Author: John Tillman

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Prayer of Intercession from Australia :: Worldwide Prayer

Scripture: Romans 16.1-4
I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church in Cenchreae. I ask you to receive her in the Lord in a way worthy of his people and to give her any help she may need from you, for she has been the benefactor of many people, including me.

Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my co-workers in Christ Jesus. They risked their lives for me. Not only I but all the churches of the Gentiles are grateful to them.

The response stirred by owning Christ’s heart and mind— as the prayer below requests—must look something like the actions of Phoebe, Priscilla, and Aquila—noted in part above. They were not only financial benefactors of the Gospel and those who spread it, but willingly risked their lives on its behalf. All Christians today still owe them a debt of gratitude.  —  John

Reflection: Prayer of Intercession from Australia :: Worldwide Prayer

Creator God, all compassionate Father,
Source of life whose heart is passionate towards all,
May we, your people, be cameos of your love and
compassion to a hurting and fragile world.

Daily we are confronted with the harsh reality of violence, greed,
abuse, unrest, and tragedy. Stir our response by owning your heart and mind.

May we be courageous in challenging injustice,
Ready to listen but hesitant to judge,
Willing to welcome the outcast,
Diligent in seeking and claiming truth.
Oh God of hope,
Your light never fails, is never extinguished.
Warm our hearts with the fire of Christ’s love so that wherever we go we will communicate Jesus Christ.

In His divine name we pray.

*Prayer from Hallowed be Your Name: A collection of prayers from around the world, Dr. Tony Cupit, Editor.

The Request for Presence
Satisfy us by your loving-kindness in the morning; so shall we rejoice and be glad all the days of our life. — Psalm 90.14

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle.

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
Job 12 (Listen – 2:21)
Romans 16 (Listen – 3:30)

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Struggling with the Word

Scripture: Romans 15.14
I myself am convinced, my brothers and sisters, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with knowledge and competent to instruct one another.

Reflection: Struggling with the Word
By John Tillman

Jeannette Clift George, in her book, Troubling Deaf Heaven, relates her early struggles with God’s word.

Someone told me to read the Bible until I understood something from the reading. After an hour of intense reading I threw my copy of the Bible across the room and cried aloud to God, “Yes, I have learned something! I have learned that I don’t understand your Book! Now can I stop reading it?” And then, still muttering over the details of my problem, I went over and picked up my Bible, with it’s tossed pages all askew, and read again. My early Bibles show the wear and tear of my struggle.

Truly enough Kierkegaard asserts that the Bible is easy to understand and we merely feign misunderstanding to shirk its demands on us. However, many of us, especially in the early steps of discipleship and study, do struggle with it.

This is in part because we often approach the Bible as consumers, treating it as a store full of solutions to our problems. When we do this, we easily are overwhelmed by its shelves, confused by its organization, and frustrated by seemingly inexplicable products. But the Word of God is not a catalog of helpful quotes, and our approach to it must be more than scholarly or no amount of gleaned facts will feed our faith.

We can only hope to gain meaning from God’s Word by listening for his voice—personally calling to us. George continues:

Then, one day, one reading, all of a sudden I saw me in the Scripture. My need—my question for the day, my tears for the evening, my fears for the morning, me—in God’s Holy Word. That made all the difference in the world.

That’s why I keep praying even when God’s silence infers the communication is out of order. I found me in his Word because he put me there. God put me in his Word that I might hear him in the silence, that I might hear him in the midst of arguments with him, that I might know that he knows me and loves me because he said so.

In our rhythms of prayer and reading, we do not pursue mastery of content as much as we pursue a relationship with the Master of the content—a relationship with the Holy Spirit that goes beyond bringing the text to life and joins us in walking through our life.

The Request for Presence
I long for your salvation, O Lord, and your law is my delight. — Psalm 119.174

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle.

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
Job 11 (Listen – 2:01)
Romans 15 (Listen – 4:32)

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Prayer of Thanksgiving and Intercession — from Scotland :: Worldwide Prayer

Scripture: Matthew 6.8
For your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

Reflection: Prayer of Thanksgiving and Intercession — from Scotland :: Worldwide Prayer

Father God
You are the Almighty Creator of this Universe.

You are full of mercy and love. Even though I may appear to be insignificant to many I will meet today, help me to remember that I am not insignificant to you.

You are a holy and righteous God. Thank you for making in possible for a sinner such as I to be saved and become one of the children whom you love.

Lord Jesus
Thank you for loving me so much that you died for me on the cross. May your precious blood shed on the cross keep on cleansing me from all my sin. May your tender presence strengthen, guard and keep me this day.

Holy Spirit
Thank you for the gifts you have given to me so that I can serve God and others. Help me to faithfully use them today so that you may be glorified. Make me more like Jesus do that my life will bring forth fruit that will please Him today.

*Prayer from Hallowed be Your Name: A collection of prayers from around the world, Dr. Tony Cupit, Editor.

