Tag: sanctification

Sunday, Sept. 4

~ Chuck Griffin ~ Leave a comment

Welcome to the daily prayer guide for the month of September! Today is Sunday, Sept. 4.

Today being Sunday, we will deviate from our pattern. Focus today on worshiping with others! If you engage earnestly in worship, you will experience all the elements of prayer we have explored so far.

By the way, engage with worship early. Start preparing yourself to encounter God in worship as you leave the house. Approach the place of worship prayerfully and joyfully, rejoicing in the sight of your fellow believers. And as you worship, remember throughout who your audience is:

God.

Saturday, Sept. 3

~ Chuck Griffin ~ Leave a comment

Welcome to the daily prayer guide for the month of September! Today is Saturday, Sept. 3. If you need an explanation about how to use this guide, see the first post.

Morning

For people with traditional work schedules, Saturday’s schedule can be gobbled up by recreation as quickly as the weekdays can be consumed with work. But we still want to begin our day centered! This morning, ask yourself how you can recognize God’s presence in the midst of all you do, be it work or play. See if you’re comfortable praying words along these lines:

“Lord, I invite you to keep me aware of you all day, wherever I may be. I know you are everywhere. Help me to sense this truth. Amen.” Let’s also remember to praise God for who He is. He made us. He saves us from sin. He dwells among us now as the Holy Spirit.

Take a moment to lift up the names of all around you who are tired, anxious, sick or lonely. Ask God to be with them; listen intently whether God is telling you to adjust your schedule to spend some time with them.

Take time to read the following Scriptures in your preferred translation: Deuteronomy 29:2-20; Matthew 10:34-42. Slow down enough to meditate on each one. Read what comes before and after if more context is necessary.

Pray these words out loud: “Lord, I surrender this day to you. Let my plans be your plans, let my encounters with others be holy, and may your kingdom grow just a little today because I am in this world. Amen.”

Give yourself a few minutes of silence before resuming your day.

Noon

Pray the Lord’s Prayer (See if someone might join you):

“Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom, and the power and the glory forever. Amen.”

Again, give yourself a few minutes of silence before resuming your day.

Night

As you review your day, pay attention to how closely you came to praying without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17). By this, Paul meant being aware of God’s presence throughout the day.

I hope the meditative prayer time in the evening is becoming comfortable and rewarding. It’s a little like exercise; stick with it, and you will experience surprising growth. If the visualization aspect is proving difficult, simply focus on breathing and listening for the ever-present God.

And again, if you have questions or comments about the experience, it’s also okay to use the comments section of this page to start a conversation with others. May your dreams include visions of the kingdom to come.

Friday, Sept. 2

~ Chuck Griffin ~ Leave a comment

Welcome to the daily prayer guide for the month of September! Today is Friday, Sept. 2. If you need an explanation about how to use this guide, see yesterday’s post.

Morning

Let your early thoughts in the day connect you to God. This morning, think about how God first delivered to you the message of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. As you give thanks for the gift of salvation, consider how your experience might be beneficial to others.

Like yesterday, think about the people you know who may face a challenging day, and pray that God’s Spirit surrounds and supports them. You can continue to lift up this prayer throughout the day as other people continue to come to mind.

Take time to read the following Scriptures in your preferred translation: Psalm 1; Deuteronomy 7:12-26. Slow down enough to meditate on each one. Read what comes before and after if more context is necessary.

Pray these words out loud: “Lord, I surrender this day to you. Let my plans be your plans, let my encounters with others be holy, and may your kingdom grow just a little today because I am in this world. Amen.”

Give yourself a few minutes of silence before resuming your day.

Noon

Pray the Lord’s Prayer:

“Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom, and the power and the glory forever. Amen.”

Again, give yourself a few minutes of silence before resuming your day.

Night

Begin by making a brief mental review of your day. When were you walking with God? When were you walking on your own? This isn’t a time to beat yourself up. It’s simply spiritually healthy to assess how you’re doing in relation to what God wants from you.

If you started this prayer series yesterday, you may have found the meditative prayer time challenging. That’s okay; this is an important time of spiritual growth. If this is your first attempt, take some time to read “Life and Breath” and “Under Water.”

If you have questions or comments about the experience, it’s also okay to use the comments section of this page to start a conversation with others. And again, sleep well.

Thursday, Sept. 1

~ Chuck Griffin ~ 5 Comments

Welcome to the daily prayer guide for the month of September! Today is Thursday, Sept. 1.

As this is the first posting, a quick explanation is in order. This guide is designed to lead you through three prayer opportunities during the day. Ideally, at each opportunity you will find a quiet place to spend some time with God. Some of the prayer activities will appear repeatedly throughout the month so you can grow in your understanding. The pattern is Morning, Noon and Night. It’s up to you to find the time that works best for you in each of these parts of the day. Even “Noon” doesn’t have to be precisely at noon, but simply somewhere in the middle part of the day.

Those of you who use computer calendars might want to set reminders on them for each prayer moment. That would be diligent planning, but at the same time, if a crisis or some other event interferes with your prayer time, simply get back on track at the next opportunity. God is always there for you.

