July 13, 2016
PrayerMate iOS | Android

“He was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” He said to them, “When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread.
And forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
And do not bring us to the time of trial.” Luke 11:1-4

How many times have we told someone we’d pray for them, and then forget to follow through? I often tell people that if you have the will to say to someone “I will pray for you!” then you should also have the will to pray for them right there. This Christian app helps you keep track of prayer requests and faithfully pray for the people and causes you care about. From their website: “PrayerMate brings all your prayer points together. Whether it’s your personal prayer points for friends and family, regular updates from some fantastic mission organizations, or the latest PDF prayer letter that just arrived in your inbox, PrayerMate puts it all together in one place and helps you get on and pray.”

I downloaded this app, not sure what it might look like, or how easy it might be to maneuver and setup. But I have found it to be a great resource for my prayer life. Once you learn how to maneuver through and set up your prayer sections, it is a constant reminder to pray – because I am constantly looking at my phone, and I constantly see the app there reminding me to pray. Some of the categories it offers includes “My Church” where you can input names of members of your congregation who need prayer; “My Walk With G-d” where you will find scripted prayers for things like “unity” and “Holiness”. Others include “Biblical Prayers” where you can adapt any line of scripture into a prayer; and lastly “My Family” where you can list those in your personal family who need prayer. And those are just a few of the options on this app. We all get busy, and we all forget to pray as often as we should. Having this app to give you a reminder is a good resource.

Pastor Dave

July 12, 2016

“Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” John 3:1-4

“The deep secrecy of my own being is often hidden from me by my own estimate of what I am. My idea of what I am is falsified by my admiration for what I do. And my illusions about myself are bred by contagion from the illusions of other men. We all seek to imitate one another’s imagined greatness. If I do not know who I am, it is because I think I am the sort of person everyone around me wants to be. Perhaps I have never asked myself whether I really wanted to become what everybody else seems to want to become. Perhaps if I only realized that I do not admire what everyone seems to admire, I would really begin to live after all. I would be liberated from the painful duty of saying what I really do not think and acting in a way that betrays G-d’s truth and the integrity of my own soul.” Thomas Merton (The Pocket Thomas Merton, p. 5-6)

“If I do not know who I am, it is because I think I am the sort of person everyone around me wants to be.”

Thomas Merton (1915-1968) is arguably the most influential American Catholic author of the twentieth century. He was a mystic, a Trappist monk of the Abbey of Gethsemane, Kentucky, a poet, a social activist, and a student of comparative religion. As part of my devotions for July, I will be sharing some of his thoughts and writings.

Nicodemus, in my opinion, was a man who did not know who he was. He was struggling with his identity. Have you ever felt that way in your life? Nicodemus was a Pharisee, but he was struggling with the teachings of Jesus, most likely because the teachings of Jesus had struck a nerve inside him. And so, to get some clarity, Nicodemus came to Jesus in secret. As Thomas Merton suggests in this devotion, Nicodemus was most likely struggling with whether he was truly like the other Pharisees around him, or if he was something else. As the Gospel of John continues, it turns out that Nicodemus becomes a follower of Jesus in the end: at least he is there when Jesus is taken from the cross to be placed in the tomb. Moving from Pharisee to follower of Jesus, Nicodemus is freed from having to act one way (like a Pharisee) to living into the true spirit of G-d, that of being born of water and the Spirit.

Do you feel trapped by societal expectations or lost in the illusion of trying to be something that others expect of you? Deep within you has been planted the seeds of your true identity – but it is not a secret. You are a loved child of G-d. Allow Jesus to free you to be who you were born to be.

Pastor Dave