Bible A to Z
Bible A to Z
For our last meeting of the Ichthus Housegroup we wanted something different. During her 'Walk Thru' the Bible' readings Deirdre had come across the fact that several psalms were written as acrostics - each verse starts with a different letter of the Hebrew alphabet. That started a train of thought and we invited members to come with verses starting with different letters and share them together.
To avoid a free for all we allocated three letters to each member and, having sympathy for those allocated K, X or Z, we asked them to bring two verses out of the three letters. (Q was also quite difficult.)
Of course we wanted more than a word game and we tried to find verses that told us something of the character of our great God or verses that we would like to turn into prayers.
A came from a Psalm 103:12, but the thought starts with verse 11. "For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us." This reminds us that when God forgives us he doesn't do it by halves.
B came from Ephesians 5:1 ">Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God." This we made a prayer that our lives might be lived in the WWJD (What would Jesus do?) way.
C gave us Isaiah 34:1 "Come near, you nations, and listen; pay attention, you peoples! Let the earth hear, and all that is in it, the world, and all that comes out of it!" Our prayer here could be that in our wayward world all the nations would turn to the true God and that there would be those prepared and able to bring the gospel to them.
We have more to share another month. In the meantime, as you read your Bibles each day you may like to pick out a few verses on the same themes.
Charles Cooke
Bible A to Z
A few weeks ago Mike, in a sermon, encouraged us to 'pray without ceasing' or as the NIV translates it 'Pray continually'. We can and should do that — though to try to pray continuously would be rather difficult!
In the Bible A to Z we continue with a selection of verses that we can turn into prayers.
D Proverbs 4:6 "Do not forsake wisdom, and she will protect you; love her, and she will watch over you." We could pray that we will seek God's wisdom as we study of His word and don't forget to thank Him for the help it gives us when in difficulties.
E Psalm 9:6 warns us "Endless ruin has overtaken the enemy, you have uprooted their cities; even the memory of them has perished." Pray that you may remain or become close to God, being rooted in Him and protected in times of trouble.
F Then we will be able to rejoice and praise God as in Romans 8:38 "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord". So our prayer can be filled with praise.
G We can pray that we will not neglect to let others know how much Jesus means to us as encouraged in Psalrn 105:1 "Give thanks to the LORD, call on his name; make known among the nations what he has done."
H We can praise God that whatever global or cosmic events occur "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away." (Luke 21:33) and pray that His words may be engraved in our minds and become the source of our direction.
I hope that you are starting to find the Bible a source of inspiration for your prayer.
Charles Cooke