P.R.A.Y
PAUSE
REJOICE & REFLECT
ASK
YIELD
Personal Worship
Today Paul will get to the point of why he is writing this letter.
Together we will pray (P.R.A.Y.) each day – ‘P’: Pausing to be still as we come into the presence of the Lord. ‘R’: Rejoicing as we remember who our God is and what He has done, and Reflecting on His word. ‘A’: Asking God to help us and others. And ‘Y’: yielding to His will in accordance with His word.
As I come before you to pray, I still my thoughts and quiet my mind. I seek to make you the center of my focus.
Prayer of Approach
Lord, I approach your throne today in total confidence. I come to you confidently in prayer, not in my own merit or worth, but the only confidence I have is that Jesus, your beloved Son, suffered and died on my behalf. His blood is my access to you and it’s in his name alone that I pray.
We choose to rejoice in the power of God’s Word, with all his people in Luke 19:10:
For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.
Luke 19:10
Today we are reflecting on the words of Scripture in Galatians 1, where we read:
Paul, an apostle—not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead— and all the brothers who are with me,
To the churches of Galatia:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.
I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.
For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.
Galatians 1:1-10
Paul loves these people enough not to mince words with them. Paul was shocked and horrified about what he had been hearing since he left these people. A messenger had brought him a letter or a report about what was taking place. The report was that the Galatians had begun adding the law of Moses to the gospel of Jesus. This was the teaching of the Judaizers at the time. They wanted the Gentiles to become good Jews before they became Christians. The brass tax of why Paul is upset is that adding anything to the gospel destroys the gospel. They are deserting the beautiful grace they have received from the gospel and adding obstacles to it.
This is not just a back-then problem. It is so easy to fall into the trap of adding things to the work of Jesus. Paul will use the rest of the letter with examples so we will end here today pondering what we add to the gospel in our modern era
Jesus, open my eyes to the places I have allowed additions to sneak into the gospel whether big or small. Show me where the gospel has been distorted in my heart.
1)What types of things are added to the gospel by our current culture?
2)Why is it so easy for us as humans to do that?
3)Is it difficult for me to see those things at the moment?
Lord, I ask that you would visit your people again. I ask that you would pour out your Spirit in a supernatural way for a season of time where your glory would open the eyes of all that see it. Would you do what only you can do? Would you do what you have done before in history? Revive your Church, revive your people, and revive your world.
As I read the passage again slowly, I listen for anything that You would say to me in it. Help me see how to position my life in order to yield to your word.
Paul, an apostle—not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead— and all the brothers who are with me,
To the churches of Galatia:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.
I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.
For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.
Galatians 1:1-10
Yielding Prayer
Lord, protect me from distorting the gospel. Protect me from me in this regard. Do not let me fall into the temptation of adding or eliminating anything from the work that you have done on my behalf. Give me your Spirit to discern where these kinds of distortions are. Give me the courage to fight for the purity of the gospel in our world.
Yielding Promise
And now, as I move into the day ahead, the Lord who loves me reminds me in John 6:
All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.
John 6:37
Closing Prayer
Lord, enable me, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to love you today with all of my heart, soul, mind, and strength; and to serve you today, by loving and caring for others as I do my own self; and, to exalt you today, by telling the people in my world about the abundant and eternal life found only through faith in Jesus.
*The P.R.A.Y. acronym has been adapted from the Lectio 365 app.