Morning

Let your early thoughts in the day connect you to God. Give thanks for how God is revealed to us as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Consider the people you know who may face a challenging day, and pray that God’s Spirit surrounds and supports them. (You can continue to lift up this prayer throughout the day as other people continue to come to mind.)

Take time to read the following Scriptures in your preferred translation: Psalm 139; Philippians 2:25-30. Slow down enough to meditate on each one. Read what comes before and after if more context is necessary.

Pray these words out loud: “Lord, I surrender this day to you. Let my plans be your plans, let my encounters with others be holy, and may your kingdom grow just a little today because I am in this world. Amen.”

Give yourself a few minutes of silence before resuming your day.

Noon

Pray the Lord’s Prayer:

“Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom, and the power and the glory forever. Amen.”

Again, give yourself a few minutes of silence before resuming your day.

Night

Begin by making a brief mental review of your day. When were you walking with God? When were you walking on your own? This isn’t a time to beat yourself up. It’s simply spiritually healthy to assess how you’re doing in relation to what God wants from you.

The remainder of the evening prayer time is more of a meditative experience. To better understand what is being recommended, take some time to read “Life and Breath” and “Under Water.” Perhaps you will be seeking peace, forgiveness or healing of some sort. Know that God meets you in these moments, and that grace is always available to you.

Sleep well.

Hearing from God: A Series

~ Chuck Griffin ~ 1 Comment

By Chuck Griffin

The LifeTalk blog on Methodist Life resumes tomorrow (Sept. 1). In conjunction with a September sermon series at Holston View Methodist, the church where I serve as pastor, I will be providing a daily prayer guide. If you’re a registered user on the Methodist Life site, an email will be delivered early enough that I hope you will be able to use the prayer guide throughout the day.

The series is called “Hearing from God,” and I first pray that during the month of September we can all grow in our ability to discern God’s will. Blessings on all of you!

For Such a Time as This, Pt. 2

~ Chuck Griffin ~ 1 Comment

2 Corinthians 13:5-10

By Chuck Griffin

Tuesday, I began moving toward Sunday’s sermon with an exhortation: Theologically conservative Methodists positioned by God to lead should do just that in our current environment, employing a little creativity and a lot of grace in the process.

I am not naïve. Once people become entrenched in institutional power and lucrative privilege, they very often will place their own interests above scriptural principles. (Another exhortation in Philippians 2:4-5 comes to mind.) So I exhort with only faint hope of a real response from anyone already positioned to make a difference.

That failure at the top continues to reverberate throughout the United Methodist Church, as it has done for decades now. Basic biblical concepts long preached and taught by Methodists have fallen by the wayside as the people once most able to encourage them grew silent in the face of secular pressure.

You can test how heavily your particular church has been affected by all of this. Look at today’s text from 2 Corinthians and ask yourself if it sounds like something anyone has taught or preached there.

The church at Corinth had very modern problems, the people immersed in “impurity, sexual immorality, and eagerness for lustful pleasure.” Paul expected that when he arrived, he would find quarreling, jealousy, anger, selfishness, slander, gossip, arrogance and disorderly behavior among them, too. (Read chapter 12 for the context I am citing here.)

Paul did not dance around those problems. He did not accommodate the social trends of the day. Instead, he relied on his humble subservience to God, letting God speak through him, employing the Scripture of his day and his direct encounters with the Holy Spirit to define right and wrong.

“Examine yourselves to see if your faith is genuine. Test yourselves. Surely you know that Jesus Christ is among you; if not, you have failed the test of genuine faith.”

If you’re unfamiliar with such language in church, you are in a congregation that has lost sight of what once was a basic Methodist concept, the pursuit of holiness. In church, this is a group effort to create an environment where people can, with the help of God, find their actions more closely aligned with God’s will each passing day.

Missing that in your church? Well, here’s the good news. Unworthy leaders can be ignored and even replaced. Paul ultimately aimed his message at all the Christians in the Corinthian church, giving everyone an opportunity to respond, and we can consider his words a message to us, too.

Know God’s word. Seek the presence of God’s Spirit through prayer, fasting and worship. As more of us do so, we will begin to recover what was once a bright, vibrant form of Methodism, a kind of Christianity that changed lives for the better.

Lord, we give thanks for the leaders who will arise among us, and we pray that they be graced with a double portion of your Spirit. Amen.

An Unpopular Notion

~ Chuck Griffin ~ Leave a comment

Ephesians 5:15-20 (NLT)

So be careful how you live. Don’t live like fools, but like those who are wise. Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days. Don’t act thoughtlessly, but understand what the Lord wants you to do. Don’t be drunk with wine, because that will ruin your life. Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, and making music to the Lord in your hearts. And give thanks for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

By Chuck Griffin

How we respond to verses like these says a lot about where we are in our walk with God.

Boring! Killjoys. Squares. Only the good die young! People caught up in the glittery side of life find it easy to roll their eyes at such sober Christian advice.

A lot of us who call ourselves Christian are all too familiar with this worldly stage of life, having passed through it in our younger days. I’ve known a few Christians who will tell you how they stayed in their “younger days” well into their sixties and beyond, discovering a better way only late in life.

