Legacy
(Devotion by Graeme Harrison)
Prayer: The love of God’s name
Lord of all power and might,
the author and giver of all good things:
graft in our hearts the love of your name,
increase in us true religion,
nourish us with all goodness,
and in your great mercy keep us in the same;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Book of Common Prayer, 1662
(Sourced from A Treasury of Prayers in Uniting in Worship, copyright 1988 Uniting Church in Australia)
Read:
Deuteronomy 6:1-9 Read this 3 times, each time asking God’s help and thinking about those words or phrases that leap out at you.
“These are the commands, decrees and laws the Lord your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, 2 so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the Lord your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life. 3 Hear, Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, promised you.
4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.”
(Deuteronomy 6:1-9 NIV)
Thought for the Day:
Could this be the most important legacy to leave to following generations?
Deuteronomy is Moses farewell speech to the Israelites who had been wandering in the wilderness and were about to enter the Promised Land. He could not go with them and was near death himself. In this lengthy he book he picked out what was the most important thing for the following generations to know, the teaching that must never get lost in the chaos of life. This was it. I wonder what you would have said in Moses’ place?
God as Mother
(Devotion by Graeme Harrison)
Prayer:
God our heavenly mother,
Thank you for giving us life twice over.
For creating us from nothing and nurturing each one of us with richness of your creation,
for creating each one of us unique and distinguishable from one another,
For giving birth to a new spirit within us when Christ found us in our sins
For washing us clean and clothing us in Christ’s white robes
For picking us up and encouraging when we fall again
and again
and again
For always being there for us,
we give you our love.
Amen
Read:
John 3:1-8 Read this 3 times, each time asking God’s help and thinking about those words or phrases that leap out at you.
1Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. 2 He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”
3 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”
4 “How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”
5 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 7 You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
(John 3:1-8 NIV)
Thought for the Day:
God is spirit and not flesh. We know this and yet custom and habit make it difficult for many of us to talk to God as mother. Jesus did not hesitate to state that the key qualities of motherhood are found in God. Those qualities may vary from culture to culture but one thing is held in common by them all; it is the woman who gives birth. God gives birth to the most central important event of any Christian life, the renewing of our spirit within us when we first come to faith. Jesus claims God as mother at the beginning of every single Christian life!
And a strange thing happens when we embrace the fact that the feminine has its origin in God; the dignity of women everywhere is affirmed. The image of God is female too.
May you embrace your heavenly Mother this Mothers Day as we honour those who gave us birth.
Pray Continually
(Devotion by Graeme Harrison)
Prayer:
Abiding in God
O loving God,
to turn away from you is to fall,
to turn towards you is to rise,
and to stand before you is to abide for ever.
Grant us, dear God,
in all our duties your help;
in all our uncertainties your guidance;
in all our dangers your protection;
and in all our sorrows your peace;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
St Augustine, 354-430
(Sourced from A Treasury of Prayers in Uniting in Worship, copyright 1988 Uniting Church in Australia)
Read:
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 Read this 3 times, each time asking God’s help and thinking about those words or phrases that leap out at you.
16 Rejoice always, 17 pray continually, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus
(1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 NIV)
Thought for the Day:
The passage speaks for itself.
The only insight I have from my own personal experience is what you imagine in your own head when you see the word “pray”. As a really young Christian I assumed that “pray” meant those formal poetic prayers that you would hear in Church worship. Needless to say I reacted with a groan when I read this passage. Curiously, I talked with God on and off about it all day because I could not get my mind away from the thought that my life was going to be weighed down with this impossible burden. It was a relief to be able to share this problem I had with God and talk it through with him.
I think God must have been quite amused because at the end of the day his Spirit opened my eyes to the fact that I had been praying continually all day about ‘praying continually all day’.
Continual prayer is not a burden, it is God making our lives more joy filled.
Memory Aid
(Devotion by Graeme Harrison)
Prayer:
A prayer to the Almighty God and Father who loves Humankind
I bless you, O Lord,
that you have worked wondrous mercies upon me, a sinner,
and have been most loving to me in all things:
nurse and governor,
guardian and helper,
refuge and saviour,
protector of both soul and body.
I bless you, O Lord,
for you have granted me the power to repent from my sins
and have shown to me myriad occasions
to return from my malice.
For you have mercy and save us, O God,
and to you we send up glory, thanksgiving and worship,
together with your only-begotten Son,
and your all-holy, good and life-creating Spirit,
now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen.
