PrayerBits for Monday

PrayerBits

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

Monday

Scripture lesson: Matthew 10:39-42 One's focus

Time to reflect: True life is an other directed life. If one's focus is on oneself, is not a Godly life. Even the seemingly religious, if their attention is on their own salvation and their own spirituality are missing the mark.

Moving Through the Day:

What “cup of cold water” can you give to whom today?

Scripture:

39Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

 40"He who receives you receives me, and he who receives me receives the one who sent me. 41Anyone who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet's reward, and anyone who receives a righteous man because he is a righteous man will receive a righteous man's reward. 42And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward."

PrayerBits for Sunday

PrayerBits

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

Sunday: Luke 12:49-56 Divisions

Time to Reflect: Unfortunately verse 53 has been mistranslated over the centuries and modern translations have perpetuated the error. The phrase “divided... against” translates a word that means “separate” or “select.” Only in this passage is it translated as oppositional. The true meaning of the verse, still not a happy verse, is “a father will be selected and not a son, a son and not a father,...” No Romanticism or Universal Salvation here. There is selection.

Moving through the day: Pray for the Salvation of all your family and friends.

Scripture:

Not Peace but Division

 49"I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! 50But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is completed! 51Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. 52From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. 53They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law."

Interpreting the Times

 54He said to the crowd: "When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, 'It's going to rain,' and it does. 55And when the south wind blows, you say, 'It's going to be hot,' and it is. 56Hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky. How is it that you don't know how to interpret this present time?

 

PrayerBits for Tuesday

PrayerBits

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

Tuesday

Scripture lesson: Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14 Vanity of vanities

Time to reflect: The Hebrew word underlying “vanity” is a wisp of smoke, totally unsubstantial. Ecclesiastes is full of harsh, discouraging words about life. Many discouraged people actually find it comforting because they can relate to these words: “Yeah, I know what you mean.” Ecclesiastes, however, needs to be coupled with the Good News of Jesus Christ. It is not wisdom or anything else “under the sun” that saves us or makes like worthwhile, but rather the salvation afforded by Christ. This salvation, then, makes life worth living and our toils of value.

Moving through the day: Meditate on the difference of living a life that ends in the grave and a life that is leading toward the general resurrection.

Scripture:

 2 "Meaningless! Meaningless!"
       says the Teacher.
       "Utterly meaningless!
       Everything is meaningless."

 12 I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. 13 I devoted myself to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under heaven. What a heavy burden God has laid on men! 14 I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

PrayerBits for Monday

PrayerBits

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

Monday

Scripture lesson: Matthew 6:24-33 The lilies of the field

Time to reflect: There is a difference between “worrying about” our lives and working to provide the necessities. Getting worked up about whether we can make ends meet does not help the situation and, inadvertently, displays the kind of lack of trust spoken of in this saying of Jesus. His point is that we can trust God that our efforts will be successful in gaining the necessities of life.

Moving Through the Day: Pray that you can have the faithful calm needed to go forward without debilitating worry.

Scripture:

 24"No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.

Do Not Worry

 25"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life[a]?

 28"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

PrayerBits for Sunday

PrayerBits

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

Sunday: Luke 12:13-21 What kind of inheritance do you want?

Time to Reflect: The Revlon heirs are once again fighting over the money. How timely is this passage! Death is the future of all of us. The Resurrection and life eternal will not benefit from any accumulated money.

Moving through the day: Meditate on your priorities: How much of your time and energy is spent on things that will effectively perish with you? What kind of inheritance will you be leaving your family? Something perishable or something eternal?

Scripture:

 13Someone in the crowd said to him, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me."

 14Jesus replied, "Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?" 15Then he said to them, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions."

 16And he told them this parable: "The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. 17He thought to himself, 'What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.'

 18"Then he said, 'This is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19And I'll say to myself, "You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry." '

 20"But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?'

 21"This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God."

 

PrayerBits for Saturday

PrayerBits

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

Saturday

Scripture lesson: Colossians 3:1-11 Things to get out of your life

Time to reflect: I tend to prefer positive approaches to life and to strive for better things rather than avoid bad behaviors and attitudes. However, this unbalanced approach can leave some harmful things active in our life. So maybe the lists in 5 & 8 and the supporting arguments around them are worth considering.

Moving through the day: What of these items are active in your life? Pray about removing or at least minimizing them.

Scripture:

 1Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. 2Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. 3For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. 4When Christ, who is your[a] life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

 5Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. 6Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.[b] 7You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. 8But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. 9Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices 10and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. 11Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.

 

PrayerBits for Friday

PrayerBits

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

Friday

Scripture Lesson: Psalm 107:1-9,43 A Psalm of thanksgiving and praise

Time to reflect: Great imagery

Moving through the day: What are the “desert wastes” you have wandered in and been saved from? Are you in a desert waste now? Are you appealing to God?

Scripture:

 1 Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good;
       his love endures forever.

 2 Let the redeemed of the LORD say this—
       those he redeemed from the hand of the foe,

 3 those he gathered from the lands,
       from east and west, from north and south. [a]

 4 Some wandered in desert wastelands,
       finding no way to a city where they could settle.

 5 They were hungry and thirsty,
       and their lives ebbed away.

 6 Then they cried out to the LORD in their trouble,
       and he delivered them from their distress.

 7 He led them by a straight way
       to a city where they could settle.

 8 Let them give thanks to the LORD for his unfailing love
       and his wonderful deeds for men,

 9 for he satisfies the thirsty
       and fills the hungry with good things.