P.R.A.Y
PAUSE
REJOICE & REFLECT
ASK
YIELD
Personal Worship
We are back in Galatians today where Paul takes us back to the covenant with Abraham to show us the permanence of the covenant and the promise.
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
Jesus, your throne is one of power and grace. Your presence is one of forgiveness and freedom. Would you open my heart to who you are today? May I experience your Word and the life that it brings?
We choose to rejoice in the power of God’s Word, with all his people in Psalm 105:
Seek the Lord and his strength;
seek his presence continually!
Remember the wondrous works that he has done,
his miracles, and the judgments he uttered,
O offspring of Abraham, his servant,
children of Jacob, his chosen ones!
Psalm 105:4-6
Today we are reflecting on the words of Scripture in Galatians 3, where we read:
To give a human example, brothers: even with a man-made covenant, no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified. Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings,” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your offspring,” who is Christ. This is what I mean: the law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void. For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise.
Galatians 3:15-18
Paul right previous to this text is continuing to make his argument to the Church in Galatia that we are justified by faith, not by works or the law. Now Paul gives them the historical, human example based on Abraham. The promise made to Abraham was one of permanence. It cannot be changed, once God promised it and covenanted to it not even he can change it. Then Paul shows the ultimate hope of this promise. That true blessing will come through Jesus and his work on the cross! That the blessing God was talking about in Genesis will be won for the people of God at Calvary by Jesus. Even though the law entered into the picture at Mt. Sinai, which we will talk about in the coming days, the law does not change what God will only give through his promise. It is not trust in his promise, trust in his promise, oh wait we have the law now. So let us try to earn what God only gives through promise. No, not at all. The given of the law did not change what God spoke of only through promise.
God, show me where I am trying to earn an inheritance that can only be based on a promise. Let me see that you are a God who fulfills his promises in my life.
1)Why do I think it would be easy when the law was given to find my hope in obedience to it?
2)What made the people of Israel so focused on the law and not the promise? Am I much different?
3)Where in my life am I trying to earn my inheritance from God through my performance?
Lord, our continued prayer is that you would pour out your Holy Spirit on your people. Pour out your Spirit so that we may have life. Fill us with your Spirit that in us gives us the fullness of life so that we may never go back to the lesser things of this world. Melt the hearts of the stubborn. Open the eyes of the blind so that they might see you. Give us a supernatural experience in our church, in our city, and in our nation of your glory. Allow us to know you in this way today.
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.
To give a human example, brothers: even with a man-made covenant, no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified. Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings,” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your offspring,” who is Christ. This is what I mean: the law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void. For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise.
Galatians 3:15-18
Yielding Prayer
Lord, I ask for focus today. Give me the strength to focus on what can only come from you. Let me see what you have for me and how you want me to have it. Give me your Spirit to discern what obedience to you looks like when it comes to trusting in faith in the things that you want to give me. Break me of my desire to earn it with my performance and let me trust that you are so good to me in your promises.
Yielding Promise
And now, as I move into the day ahead, the Lord who loves me reminds me in Romans 8:1-4:
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
Romans 8:1-4
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.