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Lenten Devotionals 2009
I offer the following two samples as a Prayer of Blessing for you to offer for anyone who has wronged you. Please read the writing, and return to pray, by inserting the name of anyone who has hurt you through jealousy and false accusation against your fidelity. In the second blessing, I use the masculine for simplicity - you will use feminine or masculine as needed:
NAN'S BLESSING
I'll never understand the love
the Lord Jesus has for you, (Name),
I'll never understand
how much He loves you.
But this much I know:
that He loves you,
He loves you
with all His heart,
and you are so precious to Him.
*Northumbria Community. Celtic Daily Prayer.
BLESSING OF A PRECIOUS ONE
Dear Spirit of Love,
I pray for (Name).
Bless ... with your forgiveness and healing.
Free ... to follow You in joyful heart.
Give ... love for himself, that he will celebrate that You see him as eternally precious.
I commit to pray daily for ... for ... (Time Period).
I commit to remain open to reconciliation with him.
I do this for Your glory, his good, and my good. Amen.
*Brian Kenneth Wilcox. OneLife Ministries.
TODAY'S SCRIPTURE
Israel loved Joseph best of all his sons,
for he was the child of his old age;
and he had made him a long tunic.
When his brothers saw that their father loved him best of all his sons,
they hated him so much that they would not even greet him.
One day, when his brothers had gone
to pasture their father's flocks at Shechem,
Israel said to Joseph,
"Your brothers, you know, are tending our flocks at Shechem.
Get ready; I will send you to them."
So Joseph went after his brothers and caught up with them in Dothan.
They noticed him from a distance,
and before he came up to them, they plotted to kill him.
They said to one another: "Here comes that master dreamer!
Come on, let us kill him and throw him into one of the cisterns here;
we could say that a wild beast devoured him.
We shall then see what comes of his dreams."
When Reuben heard this,
he tried to save him from their hands, saying,
"We must not take his life.
Instead of shedding blood," he continued,
"just throw him into that cistern there in the desert;
but do not kill him outright."
His purpose was to rescue him from their hands
and return him to his father.
So when Joseph came up to them,
they stripped him of the long tunic he had on;
then they took him and threw him into the cistern,
which was empty and dry.
They then sat down to their meal.
Looking up, they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead,
their camels laden with gum, balm and resin
to be taken down to Egypt.
Judah said to his brothers:
"What is to be gained by killing our brother and concealing his blood?
Rather, let us sell him to these Ishmaelites,
instead of doing away with him ourselves.
After all, he is our brother, our own flesh."
His brothers agreed.
They sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver.
*Genesis 37.3-4, 12-13a, 17b-28a (NAB)
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