Excerpt from a prayer
to the Almighty God and Father who loves humankind,
St Basil the Great, 4th century
(Sourced from A Treasury of Prayers in Uniting in Worship, copyright 1988 Uniting Church in Australia)
Read:
Psalm 77 Read this 3 times, each time asking God’s help and thinking about those words or phrases that leap out at you.
1 I cried out to God for help;
I cried out to God to hear me.
2 When I was in distress, I sought the Lord;
at night I stretched out untiring hands,
and I would not be comforted.
3 I remembered you, God, and I groaned;
I meditated, and my spirit grew faint.
4 You kept my eyes from closing;
I was too troubled to speak.
5 I thought about the former days,
the years of long ago;
6 I remembered my songs in the night.
My heart meditated and my spirit asked:
7 “Will the Lord reject forever?
Will he never show his favour again?
8 Has his unfailing love vanished forever?
Has his promise failed for all time?
9 Has God forgotten to be merciful?
Has he in anger withheld his compassion?”
10 Then I thought, “To this I will appeal:
the years when the Most High stretched out his right hand.
11 I will remember the deeds of the Lord;
yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago.
12 I will consider all your works
and meditate on all your mighty deeds.”
13 Your ways, God, are holy.
What god is as great as our God?
14 You are the God who performs miracles;
you display your power among the peoples.
15 With your mighty arm you redeemed your people,
the descendants of Jacob and Joseph.
16 The waters saw you, God,
the waters saw you and writhed;
the very depths were convulsed.
17 The clouds poured down water,
the heavens resounded with thunder;
your arrows flashed back and forth.
18 Your thunder was heard in the whirlwind,
your lightning lit up the world;
the earth trembled and quaked.
19 Your path led through the sea,
your way through the mighty waters,
though your footprints were not seen.
20 You led your people like a flock
by the hand of Moses and Aaron.
(Psalm 77 NIV)
Thought for the Day:
Life messes with our heads. Sometimes we find ourselves in dark and confusing places just like the writer of this psalm. In his case, it sounds as though he(or she) has done something that contradicts both his faith and his own expectations of himself. Self-doubt and recrimination are made worse by his new found doubt about whether God still cares for him. What is the key that unlocks the door to escape this downward spiral of thinking?
Remembering God’s past behaviour.
For the Psalmist he escapes his dark imaginings about God by focussing on what God has actually done. Remembering the stories of the sacred Scriptures reminds him that God is faithful. In Ps 77 he particularly remembers his ancestors’ crossing of the Red Sea at the very moment when it appeared their destruction by Pharaoh’s armies was certain. At this moment of despair God proved faithful. So the Psalmist is reassured in their own despairing situation that God still loves him and is for him not against him.
Remember God’s deeds and overcome the dark thoughts when they come.
“Save us from the time of trial
and deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours
now and forever. Amen.”
Ask Seek Knock
(Devotion by Graeme Harrison)
Prayer: Here I am, Lord
Here I am, Lord –
body, heart, and soul.
Grant that with your love,
I may be big enough
to reach the world,
and small enough
to be at one with you. Amen.
Mother Teresa of Calcutta, 1910-1997
(Sourced from A Treasury of Prayers in Uniting in Worship, copyright 1988 Uniting Church in Australia)
Read:
Matthew 7:7-11 Read this 3 times, each time asking God’s help and thinking about those words or phrases that leap out at you.
7 “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
9 “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11 If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”
(Matthew 7:7-11 NIV)
Thought for the Day:
Often in prayer I wonder whether it is ok to ask God to do something or to ask God for something. God is not a machine that produces what you want if you tap your spiritual credit card in prayer. Yet god is not fickle like gods in many polytheistic religions across the world. God wants to be known as faithful. A God of covenants and promises who is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. So how then do we pray?
It is tempting to see Jesus’ teaching today as a blank cheque but that would not be true to the context of the teaching. It is set in the Sermon on the Mount which is a condensed form of Jesus’ teachings on how to live life in the new Kingdom of God. So the context for this prayer is the question, “How can I be a faithful follower of Jesus in my context?”
It seems that God delights to work on this question alongside you in your life.
Go ahead; ask and seek and knock on that closed door. What is it that you want to know?
Busy
(Devotion by Graeme Harrison)
Prayer: Our true needs
Lord, we know not what to ask of you.
You alone know what our true needs are.
You love us more than we ourselves know how to love.
