Today's readings are 1 Kings 8.22-30 ( http://www.gnpcb.org/esv/search/?q=1+Kings+8.22-30 ), 1 Kings 8.46-63 ( http://www.gnpcb.org/esv/search/?q=1+Kings+8.46-63 ), 2 Corinthians 4.1-18 ( http://www.gnpcb.org/esv/search/?q=2+Cor.+4.1-18 ), and Psalm 30 ( http://www.gnpcb.org/esv/search/?q=Psalm+30 ).
Did you ever stop to observe how much of Scripture is taken up with prayer? Did you ever compare that to how much of our life and our exposition is taken up with prayer? I'm struck in today's readings by the prayerfulness of Solomon in response to God's work in Israel.
Time to quit talking about prayer and to start doing prayer. Just in case one of my readers (and I think I'm probably normally the only one) doesn't have an example of taking the Scripture and praying it, I'll practice it "out loud" here, using part of the 2 Corinthians passage. The quotation is from the ESV and is italicized. My prayer is interspersed in normal type.
1 Cor. 8.7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.
Our God and Father, thank you for granting us the treasure of your salvation. Your precious gift, your treasure, has come to dwell in my humble bodies, your kingdom has come to work in my household, my neighborhood, my school and work. Your word speaks through my inarticulate mumblings, your order has overcome the chaos of my mind. Your eternity has taken my temporality captive, your death has given me life. In every place I look I see your power. And I do not lay claim on it, yet you have designed to live in me in power.
8 We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; 10 always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.
Thank you for your perfect life, your death in my place, your suffering for my sin, and your real bodily resurrection which brings life. It doesn't matter what has happened in my life today. I am not undone because my Lord and Savior is not undone. It is all right that I don't understand my circumstances. You understand them and you care. No matter what others do to me, even though I probably deserve all of it and more, you have given your precious promise that I am not forsaken. You will be with me forever, to the end of the earth. And as you rose from the dead incorruptible so you have promised that I will rise incorruptible. At the cost of your life, at the cost of bearing the wrath of your Father, you have given me life. And that life is here, right now, in this same body that I use daily to sin against you in word and deed. Lord, thank you for your forgiveness and the life you give.
11 For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. 12 So death is at work in us, but life in you.
Lord, I pray that through your servant you may be glorified. I pray that you will use me to reveal the life and salvation that you have given to others as well. Even as your life is made apparent through my life or through my death, I pray it will be made apparent to those around me. May I be used as a living testimony of your redeeming work.
The Lord be with you.
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