Today was a fast day for us. From last week's input there was encouragement to
be decisive - plan what you are going to do to fast
start small - don't plan something over-ambitious
Rather than beginning with our usual shared meal, we began with communion in City Life's Sacred Space. In this time Peter and Sandra led us in some thoughts about how the Holy Spirit is building us as living stones into God's house. We we were each given a stone to symbolise this and spoke it out to each other - you are a living stone and are being built into God's house. This was a great encouragement to us all.
This week we began to think about the 'why' of the spiritual disciplines.
Last week we introduced fasting as one of the spiritual disciplines which help us better see what God is doing. But now we are going to move from thinking about disciplines to thinking about transformation. Because that is what they are for.
The heart of the good news is that when we believe in Jesus we are 'born again' - as in 1 Peter 1:23 For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. Once this has happened we are then growing into the likeness of Jesus.
Paul is clear about Jesus' nature being formed in us: Gal 4:19: My dear children! Once again, just like a mother in childbirth, I feel the same kind of pain for you until Christ's nature is formed in you.
And again it was in Antioch that the believers where first called 'Christians' - which literally means 'little Christs'.
So our pilgrimage in life is now a journey of becoming like Jesus.
And in Romans 12:1-2 Paul makes it clear that God can transform us (metamorphosis!!) by changing the way we think, if we are offering our bodies to him as a living sacrifice.
When you look up the Greek that is translated as mind, it is much more than just intellectual knowledge. It is the word nous, which encompasses all that we perceive as true, from our inner world and reactions. Like when people say 'what you know in your knower'. That really is transformation!
So, we have an emphasis on transformation in the bible, and we are setting out as a group to embrace the transforming work that God wants to do in us. So that we can then discern better what he wants for the house of prayer: Rom 12:2 - then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, His good and pleasing and perfect will.
We shared in groups how we found the fasting. And also what we thought about the difference between morning and evening prayer, and what we feel is the significance of evening prayer.
These are some of the things we shared:
Prayer of examine to reflect on your day and see where God was with you.
Releasing the day
Thankful in the evening
Good to get closure and sleep
The last watch for the city in the evening
End the day well
Liturgy can help focus prayer
Go to bed under God's protection - imagining lying against the Lion of Judah!!
When you sleep you are unconscious so evening prayer covers your night
There is a difference between evening prayer (at the end of the daytime activities /beginning of the evening) and night prayer - at the end of the day/beginning of the night)
Full cycle of prayer - morning, midday, evening, night
Evening prayer could be in a group, such as round the dinner table and a chance to pray for one another
This week we continue with morning and evening prayer and we are all writing our own prayer, based on Romans 12:1-2.