Lenten Study – Wednesday of the Fourth Week of Lent

LOOK FOR THE SPIRIT

Do you want to have a real spiritual life? Then right here and right now….live your life in the experience of your “pains and your joys.” Take a close look at how you Think, Feel and Act. In that process of really looking…..you will find that you will become fully aware of your hunger for the spirit. Inside  each of us is an inner feeling of discomfort with how we live in “the now.” We all should each take a look at how we are truly living our lives. It’s time to get real. Be honest with yourself. Have the courage to confront yourself about how you are living your life. Trust yourself that your honesty and courage will lead you, not to a loss of hope, but to a new heaven and a new earth.

Read: Matthew 7:25-27, 32-35

Prayer

My Father God, I wish to chase away my sadness and any worry….with your gift of Grace. I want to put away boredom and doubt, and with swift action I call out to you now, to infuse your Grace into my soul. Help me to be honest with myself and to put my childish and untrue games away, so that I may reach up with my true heart for your kingdom, Oh’ my God…I cry out to you now. I seek your loving care.

AMEN

Lenten Study- Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Lent

Learn from the Master

Jesus was called to be a teacher, but he didn’t take advantage of his “connections” because he placed himself among the people who have to “learn.” The example of his life shows us that we do not need weapons, we don’t need to hide ourselves and we don’t need to play the games of being competitive with each other. If you want to be a true student of Jesus, don’t be afraid to show your weakness, allow yourself to be touched by the tender hand of the Teacher. If you share…in prayer with your Teacher, you will be able to be a real student.

Read: Mark 10:27-22

Prayer

Dear Jesus, I ask you to touch my heart in my new endeavors so that I may listen for your perfect way and follow you. I am facing new challenges, but I’m very sure they are your special challenges for me. My challenges seem  huge and somewhat overwhelming. I think you will ask me to make some sacrifices as I journey in my new direction, but I will speak with you often and listen for your ways to fine tune and develop my new learning. Please Jesus, give me your Grace to become a wise learner. Help me to study, learn and explore things I need to learn about my new creative adventure. I wish to humbly value your truth for  me in my learning adventure. I know you are calling me to stretch and to grow. Jesus, I will follow You. 

 

AMEN

Lenten Study – Monday of the Fourth Week of Lent

CLAIM YOUR BLESSINGS

Count your blessings. It sounds so simple. They come along every day. After one year, you have so many but in our modern lifestyles we are often so busy we have forgotten how blessed we really are. I urge you to create and nurture presence. This presence means paying particular attention to notice that you are being blessed. It’s not easy for busy people to even receive a blessing, like a kind word from another, because we must stop, listen, pay attention and “receive” gracefully what is offered to us. Take time to really notice how you are being blessed.

Read: 3:17-21

Prayer

Father, my great God, help me see and to experience each blessing you bestow on me. Our creation and the lives of others in my life are your glory at work. You bring blessings into all our lives. May I notice the moon and it’s evening light, the harvest season with plentiful fruits and vegetables, the fluffy clouds up in your most blue sky. Your blessings are always there for me. Father, I pray you will help me to slow down, and help me to show my gratitude through daily prayer. I ask for true reverence for all the many wonderful blessings that you provide. I thank you for every single moment that you have given me and I am grateful for all your gifts. 

 

• AMEN • 

Lenten Study – Fourth Sunday of Lent

Overcome Fear

Do you love Jesus?  Do you want to hold on to your friends, even if they do not lead you closer to Him? I love Jesus…. but I want to hold on to my independence even if that independence brings me no freedom. I love Jesus but I don’t want to give up my travel plans, my speaking plans, my writing plans, even if all these plans are more for my glory than the glory of God.

Am I like Nicodemus?….who admired Jesus but was afraid to loose the respect of his colleagues.

Read: John 7:40-52

This is the Messiah……

Prayer

My dear Father God….help me to examine my motives and my actions with your purposes for me in mind. I do not want to be overly swayed or influenced by the advice of my friends, and those who share their free opinions. My prayer this morning is that I will always look to you, rather than to others for helping me to set my priorities. I wish to reject my own will…..and keep my peace with You.

Sometimes other people like family, friends, colleagues, media, and public opinion attempt to influence me. I wish to weed out influences that are not healthy for me. And Lord, help me to stand up for an unpopular belief, but one that is morally sound, true and right. So during my Lenten devotions, help me to always keep my peace with You.

* Amen *

Lenten Study – Saturday of the Third Week of Lent

Descend in Imitation of Jesus

Can you give up the upper hand? Can you let let others go ahead of you? Will you step aside and give the credit to someone else?  Will you learn the lessons of suffering, but also the way to healing? Can you experience humiliation, but also proceed on a journey to resurrection?

This  is Jesus’ descending way of love, the way to the poor, the broken and the oppressed, but it becomes the ascending way to love, joy, peace and new life.  Our descending way is what each person experiences in his own heart. Slowly but intentionally, we each must take our descending way in order to open our ascending way, to bring us to the way Jesus fills our life with his joy, peace, love and our “new life” in imitation of Jesus.

