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A Call to Worship

“A Call to Worship”

At the culmination of this year, we pause to offer our gifts of thanksgiving, and we come before the Lord with our worship and gratitude for the journey. The events of the year alone are enough to pause and praise, but in case we forget due to our busy schedules and awesome plans for our enjoyment and fulfillment, we have in the Word of God many “calls to worship.”

Psalm 100 is one such “call to worship.” The people of God’s grace and love are called upon to express sincere thanks for the wonderful blessings bestowed upon their lives by such a gracious Creator. This kind of worship is to be intentional and filled with joy. Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth, worship the Lord with gladness; come before him wit joyful songs. We find when we are filled with the joy of the Lord and with songs of praise, we have little or no time to complain or despair.

We approach our time of worship and praise knowing who we are and whose we are. We have not made our own way, but the Lord has made a way for us. Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture. And so, we come before our God, we enter the space spiritually, and sometimes physically, in order to show our overwhelming thanks for the good things the Lord has done for us. Enter his gates with thanksgivings and his courts wit praise; give thanks to him and praise his name.

Why do we respond to the “call to worship”? For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.

Gracious God, your heart is filled with goodness and your hand provides my every need, I praise you and I thank you. Amen.

Dumas Alexander Harshaw, Jr.

Compassion for Others

The Lord is gracious and compassionate,
slow to anger and rich in love.

Psalm 145:8

Compassion develops and grows when a person is confronted by the deep needs and distress of people who are unable to help themselves. Helplessness appeals to compassion.

Compassion is silent but does not remain secluded. It reaches out at the sight of trouble, sin and need.

First of all, compassion flows out in earnest prayer for those in need and has sympathy for them. Prayer for others is born of a sympathetic heart.

Prayer is natural and almost spontaneous when compassion grows in the heart. Prayer belongs to the compassionate believer.

Dear God, please grant me a compassionate and sympathetic heart for people. I want my prayers for others to flow from a heart overflowing with compassion. Amen.

E.M. Bounds

Strength to Love

“Let us be practical and ask the question, How do we love our enemies?

First, we must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. It is impossible even to begin the act of loving one’s enemies without the prior acceptance of the necessity, over and over again, of forgiving those who inflict evil and injury upon us. It is also necessary to realize that the forging act must always be initiated by the person who has been wronged, the victim of some great hurt, the recipient of some tortuous injustice, the absorber of some terrible act of oppression. The wrongdoer may request forgiveness. He may come to himself, and, like the prodigal son, move up some dusty road, his heart palpitating with the desire for forgiveness. But only the injured neighbor, the loving father back home, can really pour out the warm waters of forgiveness.

Forgiveness does not mean ignoring what has been done or putting a false label on an evil act. It means, rather, that the evil act no longer remains as a barrier to the relationship.”

-Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Heschel’s Wonder-6/06/2022

An Ontological Necessity

A word has a soul, and we much learn how to attain insight into its life … however we have lost our sense for the earnestness of speech, for the dignity of utterance. Spiritual life demands the sanctification of speech. Without an attitude of piety toward words, we will remain at a loss how to pray.

Quest for God: Studies in Prayer and Symbolism

When Knowledge Comes

This process of moving from innocence to knowledge is never finished. Always there is the realm of innocence, always there is the realm of knowledge. Always there is some area of innocence untouched by knowledge. The more profound the growth of knowledge, the more aware the individual becomes of the dimensions of innocence. Pride in knowledge is always tempered by the dominion of innocence. Often we do not become aware of innocence until we experience knowledge.

The Inward Journey

Cheryl A. Kirk-Duggan -7/17/22

Spirituality: EGO (a.k.a. Engaging God Often)

Not only is prayer like a banquet, but in different ways, it is also like partaking of breakfast, lunch, dinner, and any healthy snacks in between. Our morning prayers are like breaking a fast, the time from our evening talks with God through slumber to the next morning. We break the silence and start our day by saying, “Good morning, God, here we are! Thank you for another day of living!” Prayer is like lunch: a time during midday to take a break to nourish ourselves and offer praise. Prayer is like dinner, a time to gather with others and express gratitude for the day. The whole day becomes a time for thanksgiving and intermittent prayer for ourselves, our communities, and for all beings in the world, that we may work, live, and exist together in better harmony: each one blessed, each one less stressed, each one loved.

