jesus were not properly passions, but voluntary emotions, which were wholly in his own power. And this tender trouble which he now voluntarily sustained, was full of the highest order and reason.
Verse 35. Jesus wept - Out of sympathy with those who were in tears all around him, as well as from a deep sense of the misery sin had brought upon human nature.
Verse 37. Could not this person have even caused, that this man should not have died? - Yet they never dreamed that he could raise him again! What a strange mixture of faith and unbelief.
Verse 38. It was a cave - So Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and their wives, except Rachel, were buried in the cave of Machpelah, Gen. xlix, 29-31. These caves were commonly in rocks, which abounded in that country, either hollowed by nature or hewn by art. And the entrance was shut up with a great stone, which sometimes had a monumental inscription.
Verse 39. Lord, by this time he stinketh - Thus did reason and faith struggle together.
Verse 40. Said I not - It appears by this, that Christ had said more to Martha than is before recorded.
Verse 41. Jesus lifted up his eyes - Not as if he applied to his Father for assistance. There is not the least show of this. He wrought the miracle with an air of absolute sovereignty, as the Lord of life and death. But it was as if he had said, I thank thee, that by the disposal of thy providence, thou hast granted my desire, in this remarkable opportunity of exerting my power, and showing forth thy praise.
Verse 43. He cried with a loud voice - That all who were present might hear. Lazarus, come forth - Jesus called him out of the tomb as easily as if he had been not only alive, but awake also.
Verse 44. And he came forth bound hand and foot with grave clothes - Which were wrapt round each hand and each foot, and his face was wrapt about with a napkin - If the Jews buried as the Egyptians did, the face was not covered with it, but it only went round the forehead, and under the chin; so that he might easily see his way.
Verse 45. Many believed on Him - And so the Son of God was glorified, according to what our Lord had said, ver. 4.
-------
Upper Room Daily Reflections, a ministry of Global Board of Discipleship
PO Box 340004
Nashville, TN 37203-0004 United States

-------

No comments:

Post a Comment