Week #15 – Bible Reading

Invocation:
Father, let Your word be a lamp to my feet, and a light to my path. Let me hide it in my heart that I might not sin against You. Amen.
(Psalm 119:105, 11)

Weekly Scripture Reading: Psalm 19

Daily Scripture Readings:

Monday John 8:31-32
Tuesday Hebrews 4:12-13
Wednesday 1 Peter 1:13-25
Thursday Deuteronomy 30:11-14
Friday John 5:31-47
Saturday 2 Peter 1:3-21
Sunday 2 Timothy 3:10-17

Selections for Meditation

Personal Meditation

Prayer
Spend part of your prayer time in asking for a deeper understanding of the Word of God and for a renewed love for all that it speaks to you.

Hymn: “Lamp of Our Feet”

Lamp of our feet, whereby we trace
Our path when wont to stray;
Stream from the fount of heavenly grace,
Brook by the travelers’ way.

Bread of our souls, whereon we feed;
True manna from on high;
Our guide and chart, wherein we read
Of realms beyond the sky.

Pillar of fire, through watches dark,
Or radiant cloud by day;
When waves o’erwhelm our tossing bark,
Our anchor and our stay.

Word of the ever-living God;
Will of His glorious Son,
Without Thee how could earth be trod,
Or heaven be won?

Lord, grant us all aright to learn
The wisdom it imparts,
And to its heavenly teaching turn
With simple, childlike hearts.
-Bernard D. Barton-

Benediction:
Dear Jesus, this day do not let me forget that I cannot live by bread alone, that like You I must have words from the mouth of the Father. Amen.

Selections for Meditation

* For in the sacred books, the Father who is in heaven meets His children with great love and speaks with them; and the force and power in the Word of God is so great that it remains the support and energy of the Church, the strength of faith for her children, the food of the soul, the pure and perennial source of spiritual life.
-From Christian Mysticism Today
by William Johnston-

* It has long been repeated that prayer is a loving conversation with one whom you know loves you. Yet not a few today ask how do I know that I am not talking to myself, in an ongoing dialogue between me, myself and I? Is it really an I-Thou encounter or just more I-me? It is Scripture, the Word of God that is the reality-depth of our prayer, for “we speak to Him when we pray; we hear Him when we read the divine sayings.” From The Hasidim, the Jewish mystics, there is the beautiful legend of the rabbi who would go into ecstasy every time he would utter the words “and God spoke. . . .” He would become totally overwhelmed with the realization that God spoke to man!
What would happen to us if we would more deeply believe the truth — God speaks! God speaks to me! This is the heart of prayer, this is the power behind the prayer revolution of today — that God is speaking directly to me in Scripture.
-From Prayer Is a Hunger by
Edward J. Farrell-

* Known primarily as an educator, Frank Gaebelein was the founding headmaster at the Stony Brook School, a Christian college preparatory school in Long Island, which has become a prototype. He held the post for 41 years and considered his work there his most important accomplishment.
When once asked what counsel he wished to pass on to the next generation of Christians, he replied: “Maintain at all costs a daily time of Scripture reading and prayer. As I look back, I see that the most formative influence in my life and thought has been my daily contact with Scripture over my 60 years.”
-Taken from Christianity Today Magazine-

* In this context, God’s word whether written or spoken may be compared to a mirror. Spiritually, the eyes of your soul are your reason, your consciousness is your spiritual face. And just as it is so that if you have a dirty spot on your physical face your eyes cannot see that spot nor know where it is without a mirror or someone else to tell you so; so it is spiritually in the same way that without reading or hearing God’s word it is not possible for a soul blinded by habitual sin to see the foul spot upon his consciousness.
-From The Cloud of Unknowing
Translated by Ira Progoff-

* This word which sets us at once to work and obedience, is the rock on which to build our house. The only proper response to this word which Jesus brings with Him from eternity is simply to do it. Jesus has spoken: His is the Word, ours is the obedience. Only in the doing of it does the word of Jesus retain its honor, might, and power among us. Now the storm can rage over the house, but it cannot shatter that union with him, which his word has created.
There is only one other possibility, that of failing to do it. It is impossible to want to do it and yet not do it. To deal with the word of jesus otherwise than by doing it is to give him the lie. It is to deny the Sermon on the Mount and say no to his word. If we start asking questions, posing problems, and offering interpretations, we are not doing his word. Once again the shades of the rich young man and the lawyer of Luke 10 are raising their heads. However vehemently we assert our faith, and our fundamental recognition of his word, Jesus still calls it “not doing.” But the word which we fail to do is no rock to build a house on. There can then be no union with Jesus. He has never known us. That is why as soon as the hurricane begins we lose the word, and find that we have never really believed it. The word we had was not Christ’s, but a word we had wrested from him and made our own by reflecting on it instead of doing it. So our house crashes in ruins, because it is not founded on the word of Jesus Christ.
-From The Cost of Discipleship
by Dietrich Bonhoeffer-

* The Bible is the record of those divine breakthroughs into human history. “God’s search for man, “ it is described, rather than being our search for God. And its accents are considered a key for discerning the continuing divine activity in the present. Unlike most religious literature, it is not chiefly a collection of noble sayings, but a drumroll of events, people, struggles, great and terrible, of frailty, doubts, and heroism, of the ultimate might of right. Scripture isn’t meant as scientific exposition or as mere history. It is “salvation history,” a universal spiritual drama of an overarching compassion and concern for human integrity, of an unwavering love that seeks an answering affirmation. It is a vivid, sometimes parabolic account of God’s persistent, unrelenting quest for us and our stumbling, often faithless response.
-From The Untamed God by George Cornell-

* To candid, reasonable men, I am not afraid to lay open what have been the inmost thoughts of my heart. I have thought, I am a creature of a day, passing through life as an arrow through the air. I am a spirit come from God, and returning to God: just hovering over the great gulf; till, a few moments hence, I am no more seen; I drop into an unchangeable eternity! I want to know one thing — the way to heaven: how to land safe on that happy shore. God Himself has condescended to teach the way; for this very end he came from heaven. He hath written it down in a book. O give me that book! At any price, give me the book of God! I have it: here is knowledge enough for me.
-From A Compendium of Wesley’s Theology
Edited by Burtner and Chiles-