Two or three times a day John and I say set prayers out loud together from the Episcopalian\u2019s Book of Common Prayer. \u00a0Reason one for doing this (see previous post) was because we forget- we forget God\u2019s love and God\u2019s instructions. Prayer from God\u2019s word can remind us in ways that prayers we make up about our current concerns can\u2019t.<\/p>\n
One of the reactions we get is: \u201cI pray often, but don\u2019t feel a need to be legalistic about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reason two: Prayer is servant behavior.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cTo me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear.\u201d Isaiah (45:23 NRSV) This command is very clear and doesn\u2019t appear to be optional. Scripture leaves us with little doubt that Jesus is<\/em> Lord and is to be acknowledged<\/em> as Lord.<\/p>\n Paul reinforces this message in Philippians (2:10-11) and Romans (14:11). The confession that \u201cJesus Christ is Lord\u201d is part of our set prayers; this recognition establishes our human status as servant. We are not to be our own Lord. We are subject to the Lord our God.<\/p>\n But what does this mean exactly? Philippians gives us some instructions.\u00a0 \u201cLet the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus\u201d (2:5) and \u201c(He) emptied himself taking on the form of a slave.\u201d (2:7) and \u201cLet each of you look not to your own interests but to the interests of others.\u201d (2:3)<\/p>\n We find daily set prayer a way to remember and fulfill these instructions.<\/p>\n When we use set prayers from scripture, saying out loud the word of God, we are \u201ctaking on the mind of Jesus.\u201d\u00a0 As we repeat the words we remember. We remember who we are in relation to Jesus and our neighbors; and we remember God\u2019s instructions about those relationships. We are reminded again who God is and how Jesus served with uncompromising humility.<\/p>\n We find it is a light yoke and one that gets easier to bear with practice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Two or three times a day John and I say set prayers out loud together from the Episcopalian\u2019s Book of Common Prayer. \u00a0Reason one for doing this (see previous post) was because we forget- we forget God\u2019s love and God\u2019s instructions. Prayer from God\u2019s word can remind us in ways that prayers we make up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[12],"tags":[13],"class_list":["post-590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prayer","tag-episcopal-book-of-common-prayer"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5VlqB-9w","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/johnandkathleenshow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/johnandkathleenshow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/johnandkathleenshow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johnandkathleenshow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johnandkathleenshow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=590"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/johnandkathleenshow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":591,"href":"http:\/\/johnandkathleenshow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590\/revisions\/591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/johnandkathleenshow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johnandkathleenshow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johnandkathleenshow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}