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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 to Thirst for God

Lord God, I have tasted your goodness and it has satisfied me, yet it has made me thirst for even more. I am so painfully aware of my need for even more grace than I now enjoy; and even when I do not want more, I am ashamed of my lack of desire. I want you completely, mighty God, and I want to want you even more than I do.

Fill me with longing for you; make me even thirstier. Show me your glory, I pray, so that I may know you always better and better, growing in my faith and love. From your infinite mercy, begin a new work of love within me this moment. Say to my soul, ‘Rise up my love, my fair one, and come away.’ And give me grace to rise up and follow you, from this misty lowland where I have wandered so long.

~ adapted from a prayer of A. W. Tozer

To Remember God During the Day

Dear Heavenly Father, I lower my head before you and confess that I have too often forgotten that I am yours. Sometimes I carry on my life as if there were no God, and I fall short of being a credible witness to You. For these things I ask your forgiveness.

And I also ask for your strength. Give me a clear mind and an open heart so I may witness to You in my world. Remind me to be who You would have me to be regardless of what I am doing or who I am with. Hold me to You and build my relationship with You and with those You have brought into my life on earth.

adapted from Taize Comm. 8/11/2014

Meditation

“Your accumulated offences do not surpass the multitude of God's mercies: your wounds do not surpass the great Physician's skill.”

~ Cyril of Jerusalem (ca. 360 AD)

Dedication

God of mercy, swift to help: as my lips pour forth your praise, fill my heart with the peace you give to those who wait for your salvation in Jesus 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.

Love

People need loving the most when they deserve it the least.

~ John Harrison

Genesis 1:26-27 (ESV)

The Creation of Man

hen God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.

Notes on the Scripture

God created us in his image, and after His likeness. Does this mean we look like God? Actually, we don’t know! Certainly God has appeared to men looking like something very different from a human being: A burning bush, a flash of light, a pillar of cloud and fire. But we also see God or his messenger (an angel) very like a human being in appearance. Jesus was the Son of God; however, Jesus was made man, so it would be more accurate to say he was made to look like us — actually, He was one of us — than vice versa. Most adults, however, visualize God in more abstract terms, perhaps as existing in the entirety of space.

Creation of Adam and Eve, after Giulio Carpioni, ca. 1660.

But the words “in his image” almost certainly mean something other than arms, legs and a nose. We have the capacity, of all the creatures known to us, to distinguish between good and evil. We have the capacity to think. And we have the capacity to exercise free will. We can do something or believe something purely because we decided that it is the right thing to do, even if it is contrary to our animal instincts. And we have a soul, capable of eternal life.

Most Christians believe that these attributes are what is meant by “the image of God.” We must always remember, however, that a likeness is not identical to the original. We are made in God’s image, but that does not mean we are God, or even similar to Him in every way.

We are special. Of all the gazillion things in the universe, only one of them (that we know of) was made in the image of God, and that is us. But there’s a catch: all the other people in the world, including the burglar stealing our money and the politician we cannot stand, are also made in God’s image. They are His beloved children and like us, created by God in His image. They are our equals; and it is for that reason Christ told us that we may not judge one another.

The Angel of the Resurrection, designed by Frederick Wilson for Tiffany Studios in 1904-5, for the American Presbyterian Church in Montreal.

Daily Inspiration

“A Dark Place”

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