Deus Misereatur

Here is the Collect for this coming Sunday from the 1928 Book of Common Prayer: The Collect. O GOD , our refuge and strength, who art the author of all godliness; Be ready, we beseech thee, to hear the devout prayers of thy Church; and grant that those things which we ask faithfully we may obtain effectually; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. I love the compact power of this Collect: (1) God is our refuge and strength where we can run in times of trouble and find his protection (A quotation from Psalm 46.1).  (2) "The author of all godliness" describes our God as the scriptwriter and originator of what piety looks like, and the source from which godliness flows ("…work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure." Philippians 2.12b-13). (3) “Be ready … to hear the devout prayers of your Church.” The obvious sentiment is that God stands ready to hear us, as the Westmin...

You’ll need to have a Bible and start in Luke 15.1 and follow on into chapter 16 (or open this link up in a separate window ). Sons of this World Luke 16.1-8 The Back Story We must start clear back in Luke 15.1-3. There we quickly see the situation and the purpose of this section; “ tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear ” Jesus (1). This irked the religious elitists, the Pharisees and scribes, who whined that “ This man receives sinners and eats with them ” (2). That whine is a beautiful statement in itself, though it was meant to be demeaning and dismissive. Because of that statement Jesus tells three stories “to them” (3), to the Pharisees and scribes. The first is the story of the lost sheep, where the shepherd leaves behind the 99 and searches out the one who is lost. When he finds it, there is great joy and rejoicing, a celebration. “ Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over nine...

Horatius Bonar was a Free Church of Scotland minister, poet and hymn writer during the middle of the 19th Century. This is from his sermon, " The Chill of Love " "Let us notice some of the things which decrease when sin increases. 1. As iniquity increases, faith decreases. Unbelief overflows like a deluge. One sin lets loose another. Faith withers down; dies out, like a flower in a desert. 2. As iniquity increases, truth decreases. For error is sin, and sin is error; so that truth and sin cannot co-exist. Sin expels truth, both from the heart and from the world; from the individual saint, and from the church at large. Darkness dispossesses light. 3. As iniquity increases, righteousness and holiness decrease. A man cannot be both holy and unholy; the encroachments of sin can leave no room for holiness at all. Inch by inch, iniquity creeps in and creeps along. 4. As iniquity increases, religion decreases. Sin drives religion out of the heart, out of the church, ou...

In my morning prayers today I was struck (again!) by this episode in Luke 13.10-17: 10  Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath.  11  And behold, there was a woman who had had a disabling spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not fully straighten herself.  12  When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said to her, “Woman, you are freed from your disability.”  13  And he laid his hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and she glorified God.  14  But the ruler of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, said to the people, “There are six days in which work ought to be done. Come on those days and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day.”  15  Then the Lord answered him, “You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger and lead it away to water it?  16  ...

{This is something of the chapel devotion I gave today at a homeschool co-op to kids from 9 to 17} ---- The Right Kind of Boasting But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12.9-10) What does it mean to boast? ... Right. To brag about our accomplishments, to say things that sound like, “I’m better than you at this or that...I’m cool, I scored most of the points at the game…I got the better grade than...I am more successful than…” So, is boasting ever really good? And it’s especially not good if it’s meant to elevate ourselves and put someone else down. Notice that here in 2 Corinthians Paul does a lot of boasting, and here’s why. There we...

{I hope you find these useful for your own times of prayer. Again, feel free to use them in your Bible study, Church or personal times - Mike} ----- Prayer Preparation:  “ What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear! What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer! O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear, all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer .” Adoration and Intercession: O our God and Father, you are trustworthy and dependable. Our coming to you is our coming to our greatest good and unstoppable joy! Oh but how oft we have had our heads turned aside by what we thought was more attractive, only to find that in the end, those other pleasures and indulgences left us dry, desiccated and parched. And yet, coming to ourselves and confessing our folly, we find you having compassion on us, running to us and embracing us (Luke 15.11-24). O our God and Father, trustworthy and dependable, you are our greatest good and un...

This was what I presented today (24 September 2014) at the Capitol Bible Study. -----  “Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.”  Adults and Teenagers do this. When our supervisor calls us on the carpet for muffing a project, or failing to meet some major dead-line, we respond, “Yes boss; I know.” When parents start telling teenagers how to do this chore properly or that task more efficiently, they almost always reply: “I know.” It’s funny, we “know” – but the mistake or misstep shows that at another level we did...