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January 11, 2018

Discipleship’s Transforming Power

Anne Mathews-Younes   |   Read Psalm 139:13-18

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Lectionary Week
January 8–14, 2018
Scripture Overview

We read the stories of Samuel and the calling of Jesus’ disciples in John, and it is easy to feel jealous. God spoke so directly into their lives that they should have had, it seems to us, full and unwavering confidence in their calling. Didn’t they have an unfair spiritual advantage over us? However, the psalmist reminds us that God knows and sees us individually just as well as God knew Samuel and Jesus knew his disciples. God has plans for us, even if they are revealed in less obvious ways. The reading from Corinthians is quite different in its message. Perhaps we can at least recognize that even if we never hear God’s audible voice, through scripture God still provides guidance for our lives.

Questions and Suggestions for Reflection

• Read 1 Samuel 3:1-20. In what ways do you remain responsive to hearing God’s voice?
• Read Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18. What sense of God’s involvement in your everyday life do you have?
• Read 1 Corinthians 6:12-20. How do you remind yourself of the spirit–body connection?
• Read John 1:43-51. When have you allowed prejudice to affect your decision about a person’s competency?

Respond by posting a prayer .

Psalm 139:13-18

13 You are the one who created my innermost parts; you knit me together while I was still in my mother’s womb. 14 I give thanks to you that I was marvelously set apart. Your works are wonderful—I know that very well. 15 My bones weren’t hidden from you when I was being put together in a secret place, when I was being woven together in the deep parts of the earth. 16 Your eyes saw my embryo, and on your scroll every day was written that was being formed for me, before any one of them had yet happened. 17 God, your plans are incomprehensible to me! Their total number is countless! 18 If I tried to count them—they outnumber grains of sand! If I came to the very end—I’d still be with you.

Unless otherwise indicated, scripture quotations are from the Common English Bible. Copyright © 2011 Common English Bible. Used by permission.

The nature of relationship with God is deeply personal. This is not a relationship between a philosophical construct and humanity in general. The relationship exists between the Creator of the universe and individual humans. “Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were...

Dear God, give me the grace to know, even on those days when you seem far away, that you made me with intent and love. I now want to draw on your love with grateful abandon. Amen.


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