We need to remember that it’s not always the wine that makes people drunk. The anxiety-inducing desires of this world—do I have enough, am I successful enough—can stun us into a spiritual stupor as powerfully as a big bottle of the finest red. 

To those who have yet to absorb Paul’s message, the part about being filled with the Holy Spirit, singing psalms and hymns, sounds intolerably boring. It’s because they have yet to taste the peace, the joy and the overwhelming sense of love that comes from stopping for a moment, taking a real accounting of our lives, and then stepping fully into a life with Christ.

Here’s the challenge for us who have already stumbled into that better way. How do we communicate what we are experiencing so others might be open to it, too? We all need to dwell on that question for a while and see if we can answer it creatively.

It helps me that I spend time with very old Christians who happily discuss what their walk with Christ means to them.  They see death as an ever-present possibility, but their joy and peace remain.

When with them, I often realize it would do me good to slow down and engage with the Holy Spirit even more. In that relationship, there is nothing to lose and glimpses of eternity to gain. Surely, if I engage enough, people will see the joy in me.

Sweet Spirit of God, continue to whisper to our souls, showing us the better way. As a people, may we once again grasp these truths at an early age. Amen.

After the Word Is Heard

~ Chuck Griffin ~ Leave a comment

By Chuck Griffin

Parables, those little stories Jesus used to illustrate how God works in the world, are not always intended to provide immediate answers. They are more like mental Juicy Fruit, designed to keep us chewing on an idea until it makes sense.

Jesus does, however, explain his first parable in Matthew, the story of a sower who liberally scatters his seeds in different places: a path, rocky ground, thorns, and fertile soil. The seeds represent “word of the kingdom.” The landing places and the fate of their seeds stand for responses to Christ’s message.

When Jesus speaks of the “kingdom of heaven” or “kingdom of God” in Scripture, he describes something that is here but that will later arrive in full, like a train that has just nosed into the station but is still moving.

The coming of the kingdom of heaven has an individual effect. We each accept Christ’s work and allow the Holy Spirit to transform us in unique ways. But the kingdom also is having a universal effect, changing creation as a whole and moving us toward a time when evil, sickness and death are no longer a part of the world.

That is really good news, the kind of news that should cause us to reconsider every aspect of our lives. When we first believe the news, we are reunited with God through Christ. As we understand the news on deeper and deeper levels, we further incorporate its meaning into our lives.

Not everyone reacts the same way to this news, however. That’s the point of the rest of the parable.

First, there are the “path” people. Jesus reminds us that the “evil one” will do all he can to pull back into his deadly grasp people who don’t initially understand the message. Those of us who want to help them are called to engage in very real spiritual warfare, relying on the Christ-sent Holy Spirit to overcome the work of Satan.

Second, there are the “rocky ground” people. You’ve seen them—they are energetic and enthused about their new faith, until they face trouble for the first time after their conversions. These people remind us why discipleship is so important to a new Christian’s life.

Third, there are the “thorn” people. They find the temporary baubles of the world attractive, so much so that their desire for these riches keeps them from appreciating the word of the kingdom. What they need is a big-picture understanding of their own lives and the lives of people around them.

The “good soil” people are of course what all believers want to be, Christians who let God work through them to bring along the full arrival of the kingdom.

One of the great gifts of the kingdom is that we can move from being one kind of soil to another. The God who made the earth remakes us, at least as much as we allow.

Lord, may your word take deep root in us and flourish to the benefit of others. Amen.

Psalm 118, Meditation 4

~ John Grimm ~ 1 Comment

Psalm 118 (NRSV)

By John Grimm

There is nothing more timeless than salvation.  As Chuck pointed out yesterday, the psalms have a timelessness to them.  The timelessness of salvation is what we all want to know.  This desire is ingrained in our lives.  We want to be secure in our living now and our hope for the future.

This salvation comes only from the Lord.  We see verses 21-25 pointing out how God becomes our salvation.

I thank you that you have answered me and have become my salvation.
The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.
This is the Lord's doing; it is marvelous in our eyes.
This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.
Save us, we beseech you, O LORD! O LORD, we beseech you, give us success!

Jesus was rejected by those who were attempting to build Israel into a great nation.  It is by knowing Jesus as the chief cornerstone of life that we have salvation.  We can sing about Jesus delivering us from our sins and ourselves.  Jesus will give us success over the sins we have committed and the nature of sin in us.

Salvation is not merely being delivered from sin. Salvation involves us discovering how we can be made new creatures (2 Corinthians 5:17ff.).  Salvation is lived in our lives during this day and all the following days.  We marvel because, like God’s mercies being new each day, he continues to renew us in the image of Christ.  This is salvation, being made to bear the image of Christ fully and completely in our lives.

Lord God, thank you for Jesus Christ.  We are looking for success in bearing the image of Christ in our lives.  As we seek you, we can rejoice in how you are working in us so that we live like Jesus, even today.  In the name of Jesus Christ, we ask that we may be found to be like him more each day.  Amen.