Daily Devotion for November 15, 2009
Prayers
Scripture
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 and ever.
Prayer for the Day
O Lord God of Israel and God of the nations, you are the only God in heaven above or the earth below. I walk before you with all my heart. I bless your name in the morning when I rise and in the evening when I sleep, and all the day when your creation fills my eye.
Bless me to remember you this day; when I see and hear the thousand miracles of your creation, let me see them anew, recalling that you have made them, and no other; that I may live in your presence among the common miracles I take for granted.
Through Christ I pray,Grant, O God, that your holy and life-giving Spirit may so move every human heart, that barriers which divide us may crumble, suspicions disappear and hatreds cease; that our divisions being healed, we may live together in justice and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Community of Prayer
May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be among the community of all who pray in the name of Christ this morning, and remain among us always.(Additional prayers may be found at Prayers for All Occasions.)
God be with you 'til we meet again.
Gospel of Matthew, 19:1-9
Divorce
When Jesus had finished these words, he left Galilee and entered the border area of Judaea beyond the Jordan. Great multitudes followed him, and he healed them there.
Pharisees approached him, testing him, and asked, "Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife without a reason?"
He answered, "Have you not read that he who made them in the beginning made them male and female; and that he said, 'For marriage a man shall leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh?' So that they are no longer two, but one. What God has joined together, no man may separate."
They replied, "Why then did Moses command men to give a bill of divorcement, to separate from their wives?"
He responded, "Moses allowed you to put away your wives because your hearts were so hard. But from the beginning, it has not been true. And I tell you, anyone who separates from his wife and marries another, except for fornication, commits adultery; and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery."
