WELCOME TO MY PASSION FOR GOD.
Are You Too Busy NOT To Pray? (Part 2)
Image courtesy of: W. Visser
Are You Too Busy NOT To Pray
“I knew the importance of prayer. I knew how to pray. And I evenwanted to pray. I just didn't pray, at least with the frequency andintensity I knew I should.”
“Back and forth, in our native tongues, we talk to God. And eventhough we have no idea exactly what the other person is prayingfor, we know beyond the shadow of a doubt to whom we arepraying. As a result of talking to the One we both consider to beall powerful, all knowing, all caring, all loving and all attentive toour prayers, we walk away from the conversation sensing a closebond in Christ.”
“My genuine desire is to help Christ-followers (including me!) getoff the bench and into the game as it relates to fighting injusticein all its forms. I believe God has a role for each of us to play, ifonly we'll quiet the mind, bend the knee, and take time todiscover it. I keep a prayer journal and frequently I'll flip to theearly pages to see what I was praying for during those days aswell as how they were answered. It's always interesting to reflecton how the hand of God moved a mountain or calmed a sea onmy behalf. And in my estimation there is no taller mountain, nostormier sea raging right now than the one called injustice. ForChrist-followers who are as fired up as I am about righting thewrongs of a broken world, there is no better first step to take thanprayer.”
Image courtesy of: Penumbra
The Crucifixion
“In the Old Testament, God made provision for the people to make amends and be restored to a right relationship with him. They could do this by making sin offerings or guilt offerings. If you had violated God's will, you brought a special offering to the Lord to say, ‘I'm sorry for what I did, oh God. Please accept this offering as an expression of my remorse and my repentance. Forgive me and make me clean again.' With such an offering, people could feel relieved of guilt and restored to a right relationship with God; so this was a regular part of worship.”
“In the Father's presence, Christ's self-giving sacrifice is never forgotten. His wounds are a perpetual reminder of the price he was willing to pay to restore humanity to a right relationship with God. He magnanimous act–his suffering and death on behalf of humanity–served as an atoning sacrifice for all people; and the Father, by virtue of the Son's love and self-giving, bestows grace and mercy upon all who claim the Son as their high priest and Savior. God the Father offers forgiveness and grace to us not because of our own merit, but because his dearly loved Son suffered and died on behalf of the human race…
In Jesus' sacrificial offering to the Father, he gave himself to win our forgiveness and God's mercy. His nail-scarred hands are a perpetual reminder to the Father of Christ's sacrifice for us. His offering has won God's favor…Because the curtain (of the temple) was torn asunder when Christ died, the Gospel writers are pointing to the idea that in his death Jesus atoned for our sins as our high priest. He tore down the curtain that separated humanity from God. He offered us, by his death, reconciliation and atonement with God.” Praise be to God!
Photo By paukrus
Jesus, Barabbas, and Pilate
I am continuing my sharing with you what I am learning from the Lenten study 24 Hours That Changed The World by Adam Hamilton.
“the at-one-ment of God and humankind, our reconciliation with God through Jesus' death on the cross.”
“Every one of us has sinned, and in our sin we have been alienated from God. Justice calls for punishment for the collective weight of that sin; the Bible says that ‘the wages of sin is death' (Romans 6:23) and eternal separation from God. But God,…does not desire us to be eternally separated. God wishes us to receive grace. An ordinary person could not die for all humankind; but Jesus, being God in the flesh; could die for the sins of the whole world. He paid a price he did not owe, giving us a grace we did not deserve.”
“We are meant to look at the cross and see both God's grace and love and the costliness of grace and to find our hearts changed by what God has done for us. We are meant, as a result of understanding that cost, to serve God with humble gratitude, and to long, as we see Jesus suffer, never to sin again. And yet of course, we will sin again and call again upon the grace of God revealed on the cross. Like Barabbas, we walk away free because of the suffering of an innocent man.”
“As adults, we feel it in a variety of ways–in our desire for acceptance, in our fear of ridicule and rejection. Our inability to think for ourselves leaves us silent when we should speak, leaves us doing or supporting things we know are wrong.”
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The Torture and Humiliation of the King
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“I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who pulled out the beard.I did not hide my face from insult and spitting.”
“Matthew tells us they stripped him naked, leaving him exposed and vulnerable, a bloodied, weakened man surrounded by hundreds of Rome's finest, their swords, shields, and armor all testament to the Empire's strength and resolve. Their emperor was, after all, king of the world; they would show this prisoner what they thought of his claim.”
“Jesus' suffering, death, and resurrection constitute a divine drama meant to communicate God's Word to humanity, to make clear to us our need for redemption and forgiveness, to show us the full extent of God's love and lead us to repentance.”
“Simon (of Cyrene) was apparently so moved by the experience of suffering next to Jesus, of carrying his cross and then watching him be crucified, that he became the first believer transformed by the moral influence of the Atonement.“
Image courtesy of: jean louis mazieres
Photo By paukrus