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A Call to Prayer for Societal Injustice
On April 11, 2021, the world witnessed another unarmed Black man killed at the hands of Read More
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Deborah Van Deusen Hunsinger | Read Psalm 16:1-6
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Sign Up TodayPeter quotes part of this psalm in his sermon in Acts 2:25-28
to support the resurrection of Jesus. So, we as Christians
come to the psalm affirming its voice in the life of Israel’s faith
even as we affirm its apparent witness to Jesus’ resurrection.
The psalmist opens with a...
Gracious God, as we recognize the blessings of our “goodly heritage,” help us to acknowledge the saints who inspire us to renewed vision and courage. Amen.
Psalm 16 and Acts 2 fit together, since the latter quotes the former. Both celebrate God’s presence in human life and the powerful expression of that presence. In his Pentecost sermon Peter sees a messianic application of the psalm to the resurrection of Jesus. First Peter affirms that resurrection creates community, stressing the faith and love of Christians that arise without the experience of physical contact with Jesus. For later generations, belief and commitment are born out of the witness of others.
• Read Acts 2:14a, 22-32. When has a life experience made you, like Peter, feel that your faith was a sham? How did you move past that experience into renewed hope?
• Read Psalm 16. When have you perceived God as refuge? How has your faith in God steadied your life? What is your “goodly heritage”?
• Read 1 Peter 1:3-9. What act of power and grace on God’s part allows you to reconfigure or reinterpret your life story?
• Read John 20:19-31. When have you employed the power to release others from their sin? to leave them in their sin?
Respond by posting a prayer.
I join many of those who will pray for you as you seek to discern what you are called to be at this moment. May God grant you the courage to fulfill that calling. May we all open our eyes and see the misery, open our ears and hear the cries of God’s people, and, like God through the Lord Jesus Christ, be incarnate amongst them.”
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