Daily Devotion for May 29, 2017
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.
Have I Done Any Good? An inspiring message from Alex Boye and Carmen Rasmusen Herbert, as they perform an updated version of an old hymn.
Have I helped anyone in need?
Have I cheered up the sad and made someone feel glad?
If not, I have failed indeed.
Has anyone’s burden been lighter today
Because I was willing to share?
Have the sick and the weary been helped on their way?
When they needed my help was I there?
Chorus:
Then wake up and do something more
Than dream of your mansion above.
Doing good is a pleasure, a joy beyond measure,
A blessing of duty and love.
There are chances for work all around just now,
Opportunities right in our way.
Do not let them pass by, saying, “Sometime I’ll try,”
But go and do something today.
’Tis noble of man to work and to give;
Love’s labor has merit alone.
Only he who does something helps others to live.
To God each good work will be known.
Text and music: Will L. Thompson, 1887.
Prayer for Faith
Give us, Lord, a lively faith, a firm hope, a fervent charity, a love of you. Take from us all lukewarmness in meditation, dullness in prayer. Give us fervor and delight in thinking of you and your grace, your tender compassion towards me. The things we pray for, good Lord, give us grace to labor for: through Jesus Christ our Lord.
To Witness to Christ
Heavenly Father, Christ left with us his instructions to spread the gospel into every nook and cranny of the world, to let others know about him and find him, to save their souls and bring them into true peace and your ultimate purpose for us. But I am so stupid and ignorant, I do not know what to say. I am so filled with a desire not to offend others that I am afraid to speak up. It is so much easier for me just to sit back and leave everything up to you, or up to professional preachers. I retreat into thinking that this is somebody else's job.
Help me dear Lord to do your work. I promise to try, but I cannot do this without your. Fill me with the fire of your Holy Spirit and give me the words and the strength, if only to witness how much you have meant to me in my own life. Give me strength to plunge straight through feelings of awkwardness or potential hostility, and to offer to you just the simplest witness before others. For I know that if I help only one person to find you, it is worth ten thousand rejections. Bless me to remember, that the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.
In Christ's name, I pray,
Meditation
[Am I so afraid to offend others that I fail to witness to Christ?]
Parting Prayer
Lord, pour your love into my heart, that I may love you above all things, and my neighbors as myself. Through Christ our Lord.
Think of the day ahead in terms of God with you, and visualize health, strength, guidance, purity, calm confidence, and victory as the gifts of His presence.
Sun Day
"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen. Not only because I see it, but because I see everything by it."
~ C.S. Lewis
Genesis 27:5-13 (ESV)
The Story of Isaac [9] - Jacob and Esau
Now Rebekah was listening when Isaac spoke to his son Esau. So when Esau went to the field to hunt for game and bring it, Rebekah said to her son Jacob, “I heard your father speak to your brother Esau, 'Bring me game and prepare for me delicious food, that I may eat it and bless you before the Lord before I die.' Now therefore, my son, obey my voice as I command you.
Go to the flock and bring me two good young goats, so that I may prepare from them delicious food for your father, such as he loves. And you shall bring it to your father to eat, so that he may bless you before he dies.”
But Jacob said to Rebekah his mother, “Behold, my brother Esau is a hairy man, and I am a smooth man. Perhaps my father will feel me, and I shall seem to be mocking him and bring a curse upon myself and not a blessing.”
His mother said to him, “Let your curse be on me, my son; only obey my voice, and go, bring them to me.”
Notes on the Scripture
e have picked up the story of the fraternal twins Jacob and Esau again, after the intervening years when Isaac was moving around. You will remember in Genesis 25 that Esau, the elder twin and the one favored by his father, sold his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of stew. One might be kind enough to say that Esau simply did not fit the role of the head of a great household, for he loved only to be out in the wilderness hunting.
But the right to name a successor lies with the father, and Isaac is determined that it should go to the elder, who would be the normal choice. Rebekah favors Jacob, though; and although Jacob would not propose to fool his father, Rebekah will take any curse upon herself, so much does she favor Jacob.
Isaac has sent Esau out hunting, to bring him back meat for a meal before he gives Esau his blessing. But Rebekah will cook a goat instead; she obviously intends to fool Isaac, who is nearly blind, into thinking that Jacob is Esau, in order that Isaac will give his blessing to Jacob by mistake.
