PrayerBits for Sunday

PrayerBits

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

Sunday

Scripture lesson: Luke 4:21-30 Jesus makes his hometown mad

Time to Reflect: When Jesus reminded his audience that things hadn't improved much since the time of Elijah, that they weren't taking care of the widows and sick, it made them mad and they tried to kill him.

Moving through the day: We all have things we don't want to hear about... What are those things for you?

Scripture:

Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’ 22All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, ‘Is not this Joseph’s son?’ 23He said to them, ‘Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, “Doctor, cure yourself!” And you will say, “Do here also in your home town the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.” ’ 24And he said, ‘Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s home town. 25But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up for three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; 26yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. 27There were also many lepers* in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.’ 28When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. 29They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. 30But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.

PrayerBits for Saturday

PrayerBits

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

Saturday

Scripture lesson: 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 Love is...

Time to reflect: Portions of this are used in most weddings. However, this is not really the form of love being spoken of here. Again, this is part of a letter of instructions to a church. It is not written to individuals, or society at large. It is telling a church how to live together as a Christian community. The word translated into English “love” is an especially strong word meaning more like “sacrificial caring.” It is not a romantic concept at all.

Moving through the day: Say verses 4-8a slowly thinking about each quality in terms of your church community.

The Gift of Love

13If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast,* but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. 9For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; 10but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. 11When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. 12For now we see in a mirror, dimly,* but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

PrayerBits for Friday

PrayerBits

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

Friday

Scripture Lesson: Psalm 71:1-6 Trusting God

Time to reflect: Pretty straightforward expression of trust, but not typical of how we think during times of stress or trouble.

Moving Throughout the day: Pray this as a prayer in regard to some problem in your life.

Prayer for Lifelong Protection and Help

1In you, O Lord, I take refuge;
   let me never be put to shame.
2In your righteousness deliver me and rescue me;
   incline your ear to me and save me.
3Be to me a rock of refuge,
   a strong fortress,* to save me,
   for you are my rock and my fortress.

4Rescue me, O my God, from the hand of the wicked,
   from the grasp of the unjust and cruel.
5For you, O Lord, are my hope,
   my trust, O Lord, from my youth.
6Upon you I have leaned from my birth;
   it was you who took me from my mother’s womb.
My praise is continually of you.

PrayerBits for Thursday

PrayerBits

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

Thursday

Scripture lesson: Jeremiah 1:4-10 Excuses, excuses

Time to Reflect: There are several passages in the Bible when someone tried to give excuses why they couldn't serve God. Here one of the most important of the Old Testament prophets, was trying to get out of being a prophet. God didn't accept the excuses, but simply offered to help – which God did.

Moving Through the Day: What excuses do you give for not doing what you know God wants you to do.

Scripture:  

Jeremiah’s Call and Commission

4 Now the word of the Lord came to me saying,
5‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
and before you were born I consecrated you;
I appointed you a prophet to the nations.’
6Then I said, ‘Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.’ 7But the Lord said to me,
‘Do not say, “I am only a boy”;
for you shall go to all to whom I send you,
and you shall speak whatever I command you.
8Do not be afraid of them,
for I am with you to deliver you,

says the Lord.’
9Then the Lord put out his hand and touched my mouth; and the Lord said to me,
‘Now I have put my words in your mouth.
10See, today I appoint you over nations and over kingdoms,
to pluck up and to pull down,
to destroy and to overthrow,
to build and to plant.’

PrayerBits for Wednesday

PrayerBits

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

Wednesday: Matthew 11:7-15 Elijah

Scripture lesson: It would take more than a PrayerBit to unpack this passage. It is important not to read too much into the various parts. For instance, we do not need to develop (make up) elaborate stories about violent attacks against the Kingdom of Heaven. This simply means that there has been a lot of violence (by humans) against Godly people. As for Elijah, at the time of Jesus it was thought that Elijah (taken up to heaven while still alive) would return as a precursor for the Messiah. Equating John with Elijah was a sly way of saying that the Messiah has come. The seeming put down of John in vs 11 is just a continuation of Jesus' constant message of the “the first shall be last and the last shall be first” so this was actually a compliment for John.

Time to reflect: Pray and meditate on how you are doing on the humility front.

Jesus Praises John the Baptist

7 As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John: ‘What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the wind? 8What then did you go out to see? Someone* dressed in soft robes? Look, those who wear soft robes are in royal palaces. 9What then did you go out to see? A prophet?* Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. 10This is the one about whom it is written,
“See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
   who will prepare your way before you.”
11Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. 12From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence,* and the violent take it by force. 13For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John came; 14and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come. 15Let anyone with ears* listen!

PrayerBits for Tuesday

PrayerBits

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

Tuesday

Scripture lesson: Matthew 21:33-42 The Parable of the Evil Tenants

Time to reflect: This is a story, don't try to make it all make sense. Get the gist of the story and apply it to Jesus' time. These listeners were, in essence, condemning themselves. There ancestors had murdered the messengers (prophets) God had sent to them and they were about to have Jesus, the Son of God, killed. But we know the rest of the story, which Jesus' listeners did not – God did not react in a human fashion and destroy, as the answer given, but to save.

Moving through the day: Thank God for not reacting as we would.

The Parable of the Wicked Tenants

33 ‘Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watch-tower. Then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. 34When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce. 35But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another. 36Again he sent other slaves, more than the first; and they treated them in the same way. 37Finally he sent his son to them, saying, “They will respect my son.” 38But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, “This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.” 39So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. 40Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?’ 41They said to him, ‘He will put those wretches to a miserable death, and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.’

42 Jesus said to them, ‘Have you never read in the scriptures:
“The stone that the builders rejected
   has become the cornerstone;*
this was the Lord’s doing,
   and it is amazing in our eyes”?

PrayerBits for Monday

PrayerBits

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

Monday

Scripture lesson: Jeremiah 31:31-34 The New Covenant

Jeremiah didn't know the details, but he knew from God that God would “try again” making a new and more powerful type of Covenant. We believe that that new covenant was in the form of Jesus.

A Covenant is a two way binding agreement. Pray about your part of the bargain.

Jeremiah 31:31-34

A New Covenant

31 The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 32It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband,* says the Lord. 33But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord’, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.