Help us to know our true needs
which may be hidden from us.
We dare not ask for either a cross or a consolation.
We can only wait upon you;
our hearts are open to you.
We offer ourselves to you as a living sacrifice.
We put all our trust in you.
We have no other desire than to fulfil your will.
Teach us to pray;
pray yourself in us. Amen.
Excerpt from a prayer,
Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow, 19th century
(Sourced from A Treasury of Prayers in Uniting in Worship, copyright 1988 Uniting Church in Australia)
Read:
Exodus 18:7-27 Read this 3 times, each time asking God’s help and thinking about those words or phrases that leap out at you.
7 So Moses went out to meet his father-in-law and bowed down and kissed him. They greeted each other and then went into the tent. 8 Moses told his father-in-law about everything the Lord had done to Pharaoh and the Egyptians for Israel’s sake and about all the hardships they had met along the way and how the Lord had saved them.
9 Jethro was delighted to hear about all the good things the Lord had done for Israel in rescuing them from the hand of the Egyptians. 10 He said, “Praise be to the Lord, who rescued you from the hand of the Egyptians and of Pharaoh, and who rescued the people from the hand of the Egyptians. 11 Now I know that the Lord is greater than all other gods, for he did this to those who had treated Israel arrogantly.” 12 Then Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, brought a burnt offering and other sacrifices to God, and Aaron came with all the elders of Israel to eat a meal with Moses’ father-in-law in the presence of God.
13 The next day Moses took his seat to serve as judge for the people, and they stood around him from morning till evening. 14 When his father-in-law saw all that Moses was doing for the people, he said, “What is this you are doing for the people? Why do you alone sit as judge, while all these people stand around you from morning till evening?”
15 Moses answered him, “Because the people come to me to seek God’s will. 16 Whenever they have a dispute, it is brought to me, and I decide between the parties and inform them of God’s decrees and instructions.”
17 Moses’ father-in-law replied, “What you are doing is not good. 18 You and these people who come to you will only wear yourselves out. The work is too heavy for you; you cannot handle it alone. 19 Listen now to me and I will give you some advice, and may God be with you. You must be the people’s representative before God and bring their disputes to him. 20 Teach them his decrees and instructions, and show them the way they are to live and how they are to behave. 21 But select capable men from all the people—men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain—and appoint them as officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens. 22 Have them serve as judges for the people at all times, but have them bring every difficult case to you; the simple cases they can decide themselves. That will make your load lighter, because they will share it with you. 23 If you do this and God so commands, you will be able to stand the strain, and all these people will go home satisfied.”
24 Moses listened to his father-in-law and did everything he said. 25 He chose capable men from all Israel and made them leaders of the people, officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens. 26 They served as judges for the people at all times. The difficult cases they brought to Moses, but the simple ones they decided themselves.
27 Then Moses sent his father-in-law on his way, and Jethro returned to his own country.
(Exodus 18:7-27 NIV)
Thought for the Day:
I am frequently asked how I am and whether I am busy. It is assumed that being busy is a good thing, and maybe a virtue. Moses was busy but he was not fruitful. His business was misplaced either because he had no business management training (highly likely) or he liked to be the centre of attention even if it was at the expense of others (highly unlikely given his response to advice).
So I am challenged from a spiritual viewpoint to interrogate my busy-ness and to ask whether it is fruitful, sustainable, and important from Jesus’ viewpoint.
The House of God
(Devotion by Graeme Harrison)
Prayer: God be in my head
God be in my head,
and in my understanding;
God be in mine eyes,
and in my looking;
God be in my mouth,
and in my speaking;
God be in my heart,
and in my thinking;
God be at my end,
and in my departing. Amen.
Book of Hours, 1514
(Sourced from A Treasury of Prayers in Uniting in Worship, copyright 1988 Uniting Church in Australia)
Read:
Psalm 84:1-4 Read this 3 times, each time asking God’s help and thinking about those words or phrases that leap out at you.
1 How lovely is your dwelling place,
Lord Almighty!
2 My soul yearns, even faints,
for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and my flesh cry out
for the living God.
3 Even the sparrow has found a home,
and the swallow a nest for herself,
where she may have her young—
a place near your altar,
Lord Almighty, my King and my God.
