Missionary Renegade: Daily Guide/Daily Devotion grow. pray. study. from The Resurrection United Methodist Church in Leawood, Kansas, United States for Sunday, 9 August 2015

Monday, August 10, 2015

Daily Guide/Daily Devotion grow. pray. study. from The Resurrection United Methodist Church in Leawood, Kansas, United States for Sunday, 9 August 2015 - "Prayer Tip"

This week's Prayer Tip did not get sent out on Sunday, so we are sharing it today. We hope this tip will be helpful as you spend time in prayer this week.
Sunday, 9 August 2015 - "Prayer Tip"
Summer is a busy time in our family. This year we’ve had Little League baseball, landscaping and garden projects, a graduation celebration, new jobs and businesses beginning, out of town visitors, and the usual chaos of kids, dogs, grown-ups, and camping gear in the living room. We’ve also had some challenges that brought into clear focus the need to seek God’s presence as we lifted each other and others close to us in prayer. This summer has been full of evidence of God’s grace, and I have been constantly reminded that if I don’t frame my days with prayer and scripture, the chaos will overcome me and I’ll miss the joy.
This beautiful prayer is from Praying in the Wesleyan Spirit: 52 Prayers for Today by Paul Chilcote. This week, as summer fades away and we all prepare for new joys and challenges, I hope it blesses you.
Gracious and Loving God,
You seek us all and meet us in so many ways because you long to share your love with everything and everyone you have created.
We all need a vital, inward religion – a living relationship with you – but we also know you reach out to us and sustain us in your love in outward ways.
The places you have promised to meet us as your friends, and children – the ordinary means of grace – are prayer, scripture and the Lord’s Supper.
In these gifts – these sign-acts of your love – you offer yourself to us anew.
All who desire your grace are to wait for it by immersing themselves in these means you have graciously offered to us. Lord, help us to wait for you in the way of prayer.
Lord, help us wait for you in the way of prayer.
In prayer we realize your wonderful promises for all your children. Here you nuture our life of faith and build our trust in you.
Lord, help us to wait for you in searching the scriptures.
As we hear, read, and meditate upon your Word, confirm your truth, increase our wisdom, empower us to share the fullness of Christ.
Lord, help us to wait for you as we share together in the Lord’s Supper.
Here your word becomes real in our lives.
Here your love becomes visible and tangible and touches us most deeply.
Guard us from trusting in these means rather than seeking your presence, from making your own means ends in themselves.
Establish in our lives a consistent pattern that moves from hearing, reading, and meditating upon your Word to communicating our deepest feelings and needs to you in prayer, to enjoying the presence of your company and companionship in our fellowship around your table.
You come to us, gracious God, in so many ways to bless us and to make us whole and to show us your love.
Help us to look forward to being with you as our dearest friend in all these ways. When we are with you, enable us to abide in your presence and to rejoice in your love as the most important reality of our lives. Amen[Jennifer Creagar, Prayer Ministry]
Weekend Sermon: Resurrection at the Movies: McFarland USA
Daily Scripture: John 6:35 Yeshua answered, “I am the bread which is life! Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever trusts in me will never be thirsty. 36 I told you that you have seen but still don’t trust. 37 Everyone the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will certainly not turn away.

39 And this is the will of the One who sent me: that I should not lose any of all those he has given me but should raise them up on the Last Day. 40 Yes, this is the will of my Father: that all who see the Son and trust in him should have eternal life, and that I should raise them up on the Last Day.”

41 At this the Judeans began grumbling about him because he said, “I am the bread which has come down from heaven.” 42 They said, “Isn’t this Yeshua Ben-Yosef? We know his father and mother! How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”