Listen to Pastor Nick read the Firestarter and the Gospel.

 The disciples long to enter those spaces of communion that Jesus demonstrates he has with the Father. Join with their longing and their cry: “Lord, teach us to pray!”

What follows is Luke’s version of The Lord’s Prayer. Embrace every word until the familiarity of this prayer becomes brand new.

Jesus confronts the temptations that often lurk within us to distrust prayer. Jesus offers images for confidence in prayer. Fervently believe that the Lord wants to share his saving grace with you, inviting you to ask with the same confidence of a child to a loving Father. After all, this was the experience of Jesus. He shares with you the total intimacy in the bond of trust and love that he has with the Father.

Luke 11:1–13

What are “Bible Breaths”? Learn More…
Example: Give each day our daily bread. v. 3

Sundays are dedicated to the Gospels from the Revised Common Lectionary.
In year C, we generally read from the Gospel of St. Luke.

For all the Firestarters I recommend the ebook.  You will have the entire program of well over a thousand of these introductions with you on your phone or tablet. Check the menu options at the site for more information.

Listen to Pastor Nick read the “Firestarter” and Numbers 32:28-32.

Two and a half tribes request Moses that they stay on the east side of the Jordan. Moses has to be sure that this is not due out of fear to enter into the Promised Land. He wants to be sure that they are not in rebellion about going into the Promised Land, as happened earlier in chapters 13 and 14. The cooperation of all of God’s people is needed in order for the conquest to take place. We are “our brother’s keeper,” as implied in Genesis 4:9, after Cain murdered his brother Abel.

You are important for the whole body of Christ. If you do God’s will in your life, then the rest of the body benefits; if you do not, then the whole is threatened. The unity in the Body of Christ is powerfully developed in 1 Corinthians 12:12 and following. May you find comfort and much joy in knowing in whom you live and move and have your being.

Numbers 32

This is the second of three parts of the Torah Portion Matoth (The Chiefs) 
.Conservative and Reform Jewish congregations read only this part this year,
as also in this Bible plan.
Here is the entire portion in all three parts.

Numbers 30:2—32:42

Bible Breaths Learn More…
Example: Blooming where I am planted v. 33ff

The Saturday passages follow the reading list that Jewish people use in their synagogue worship
throughout the world. They are taken from
“The Torah,” the first five books of the Bible from Genesis to Deuteronomy
that are read each year beginning with autumn.

For all the Firestarters I recommend the ebook.  You will have the entire program of well over a thousand of these introductions with you on your phone or tablet. Check the menu options at the site for more information.

Listen to Pastor Nick read the Firestarter and Luke 14:7-14.

Jesus turns our world upside down. Those who take the first place are told to go to the last; those in the last place are invited to assume the first; the exalted will be humbled and the humbled with be exalted, etc.

The root meaning of “repentance” in the Greek, metanoioa, is “to change the attitude”—the way we look at things. What are your habitual ways of seeing things that the Lord invites you to change 180 degrees?

Keep you eyes fixed upon Jesus—not with the narrow, squinted eyebrows of the critical Pharisees, but with eyes wide open, searching for God’s presence and that meaning about your world that only God can give.

Luke 14

Create your own Bible Breaths Learn More…
Example: Lowest place, then called higher v. 10

Fridays are dedicated to the Gospels.
In the season of Pentecost this year we read Luke 9—19:27.

For all the Firestarters I recommend the ebook.  You will have the entire program of well over a thousand of these introductions with you on your phone or tablet. Check the menu options at the site for more information.