Receiving June 21 worship scriptures

Scriptures for June 21
Genesis 21:8-21
Psalm 86:1-10, 16-17
Romans 6:1b-11
Matthew 10:24-39

This weekly post is meant to encourage you, the reader, to receive the scriptures as spirit and life for yourself. There are suggestions for how you can do this at http://charistis.blogspot.com/2008/03/receiving-word-as-spirit-and-life.html

June 14 prayer for receptivity
Receiving spirit and life--receiving You God--in Your word. This is what I'm here to do. Receiving is a matter of being also. Being present and open to You through confession that is followed by Your light and by union with You. Being with You, and receiving You in Your word.

Genesis 21:8-21
Today this whole passage "strikes me" as extremely remarkable and full of grief, and grace.
It's also a "telling" passage because it shows how readily I try to sort out who and what was right and who and what was wrong. When I let go of that response and receive, instead, with a heart of confession and forgiveness, the passage changes. The tears these verses call for are part of the life that comes through them (the verses and the tears). What converging of causes for confession and forgiveness! What love and life come through the confession, forgiveness and immense grace in these verses. It's an amazing account of how faith unfolds, being always surpassed by grace.

Psalm 86:1-10, 16-17
"All nations whom You have made
Shall come and worship before You, O Lord,
And shall glorify Your name." (vs. 9)
Reflect on this in the light of "I will also make a nation of the son of the bondwoman..." (Genesis 21:13)

Be merciful (vs. 3)
ready to forgive (vs. 5)
abundant in mercy (vs. 5)
have mercy (vs. 16)
Consider how the mercy, the uncompromising mercy, of God is revealed to each child and adult in the Genesis 21:8-21 account.

Romans 6:1b-11
"...Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father..." (vs. 4)
How much and why the glory of God mattered to Jesus is something to continue pondering. Review Jesus' prayer in John 17, especially vss. 1 and 5 together with this verse.

"united together in the likeness of His death..." (vs. 5)
United in death. I've "always known" that we share in His death as well as His resurrection. But living our union with God still has not always included union in His death also.

"that we should no longer be slaves of sin." (vs. 6)
No longer even trying to sort it out, and get it right. My heart has a way of clinging to sin while I moralize. It's disgusting slavery. That slavery can end.

"The death that He died, He died to sin..." (vs. 10)
"Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord." (vs. 11)

Matthew 10:24-39
"Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth." (vs. 34)
Pondering this can help me grow into respectable peace.
Consider how Genesis 21:8-21 expands the meaning of this verse.

"He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me." (vs. 37)
Today is Father's Day; Mother's Day was last month; every day is son's and daughter's day as parents love their children more than their own life. Love between parents and children can "go wrong," yet there is nothing stronger than healthy, heart-warming love between parents and children. When I let my heart be warmed and renewed by the tenderness and power of human love, then I'm prepared to hear Jesus say, love me more than that. The fullest and most surpassing love is from and for Him.

"And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me." (vs. 38)
This week's scriptures remind me the cross is about dying to sin (Romans 6:10,11).
The cross also has to do with accepting suffering that is not right or fair.
Let my heart claim again and more fully His surpassing, ultimate love, and His cross.