Your COMPASS for the Journey on the PATH of Discipleship: April 17-23, 2011
Posted by Isaac Butterworth | Filed under Discipleship, Spiritual Disciplines, Spiritual Formation
HOLY WEEK: THE WEEK THAT CHANGED THE WORLD
…A Galilean carpenter and itinerant rabbi rides into Jerusalem on a donkey, and your world will never be the same. This week the Son of God will die for the sins of the entire human race, yours included. He will be raised from the grave to prove that you can live forever. Easter will spark the mightiest movement in human history. This is the week that changed the world. How will it change yours? ~ Park Cities Baptist Church
Saturday, April 23, 2011 SATURDAY WITH THADDAEUS AND BARTHOLOMEW
Afternoon, on an obscure trail outside Jerusalem: ‘Where are we going?’ Bartholomew exclaimed, panting and feeling a bit disgusted. ‘We’ve been walking and hiding like this all day long.’ ‘Quit complaining! You wanted to tag along,’ Thaddaeus retorted. ‘Besides, have you got a better way of dealing with what happened yesterday…?’ [Bartholomew:] ‘Sorry, I’m upset, too….’
[Thaddaeus:] ‘…We were blessed by God to be with him. Now he’s gone and we’re left with our memories. How will we keep his spirit alive? …Did anyone think to make a record of his teachings and all the things he did? Or, are they lost along with him?’ ‘A record — you mean like a written record?’ said Bartholomew…. ‘Who among us can write? Who can read? Was it worth writing about…?’ ‘What’s gotten into you?’ steamed Thaddaeus. ‘…You’re acting like it was all for nothing.’ ‘What was it all for,’ Bartholomew asked…. ‘We lost a dear friend…. Now we’re…hunted by [the] Romans. What did it all accomplish…?’
‘It’s dusk, the Sabbath’s ending. At least we made it through the day,’ Thaddaeus weakly observed. ‘We should be safe in the city now. Maybe tomorrow will be a better day.’ ‘Let’s hope,’ Bartholomew sighed as he turned and headed toward Jerusalem. ~ David Wolverton
Tomorrow: AN EASTER PRAYER
Friday, April 22, 2011 GOOD FRIDAY
‘Golgotha’ means ‘the place of the skull.’ It was so named because so many crucifixions took place there, and also because the hill looks like a skull. It was here that Jesus was nailed to a cross and left to die….
Upon his death, ‘the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom’ (Matthew 27:52). This curtain was sixty feet tall, several inches thick, made of purple linen. It separated the Holy of Holies from the rest of the world, parting only to allow the High Priest to enter on the annual Day of Atonement.
Now Jesus functions as our Great High Priest, severing forever the curtain which separated us from our Holy God. Not from bottom to top, but from top to bottom — from heaven to earth. Christianity is not a religion made by man, but a relationship initiated by God at the cost of his Son. ~ The Week that Changed the World, Park Cities Baptist Church
Tomorrow: SATURDAY WITH THADDAEUS AND BARTHOLOMEW
Thursday, April 21, 2011 THE RIDER
On his last evening, they eat supper together for the last time, the rider and his friends, in some large room, upstairs, somewhere in that city…. As was the custom, the rider gets up to bless the bread, gives thanks for it; and as was the custom, he takes the loaf up into his hands and breaks it for them. Then the unaccustomed thing. He gives the loaf a name, his body, the dark wine a name, his blood, whatever he means by it, and tells them to eat and drink…. In other words, he tells them to take his life into themselves and live it for him. Ever since, the bread has been broken, the wine poured out, in commemoration of his death. Some come…. Probably for the same reason that for century after century men have always come — because…the inexorable life in him draws us to him the way a glimmer of light draws a man who has lost his way in the dark. Because we are hungry for more than bread. Because we are thirsty for more than wine…. ~ from The Hungering Dark by Frederick Buechner
Tomorrow: GOOD FRIDAY
Wednesday, April 20, 2011 FROM CELEBRATION TO FEAR
In only a few short days, the Palm Sunday hallelujah scene begins to turn from celebration to fear and denial and agony. How could this happen? Where would we have stood in the face of such disappointment and possible persecution? How often do we rejoice on the fair-weather Sundays only to backslide to indifference during the week?
Prayer: God help us to keep ever in our minds and hearts that you paid the ultimate price for freedom over sin and death. Amen.
Tomorrow: THE RIDER
Tuesday, April 19, 2011 ALL THINGS WORK TOGETHER FOR GOOD
Compass:
Romans 8:28-39 ‘[Nothing] will be able to separate us from the love of God….’
28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, whohave been called according to his purpose. 29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.
31 What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 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.
Map:
Who shall separate us from the love of God? No one. Nothing…. Life can bring us sorrow, disappointment, joy, success. But according to Paul, not one of those things can separate us from God’s love…. In my own life, this scripture is the greatest source of peace and promise.
Journey:
Prayer: Father, you surround us with Your love. Help us to keep moving toward You — through our joy as well as our sorrow, for we believe that all things work together for good to those who love You. ~ Carol Webb (1978)
Tomorrow: FROM CELEBRATION TO FEAR
Monday, April 18, 2011 COMFORT FOR ANXIOUS TIMES
…It’s so comforting to know that no matter how anxious, stressed or fearful we are in our lives, He is there to calm us, and get us through those times. An unknown author wrote the following: ‘Have no fear for what tomorrow may bring. The same loving God who cares for us today, cares for us tomorrow and every day. God will either shield us from suffering, or give us unfailing strength to bear it…. A prayer: Dear Lord, thank you…for all the blessings you have given me. Please give me the courage to not be fearful or anxious about things in my life. I know that together, with your unfailing strength, I can get through anything, It’s in your precious Son’s name I pray. Amen. ~ Katie Aboussie
Tomorrow: ALL THINGS WORK TOGETHER FOR GOOD
Sunday, April 17, 2011 THE RIDER
The donkey’s hooves raise little puffs of dust as it jogs along the sun-baked street. The rider sits with his bare feet tucked under the soft, round underbelly of his beast…. Several of the onlookers are waving branches of myrtle and willow and sprays of palm leaf. The face of the rider is shiny with sweat…. Did they understand that he came to rescue them from themselves? From sin and separation from God? And to give them, indeed, a new life…perhaps not the one they were expecting? ~ from The Hungering Dark by Frederick Buechner
Tomorrow: COMFORT FOR ANXIOUS TIMES
Photo Credit: Point Imperial | North Rim, Grand Canyon National Park by Ken Lund
