PrayerBits for Sunday

PrayerBits

A bite sized devotional program
produced by the West Side Presbyterian Church

Sunday

Scripture lesson: John 15:1-8 The true vine

Time to reflect: This agricultural imagery is very powerful and meaningful. As with any good metaphor, there are no one-to-one relationships. Sometimes we're the discarded branch, sometimes the branch being pruned, sometimes the fruitful branch.

Moving through the day: Where are you today? What part of this metaphor applies most to you today? Pray about this.

Scripture:

The Vine and the Branches

 "I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

 "I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

PrayerBits for Saturday

PrayerBits

A bite sized devotional program
produced by the West Side Presbyterian Church

Saturday

Scripture lesson: 1 John 4:7-21 God is love

Time to reflect: This is no abstract feeling, but should affect our daily lives. Because of God's love we should love our “brothers and sisters” – that is other humans.

Moving through the day: Are you showing God's love in your relationships with others? Pray about a situation that is tough for you.

Scripture:

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

 We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
      God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

 We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.

PrayerBits for Friday

PrayerBits

A bite sized devotional program
produced by the West Side Presbyterian Church

Friday

Scripture Lesson: Psalm 22:25-31 The faithful, past, present and future will praise God

Time to reflect: What graphic and wonderful imagery! Are we doing our part in praising God? In helping future generations do so?

Moving Throughout the day: Pray a prayer of praise to God.

 Scripture:

From you comes the theme of my praise in the great assembly;
       before those who fear you will I fulfill my vows.

  The poor will eat and be satisfied;
       they who seek the LORD will praise him—
       may your hearts live forever!

 All the ends of the earth
       will remember and turn to the LORD,
       and all the families of the nations
       will bow down before him,

  for dominion belongs to the LORD
       and he rules over the nations.

  All the rich of the earth will feast and worship;
       all who go down to the dust will kneel before him—
       those who cannot keep themselves alive.

  Posterity will serve him;
       future generations will be told about the Lord.

 They will proclaim his righteousness
       to a people yet unborn—
       for he has done it.

PrayerBits for Thursday

PrayerBits

A bite sized devotional program
produced by the West Side Presbyterian Church

Thursday

Scripture lesson Acts 8:26-40 The Ethiopian Eunuch

Time to reflect: The point of his being a eunuch is simply that that was a necessary precondition to his being important official to a Queen. This was a very important person. Phillip took advantage of his interest in Isaiah to preach the Gospel.

Moving through the day: Be alert all day for situations you find yourself in that might be an opportunity to serve God, perhaps in a surprising or unexpected way.

Scripture:

Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, "Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza." 27So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian[a]eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians. This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, 28and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the book of Isaiah the prophet. 29The Spirit told Philip, "Go to that chariot and stay near it."

 30Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. "Do you understand what you are reading?" Philip asked.

 31"How can I," he said, "unless someone explains it to me?" So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.

 32The eunuch was reading this passage of Scripture:
   "He was led like a sheep to the slaughter,
      and as a lamb before the shearer is silent,
      so he did not open his mouth.
 33In his humiliation he was deprived of justice.
      Who can speak of his descendants?
      For his life was taken from the earth."[b]

 34The eunuch asked Philip, "Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?" 35Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.

 36As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, "Look, here is water. Why shouldn't I be baptized?"[c] 38And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him. 39When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing. 40Philip, however, appeared at Azotus and traveled about, preaching the gospel in all the towns until he reached Caesarea.

PrayerBits for Thursday

PrayerBits

A bite sized devotional program
produced by the West Side Presbyterian Church

Thursday

Scripture lesson Acts 8:26-40 The Ethiopian Eunuch

Time to reflect: The point of his being a eunuch is simply that that was a necessary precondition to his being important official to a Queen. This was a very important person. Phillip took advantage of his interest in Isaiah to preach the Gospel.

Moving through the day: Be alert all day for situations you find yourself in that might be an opportunity to serve God, perhaps in a surprising or unexpected way.

Scripture:

Acts 3

Peter Heals the Crippled Beggar

The next day the rulers, elders and teachers of the law met in Jerusalem. Annas the high priest was there, and so were Caiaphas, John, Alexander and the other men of the high priest's family. They had Peter and John brought before them and began to question them: "By what power or what name did you do this?"

 Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them: "Rulers and elders of the people! If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a cripple and are asked how he was healed, then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. He is 'the stone you builders rejected,
      which has become the capstone.Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved."

PrayerBits for Wednesday

PrayerBits

A bite sized devotional program
produced by the West Side Presbyterian Church

Wednesday

Scripture lesson: Colossians 2:6-10 Taken captive

Time to reflect: This is a good warning to all intelligent and educated people. There is always some intellectual fad that seems so right and so persuasive and that all our peers have bought into so we get drawn in – captured – by it. But these are always fleeting, but the Word of God stands forever.

Moving through the day: What ideas, philosophies, fads in our culture seem to be leading away from the simple message of the Gospel? Pray for clarity of thought to see what is good about these trends and what is leading away from God.

 Scripture:

So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.

 See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.

 For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority.

PrayerBits for Tuesday

PrayerBits

A bite sized devotional program
produced by the West Side Presbyterian Church

Tuesday

Scripture lesson: Roman 11:13-18 Gentiles become Jews not vice versa

Time to reflect: Although it is a convoluted argument, trying to gently convince resistant people to think differently, Paul carefully ties Gentiles and Jews, the Old Covenant and the New. Rather than rejecting his people, even those who reject Jesus, he shows how Gentiles are “grafted” like a branch onto the “tree” of Judaism. But he also goes on to show that the grafted branch is not required to adhere to the Jewish culture and practices.

Moving through the day: There is always a tendency to ignore the Old Testament as not applying to us. Paul says otherwise. What do you need to do to reclaim and make use of the Old Testament?

'I am talking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch as I am the apostle to the Gentiles, I make much of my ministry in the hope that I may somehow arouse my own people to envy and save some of them. For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? If the part of the dough offered as firstfruits is holy, then the whole batch is holy; if the root is holy, so are the branches.

 If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root, do not boast over those branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you.

PrayerBits for Tuesday

PrayerBits

A bite sized devotional program
produced by the West Side Presbyterian Church

Tuesday

Scripture lesson: Roman 11:13-18 Gentiles become Jews not vice versa

Time to reflect: Although it is a convoluted argument, trying to gently convince resistant people to think differently, Paul carefully ties Gentiles and Jews, the Old Covenant and the New. Rather than rejecting his people, even those who reject Jesus, he shows how Gentiles are “grafted” like a branch onto the “tree” of Judaism. But he also goes on to show that the grafted branch is not required to adhere to the Jewish culture and practices.

Moving through the day: There is always a tendency to ignore the Old Testament as not applying to us. Paul says otherwise. What do you need to do to reclaim and make use of the Old Testament?

'Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says: Because it towered on high, lifting its top above the thick foliage, and because it was proud of its height, I handed it over to the ruler of the nations, for him to deal with according to its wickedness. I cast it aside, and the most ruthless of foreign nations cut it down and left it. Its boughs fell on the mountains and in all the valleys; its branches lay broken in all the ravines of the land. All the nations of the earth came out from under its shade and left it. All the birds of the air settled on the fallen tree, and all the beasts of the field were among its branches. Therefore no other trees by the waters are ever to tower proudly on high, lifting their tops above the thick foliage. No other trees so well-watered are ever to reach such a height; they are all destined for death, for the earth below, among mortal men, with those who go down to the pit.

PrayerBits for Monday

PrayerBits

A bite sized devotional program
produced by the West Side Presbyterian Church

Monday

Scripture lesson: Psalm 37:23-27 Oh yeah?

Time to reflect: I am old and I HAVE seen the righteous forsaken and their children begging bread (verse 25). Many people do a lot of fast talking to try to cover for this passage. The worst is saying that such people are really not righteous, but are secret scoundrels and getting what they deserve. Which is very harmful, judgmental and bad theology. My way of dealing with this passage is to recognize that the Psalms are prayers TO God by individuals. The writer of this Psalm may actually have been able to truthfully say these words, but this doesn't mean that these words work in every life and situation.

Moving Through The Day: Pray for some suffering people you are aware of – regardless of whether they seem to be righteous or not.

If the LORD delights in a man's way,
       he makes his steps firm;

  though he stumble, he will not fall,
       for the LORD upholds him with his hand.

  I was young and now I am old,
       yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken
       or their children begging bread.

  They are always generous and lend freely;
       their children will be blessed.

  Turn from evil and do good;
       then you will dwell in the land forever.