August 6-Sunday-Ps. 17:1-7 is a prayer of desperate frustration. It assumes that goodness should be rewarded in this life. This is an implicit bargain many of us hold when faced with trouble. What are your prayers concerning adversaries?
Monday-Anna Mow-The big obstacle to God’s grace is bitterness. Some people complain because they are not blessed by God as others have been. They do not realize that in thinking of themselves, they open the door to bitterness and close it to God’s grace.
Tuesday-Donald McMinn-(1) While it’s okay to periodically get angry, don’t be an angry person—one who is predisposed to being upset and vexed. If you have a reputation of being an angry person, your anger is out of control. (2) Sometimes we need to “drop an issue” because it’s just not important enough to stall the day. Carol Tavris says, “For some of the large indignities of life, the best remedy is direct action. For the small indignities, the best remedy is a Charlie Chaplin movie. The hard part is knowing the difference.”
Wednesday- In our worship we strive to worship the God who is both with us in the most intimate way – but is also beyond us, dwelling in the beauty of holiness.-Br. Geoffrey Tristram
Thursday-The future of the person who turns to God is not determined by the past, and therefore neither is the future of humanity. God’s forgiveness creates the possibility of an entirely new future. The cross breaks the cycle of violence.Trocme
Friday-The word grace appears 113 times in the New Testament, portraying a broad landscape of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit. Apart from this "particular emphasis to the fact that through grace the church lives by grace," gratitude is bound to be narrow, often constricted to grudging duty.From A Pastor’s Life
Saturday-This "love affair with life" has its risks, of course. But the older I get, the more I understand that the biggest risk is to play it safe—hunkering down and hiding out, missing the chance to experience life's fullness as we move from mystery to mystery.To paraphrase Joseph Campbell, "People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's true. I think what we're seeking is an experience of being alive, of actually feeling the rapture of being alive. That's what it's all about." Ira Groff
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