The Morning Psalm
The Lord is near to those who call upon him, to all who call upon him faithfully. He fulfills the desire of those who fear him; he hears their cry and helps them. The Lord preserves all those who love him, but he destroys all the wicked. — Psalm 145.19-21

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime by Phyllis Tickle.

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
Job 8 (Listen – 2:09)
Romans 12 (Listen – 2:58)

This Weekend’s Readings
Job 9 (Listen – 3:22) Romans 13 (Listen – 2:35)
Job 10 (Listen – 2:12) Romans 14 (Listen – 3:28)

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A Cry to God for the Poor from Zimbabwe :: Worldwide Prayer

Scripture: Micah 6:8
He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

Reflection: A Cry to God for the Poor from Zimbabwe :: Worldwide Prayer

You spoke to the children of Israel saying there should not be poor among them. You instituted the Years of Jubilee and Sabbath. You taught your people to give tithes and offerings in order to maintain some economic equilibrium.

In the life of the early Christian Church we read that “neither was there any among them that lacked.”

And yet, dear Lord, today one of every four persons in the world lives in abject poverty*. It grieves us and must grieve you that so many defenseless people live without shelter, clean water, primary healthcare, education, food.

We are overwhelmed by the breadth and depth of the wasteful exploitation of your creation. Help us, Lord Jesus, to care and share with the less privileged the material resources you have graciously blessed us with. Like the apostles John and Peter, strengthen us to stretch out our hands to help the less privileged to stand on their feet.

With Paul we say that Christ in us is the hope of glory.

Help us make a difference.

*It is hard to know what statistics the author of this African prayer was using at the time this was originally published, and hard, indeed, for many to agree on what constitutes “poverty” in today’s world. However, if we accept that living on less than $2.50 a day is poverty, then this number is closer to forty percent of the population today, than the twenty-five percent mentioned in the prayer. For a detailed look at poverty statistics, this site is a good resource. — John

*Prayer from Hallowed be Your Name: A collection of prayers from around the world, Dr. Tony Cupit, Editor.

The Call to Prayer
Come now and see the works of God, how wonderful he is in his doing toward all people. — Psalm 66.4

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
Job 1 (Listen – 3:38)
Romans 5 (Listen – 3:53)

This Weekend’s Readings
Job 2 (Listen – 2:11) Romans 6 (Listen – 3:28)
Job 3 (Listen – 2:32) Romans 7 (Listen – 4:09)

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Cringing at Culture or at Christ?

Scripture: Esther 8.3
Esther again pleaded with the king, falling at his feet and weeping. She begged him to put an end to the evil plan of Haman the Agagite, which he had devised against the Jews.

Reflection: Cringing at Culture or at Christ?
By John Tillman

You’d be hard pressed to find a Christian or Jew who would express dislike for Esther. However, depending on your political/philosophical bent there are aspects of her story that make one cringe.

Some cringe when Esther is supplicative and submissive—submitting to being one of a harem of wives, throwing herself into servile hospitality and beauty as strategy, and finally, pleading and begging, apologetically before the king, her husband. We want her, instead, to be a modern, powerful, assertive woman.

Some cringe when Esther is powerful and assertive—she is unashamed of her sexuality and uses the power of beauty and seduction, she writes law for a nation, she orders the death of her enemies, she tells the king what to do. We want her, instead, to be a demure princess so we can dress up our daughters like her.

Esther’s culture specifically and biblical culture in general is so foreign to us that we often fail to understand it. Even with years of study and knowledge of cultural facts, we can’t fully understand what living in that culture was like. When we don’t understand biblical culture, we tend to assume the lesson God has for us is that our culture is better. This is always the wrong lesson. Always.

But it is more than just Esther’s brokenness, or that of her culture, that makes us uncomfortable. It is the image of God in her. Esther, like any of us, does not carry the image of God perfectly. But the image of God does make us uncomfortable—even in Christ, the one perfect image of God.

We, like Peter, are uncomfortable with the kneeling, submissive Christ who serves us. We also, like the Pharisees, are uncomfortable with the powerful Christ of Heaven, as described by Stephen before his martyrdom.

Yet Christ is both. And we must accept him completely. And Esther is both. And she deserves to be seen fully. And as we attempt to manifest Christ in our world and to our culture, we must allow the Holy Spirit to bring out in us the fullest picture of who God is.

It is healthy for us to remember that what we admire in biblical heroes and heroines came to them from God. We need not emulate the heroes so much as we need to allow the Holy Spirit to work in us, drawing out of us the shining vestiges of God’s image that are needed.

The Request for Presence
Let my cry come before you, O Lord; give me understanding, according to your word. — Psalm 119.169

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Autumn and Wintertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Full prayer available online and in print.

Today’s Readings
Esther 8 (Listen – 3:41)
Romans 3 (Listen – 4:30)