Prayer: The Frontier of the Spiritual Life




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With Burning Hearts

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"Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us"--Luke 24:32 The story of the Road to Emmaus is an important one.  It focuses not just on what God's resurrection power does with Jesus, but what God's power for new life does in us.  The setting is the afternoon of Easter Day.  Two of Jesus' disciples are leaving Jerusalem and heading to Emmaus, about seven miles away.  In spite of the news of the empty tomb, they remain traumatized by the awful events of Good Friday and their fear that death has had the last word.  They are overcome with sadness, and lament that Jesus is not who they had hoped he would be.  The risen Christ meets the men on the road, drawing close and coming alongside of them, but they don't recognize him.  "But their eyes were kept from recognizing him, "  Luke writes.  This is a way of saying that we don't always see Jesus' presence in our lives b...
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Venturing Into Deeper Waters

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Jacopo Bassano's The Miraculous Draught of Fishes , completed in 1545, is a favorite.  It vividly recalls the scene in Luke's gospel (Luke 5:1-11) where Jesus calls his first disciples.  Very early in Jesus' ministry he is beginning to draw large crowds of people eager hear the fresh, living Word of God.  Many of them have previously been on the "outside" of religious life.  Jesus is bringing a message that goes deep in their very own life experience.  People are hungry and thirsty for God's nourishment. On this day Jesus is teaching on the lakeshore.  The crowd is pressing in on him as they seek to hear every word carefully.  Sitting nearby are two fishing boats.  They are empty; the fishermen are washing their nets after a fruitless overnight shift where they have caught nothing.  Jesus climbs into the boat belonging to Simon, and asks him to put out a little way from the shore, so that Jesus can teach from the boat.  When Jesus ...
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Jesus' Baptism

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"In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.  And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit of God descending like a dove on him.  And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son; the Beloved; with you I am well pleased."   --Mark 1:9-11 When he was somewhere around thirty years old, Jesus moved from his established life in little Nazareth of Galilee-- where he apparently worked as a carpenter (Mark 6:3), living among his family and belonging to the local synagogue-- and journeyed to the Jordan River in Judea where John the Baptist was immersing people in a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  John was imploring people to get themselves ready for the coming of the Messiah.  But when Jesus arrived, without fanfare, he entered the Jordan waters with everyone else and was thrust under the waters by the Baptist, who initially objected.  Indeed, Jesus w...
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