The Undivided Soul

A Fresh Start

“A Fresh Start”

Ezekiel 37:22-32

The prophet Ezekiel announced God’s judgment upon the nation of Israel in the sixth century as they lived in the clutches of captivity and exile. The pronouncements were written in approximately 571 B.C. and were directed to the Jews who lived in Babylonia. He was a younger contemporary of Jeremiah who delivered prophetic messages to the people of the covenant in Judah, while Ezekiel prophesied to those already exiled in captivity.

The prophecy begins with messages of doom and the promise of correction for God’s people in their sinful condition and rebellious ways (1:1-24:27) and continues with messages of moral judgment against nations that doubted the intention or ability of a divine intervention to save and redeem the people of the covenant. But they themselves would later learn of God’s ability to save by facing their own predicaments and learning how crucial it is to get help from the Lord (25:1-32:32).

After the fall of Jerusalem, Ezekiel prophesied a message of restoration and hope for the future (33:1-48:35). Through God’s holy standards and character, the people of faith can now experience a fresh start on their spiritual journey. The past was covered by the forgiving love of God, so they now stood with wonderful possibilities for personal, national, and relational deliverance. A significant aspect of the return to the priorities of covenant life was the restoration of worship at the center of their national life and their personal faith walk. But the fulfillment of these prophecies will be ushered in through the rule of the Messiah who will offer perfect fellowship with God and one another. When we focus our attention on Jesus Christ, the Messiah, and commit ourselves to worship in spirit and truth we will experience a fresh start.

Pastor Dumas A. Harshaw, Jr.

For Week of July 17, 2022

PRAYER GUIDE

Use this prayer as a starter to express your own descriptions or attributes of God’s action and character. Finish the prayers by adding your own expressions of praise.

Gracious God,

You created the world in beauty …

You created us in your image and yet more wonderfully restored us in Christ …

You are re-creating the world in Christ …

You revealed yourself to us in Christ …

You allow us to glimpse your glory in the face of Christ …

You teach, comfort, and challenge us by your Word …

You govern this world in power and love …

You lead us faithfully …

You led your people by fire and cloud …

You prepared the way for the coming of your Son …

You sent your Son to the world for its salvation …

You led the Magi by a star to worship your Son …

You anointed Jesus your Son with your Spirit at his baptism …

You raised Jesus from the dead through the power of the Spirit …

You send us out into the world to make disciples …

You sent your Holy Spirit to point us to Christ …

You send your Holy Spirit to empower the church …

You hear our prayers in Jesus’ name …

You promise always to be with us …

You promise the coming of Christ’s kingdom …

You alone can bring healing …

You alone can bring unity out of dissension …

You alone can conquer evil …

Through Christ Our Lord, Amen.

(The Worship Sourcebook)

For the Quiet Time

For the Quiet Time

There is in God strength sufficient for my needs, whatever they may be. Either God is the creator of life, or He is not the creator of life. If He is the creator of life, then there is inherent in life all that is necessary to sustain it in accordance with the demands of any particular life span. This means that there must be laws of growth, re-creation, and maintenance that operate as long as they are not blocked. I start, then, with that simple fact.

Deep Is The Hunger

Cheryl A. Kirk-Duggan -6/06/22

Spirituality: EGO (a.k.a. Engaging God Often)

Sometimes we are overwhelmed by our own human frailty and the large amount of pain and injustice that exist in the world. One of the marvelous things about God’s grace is that as we can release all our cares, in praise and thanksgiving – admitting that we have no power over anything – we become powerful! With this power comes the
ability to know joy and to laugh despite circumstances. As the act of releasing becomes a worshipful, spiritual experience, we can confess any complicity on our part and begin the process of being open to God.

The Undivided Soul