Loading more...
Questions from the Heart
A few years ago, we had a feature on The Upper Room’s website called “Ask Julian.” Read More
The Upper Room is here for you in these anxious times. Click Here
Deborah Van Deusen Hunsinger | Read Psalm 16:1-6
Disciplines is available in a variety of formats: print, digital, and print/digital combo packages. A digital subscription includes access to author bios, the ability to comment, and audio lectio.
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 could not have found The Upper Room Moments of Prayer (on Facebook Live) sooner. For it is during these moments of centering spiritual practices, meditating on the words of scripture, praying with and for the world, that I find moments of transcendence, hear whispers of peace and hope, see glimpses of truth and justice, behold visions of love and beauty amid all the stark realities that are around me.”
Join us every Monday and Wednesday at 11:00 a.m. (CST) for prayer and worship on Facebook Live.