4 Blessed are those who dwell in your house;
they are ever praising you. (Psalm 84 NIV)
Thought for the Day:
This Psalm was sung by people who had left their hometowns to come and worship at the Temple in Jerusalem. Their high spirits and deep emotion are driven by the belief that God dwells in his Temple (as well as in heaven). Even the word for temple literally means ‘house’. They really believed that God was more present in the Temple than he is in their hometown. We may feel ourselves a little superior to these people from long ago because we know that Jesus’ death and resurrection means that God can live in our hearts (which is much closer and more convenient).
However… in this time of being at home have you ever considered that your own home might be the “house of the Lord”? How does it shift your idea of confinement if God lives in your home with you during lockdown?
What shifts in your head when you think, ‘my house is the house of the Lord’?
A Big Prayer?
(Devotion by Graeme Harrison)
Prayer: Word with Infinite Names
O Jesus, Word with infinite names,
show me what and how
I should ask from you in my requests.
O Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me.
Excerpt from a prayer to our Lord Jesus Christ,
St Nicodemos of Mount Athos, 18th century
(Sourced from A Treasury of Prayers in Uniting in Worship, copyright 1988 Uniting Church in Australia)
Read:
Ephesians 314-21, Paul’s prayer for the church in Ephesus. Read this 3 times, each time asking God’s help and thinking about those words or phrases that leap out at you.
14 For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
(Ephesians 3 NIV)
Thought for the Day:
I was asked recently, “What is the biggest prayer you can pray right now?” Immediately my mind drifted to contestants at a beauty pageant vaguely responding with ‘world peace’. But what would happen if I took the question seriously and applied what I knew of Jesus’ teachings? And what would happen if I focussed the prayer on the people I know and live alongside of? What then would be the biggest prayer I could pray?
Paul’s doxology of praise arises from his lived experience “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine…” It’s almost like God is throwing down a challenge to us in our prayer life. “What is the biggest prayer you can pray right now?”
Discovery?
(Devotion by Graeme Harrison)
Prayer:
A Prayer for A rolling brown land
Lord God,
your Spirit has moved over the face of Australia
and formed from its dust a rolling brown land.
Your Spirit has moved over its warm tropical waters
and created a rich variety of life.
Your Spirit has moved in the lives
of men, women, and children
and given them, from the dream time,
an affinity with their lands and waters.
Your Spirit has moved in pilgrim people
and brought them to a place of freedom and plenty.
Your Spirit moves still today
in sprawling, high-rise cities,
in the vast distances of the outback,
and in the ethnic diversity of the Australian people.
Lord God,
in the midst of this varied huddle of humanity
you have set your church.
Give us, the people you have so richly blessed,
a commitment to justice and peace for all nations;
and a vision of righteousness
and equality for all people in our own country.
Help us look beyond our far horizons
to see our neighbours in their many guises,
so that we may be mutually enriched by our differences.
And may our love and compassion for all people on earth
be as wide and varied as our land
and as constant as the grace of our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.
The Revd Douglas McKenzie
(Sourced from A Treasury of Prayers in Uniting in Worship, copyright 1988 Uniting Church in Australia)
Read:
Psalm 8. Read this 3 times, each time asking God’s help and thinking about those words or phrases that leap out at you.
Psalm 8
For the director of music. According to gittith. A psalm of David.
1 Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory
in the heavens.
2 Through the praise of children and infants
you have established a stronghold against your enemies,
to silence the foe and the avenger.
3 When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,
4 what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
human beings that you care for them?
5 You have made them a little lower than the angels
and crowned them with glory and honour.
6 You made them rulers over the works of your hands;
you put everything under their feet:
7 all flocks and herds,
and the animals of the wild,
8 the birds in the sky,
and the fish in the sea,
all that swim the paths of the seas.
9 Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
(Psalm 8 NIV)
Thought for the Day:
Today is the anniversary of Captain Cook’s landing at Botany Bay 250 years ago. He claimed the land for King George III and the rest is a history of enormous achievement and spectacular injustice. Our nation is both. Of those who identify with either or both of the two nations present in 1770 at the landing this day will be celebrated or mourned (or both). The beautiful imagery of the nobility of human beings shown in Psalm 8 seems out of place here. What can we learn from placing the Psalm beside the Landing?
I see a Psalm that sees a single humanity but when I look at the landing I see the dividing walls of national interest where the other is less human than ‘us’. National interest must never ‘trump’ the interests of our heavenly Father “from whom every family in heaven and earth derives its name” (Eph 3:15)
How does God speak to you when you place the Psalm beside the Landing?