ADORATION – Reflect on God’s Greatness
GOD IS JUST All of God’s judgments are infinitely and perfectly just.
Isaiah 30:18 Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.
PRAISE THE GOD WHO IS JUST
Praise God because he is patient in justice. Praise God because he extends mercy and grace, but does not overlook sin. Praise God because his justice is perfect.
CONFESSION: Confess your sins to God and receive his continued mercy.
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9
THANKSGIVING: Giving thanks to God for his specific blessings in our lives.
“Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.” Psalm 100
SUPPLICATION: Bringing our requests to God.
- Bring your personal prayer requests to God.
- Pray for Youth Horizons. Ask God to lead and encourage their staff. Ask God to use their ministry to help children lead healthy and productive lives. Pray that children would come to faith in Christ.
SCRIPTURE READING:
Hebrews 8 – English Standard Version
Jesus, High Priest of a Better Covenant
8 Now the point in what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, 2 a minister in the holy places, in the true tent[a] that the Lord set up, not man. 3 For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices; thus it is necessary for this priest also to have something to offer. 4 Now if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law. 5 They serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. For when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, “See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.” 6 But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises. 7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second.
8 For he finds fault with them when he says:
“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord,
when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel
and with the house of Judah,
9 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers
on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt.
For they did not continue in my covenant,
and so I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord.
10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel
after those days, declares the Lord:
I will put my laws into their minds,
and write them on their hearts,
and I will be their God,
and they shall be my people.
11 And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor
and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’
for they shall all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest.
12 For I will be merciful toward their iniquities,
and I will remember their sins no more.”
13 In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.
SCRIPTURE REFLECTION:
Plato believed that the world we live in is like shadows on a cave wall. He was wrong about this of course, but he was right in thinking that there is much more to reality than just what we can access with our physical senses. The writer of Hebrews said that the physical sanctuary where human priests offered sacrifices is a copy and a shadow of what is in heaven. This is an attempt to describe what is beyond our ability to fully comprehend. Though we don’t have the capacity to understand the heavenly realm as it fully is, we can understand the point he is making…what happened in the sacrificial system pointed forward to the life and death of Jesus. We don’t offer animal sacrifices anymore because we live after the final sacrifice of Jesus. We might think that those sacrifices were barbaric and that we have “outgrown” them as a civilization. But consider for a moment the sacrifices we continue to make to appease our “gods.” Unborn babies are sacrificed for various reasons, but some are simply for personal convenience. Families are sacrificed for the pursuit of selfish gain. We are not more enlightened than those who killed goats on an altar. We are foolish and needy just as they were. Similarly, the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross is seen as an outdated and barbaric concept. It is unworthy of modern sensibilities. But remember this, it was seen in the same way 2000 years ago; there is nothing new about despising the cross of Christ. God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and through the foolishness of the cross he has chosen to save us from our sins. Be willing to look like a fool in the eyes of men in order to be seen as wise in the eyes of God.