Read: 1 Peter 4:12, 5:1-5

Prayer

Dear Jesus….. help me find my way of descent ~ my way of humility, tears, of suffering and of being hidden.  I know that I must seek the lowly way of life in order to reach the heights of your eternal happiness. I seek your light and pray that it follows me and fills me all the days of my life.

• AMEN •

Lenten Study – Friday of the Third Week of Lent

Acknowledge God’s Love

Gods Love is not earned, but freely given. Does this inspire you to think and contemplate on Gods perfect kind of love? He decided to love us in his complete freedom. His choice, His decision. If you think about this and reflect on it deeply, it can totally have an influence and change your whole life. How can our humanness fathom this, when as earthly people we think that we have to do something nice, so that we can be loved by others. We think being loved by others is something we have to earn. We find it hard to believe we can get something for nothing.

 

Read: Luke 6:27-31

Dear God….you are most high. Please take me back into your love that I can never earn. I confess my sin and my shortcomings. Your forever forgiveness is undeserved by me. I know in my heart that your love is unconditional. But my human nature always thinks that others will only love me if I  act as if I love them. I am in awe of the love you give me that is boundless and can never be withdrawn. Father please give me your grace to accept this “love gift” from You.

•• AMEN ••

Lenten Study – Thursday of the Third Week of Lent

Seek Conversion

Jesus asks us for a conversion. He asks for us to take a new direction, a turnaround, a transformation. Our inner being often fights this, and yet as we take steps forward in our life, we feel that something new is happening inside us. So then we take another step forward. And so, step by step we come closer to the heart of God, which is an always forgiving, and never ending Love.

Read Matthew 5:1-2, 7:13-14, 31-23

Prayer

Mr Lord God, we are creatures of repetitive convenience. Convenient foods, access to convenient roads, TV controls, drive up windows, convenience stores. All these things make life easier for us. And even so, we continue to want things to change to suit our modern lives and make things easier for our own benefit. Father, help me to remember that the steep way, is the path to you and your home. Help us to intentionally practice “give and take” instead of take, take and take. I confess that it is not all about my needs, my wants, my pleasures and my way. Forgive me Father. Amen.

Lenten Study – Wednesday of the Third Week of Lent

Seek….Your True Home

Does the word “homecoming” bring a strong emotion to your soul? A coming home suggests to most of us, as the place where we belong.

Here in my home is where you belong. Jesus spoke to his disciples, “In my Father’s house there are many places to live in….I am going now to prepare a place for you” (John 14:2), became very real. Our risen Jesus who now dwells with his Father, was welcoming us home after a long journey.

The realization is that since we all seek our oldest and deepest desires, we know that we all have a hidden desire to be with Jesus, where we will be held in His Love. Our true homecoming, for we all “seek our true home.”

Read: Psalm 139:1-4, 13-16

Prayer

My all loving Father God, you know the truth of me, even as I was being formed in my mother’s womb. You knew my thoughts and even as I was truly lost you welcomed me home into your warmth of love. You knew me better than I knew myself. My future days are unknown by me, but I now seek your saving grace to savor my present in the place where I belong ~ in your heart.

** AMEN **

Lenten Study – Tuesday the Third Week of Lent

LENT A TIME TO
Prepare

Life is a journey of preparation. All our lives we prepare to truly die for others. In an accumulation of little deaths throughout life, God is asking us to release our clinging tendency and need of others….to living for them. As we walk the journey from childhood to adolescence, to adulthood and finally to our old age, always we are offered ways to choose for ourselves, ultimately perhaps choosing for others. Questions come up; do I desire power or service, do I want to be seen, or to remain hidden; do I strive for success in the career I chose, or do I follow my vocation? In the final act of our life it is truly about the process of dying to self. This passage is where we will experience living in the “joy of God.”

Please read: Luke 12:42-48

Prayer

My Father God,

As I walk through the journey of my life I too easily do what is wrong instead of right. But you always are there for me and I know that you love me even when I have sin in my heart. As I walk along through my life, please remind me to choose service over power, and a desire a true vacation to your Word, rather than a highly successful career. I pray for a hidden self in my service to others, and I pray to be my real self and experience a true sense of what is very real and not at all real. I now examine my conscience….and I pray right now….to choose to improve my actions and my thoughts with your help…..Oh’ My Savior God.

 

••  AMEN  ••

Lenten Study – Monday of the Third week of Lent

Receptivity

My Prayer

Father God, your gifts to me are so generous and there are so many. I can see your gifts in the smallest of living things and in so many very grand and great things. Thank you for all of your creation; the mountains, skies, forests and the seas. I feel so small and my gifts are so little. I do respect and now give great thanks for all your works.  I also thank you for the many gifts given to me here on earth, by my companions here in life. If I receive gifts with a grateful heart I am giving happiness to the giver. In your honor I wish to accept all gifts with a pure heart. I gratefully receive all gifts and thank you for all my many wonderful blessings. 

 

•AMEN•