Exodus 3:1-15
Psalm 105:1-6, 23-26, 45c
Romans 12:9-21
Matthew 16:21-28
Part I -Receiving the Word as spirit and life for yourself
If you have been visiting this blog, you know its purpose is to invite people to receive the Word as spirit and life. Studying, analyzing, and discussing all have their place. But this blog is not about those activities.
There is a time to simply receive the Word as the spirit and life it is. This blog is about doing that.
If some parts of the week's worship scriptures don't seem to you like spirit and life, simply let go of those parts and receive the parts that you do recognize as spirit and life. It may just be a word or phrase that is life for you. Receive that word and phrase. Let it be spirit and life in you.
There are some simple suggestions for receiving the week's worship scriptures as spirit and life at: http://charistis.blogspot.com/2008/03/receiving-word-as-spirit-and-life.html
After receiving for yourself, you can compare with others who are doing the same. The spirit and life others have received from the same scriptures may increase the ways the scriptures are spirit and life for you.
Part II - Reflections on this week's scriptures (one place to compare notes)
Prayer for receptivity
Guardian of my heart
save me from the ways
I divide my own heart
attending to part, and
neglecting part
of who I am in You.
Forgive me for returning like I do
to long-familiar ways that
hinder and hurt, ways of
head dominion and heart neglect.
Forgive me.
Meet me again in
my undivided, undefended heart.
There, with You, is my hope of
receiving Your Word
as spirit and life.
Exodus 3:1-15
As I receive this whole passage, it strikes me how visible and audible God is here. Moses saw and heard. This wasn't Moses thinking up a strategy for freeing the Israelites and then attributing his strategy to God.
"Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground." (vs. 5)
"Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God." (vs. 6)
When the encounter with God is realized to the place of being visible and audible, when a person actually sees and hears, then what? How does a person respond?
Does the absence of visible and audible presence of God mean that my response to God's presence may or should be different?
"'I AM has sent me to you.'" (vs. 14)
I AM is present in every time and place, and also in every circumstance.
Psalm 105:1-6, 23-26, 45c
Give thanks
call upon
make known
sing to
sing psalms
talk of
glory in
let hearts rejoice
seek
remember
His deeds
wondrous works
holy name
strength
face
marvelous works
wonders
the judgments of His mouth.
The Psalmist is urging me, urging us, to somehow take in, realize, or grasp, who God is and what God has done--and to respond in ways appropriate to God's being and doing!
"He sent Moses His servant..." (vs. 26)
This is a wonder and marvelous work of God, an expression of God's holiness and strength, and the judgments of God's mouth.
Romans 12:9-21
"Love... Overcome evil with good." (vss. 9-21)
If I receive verses 9-21 as a list of behavioral "shoulds" and "oughts," I'll miss the spirit and life in them. If, instead, I see in these verses evidences or glimpses of how love expresses itself, then they are more likely to be spirit and life.
Love is bigger and better than these verses reveal, of course, but these are some beautiful glimpses into love. The previous eleven chapters in Romans have shown me the love of God that is beyond my best or wildest imagination; and Romans has shown me how to receive and be received into that love. Now at the end of the book, I'm given some pointers that will help me realize that Love is in me and I in Love.
Matthew 16:21-28
"'Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!'" (vs. 22)
"'You are not mindful of the things of God..." (vs. 23)
What a dialog of love this was!
The impulse of love, as humans know love, is to spare the loved one from rejection, mistreatment and suffering. The impulse of divine love goes beyond that and into depths and mystery that aren't easy to follow. The things of God include suffering many things and dying and rising (vs. 21). And, the things of God are worked out, or realized, in the followers of Jesus by taking up Jesus' Cross, by losing one's life for Jesus' sake, and by anticipating Jesus' coming in glory (vss. 24-27).
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