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Okay, that'd be great. Alright. It's testimony time. Did anyone see Jesus in action this week?
! And if so, let us know.! Anybody else? Yes, ma'am.
I have one. My brother, my husband's brother and his wife are coming tomorrow for five nights. And I'm just tonight. So I've prepared the Bible study teaching early.
And I asked God to just give me everything he wants us to learn. I was writing so fast. I don't know if I've ever written that fast before.
Except maybe one of the best things. But, uh. It was like, it's so crazy. It was like his hand was guiding my hand. It was so intense. Wow. And I got it all done.
It's all prepped and stuck. And it was all done. Yep. Anybody else? Well, we had an interesting week.
My older brother who has died. My older brother's grandson, who was 37, died unexpectedly.
And his parents are not what you might call church goers. My niece is a believer in God.
She's a believer in God. But she also kind of goes with extra spiritual stuff. And her husband, who is one of the greatest guys in the world, spent so much time as a trooper and a criminal investigator that he doesn't trust anybody.
But especially, he doesn't trust God. And so they had to deal with their son, who actually has been a paraplegic since he was three years old.
He died suddenly. How do you work with that? And so we're praying about what? How can we assist with that? And then I got notification from my niece, would you do the funeral service?
And I said, oh, yeah. Is there anything particularly you'd like me to cover? And she said, yeah, tell everybody how much God loves them. Well, that opened the door, you know.
And so the Lord used words that I gave on Saturday morning for the funeral. I think it melted the heart of my nephew.
And so we're praying that something wonderful is going to happen as they try to put the pieces together from their life. So, all right.
I think you're up. So tonight we're talking about deeper prayer. And Dave is going to be doing most of the talking tonight because he knows he's a lot more knowledgeable on the types of prayer that we're going to be talking about.
So I'm just going to introduce them, and he's going to talk about them. And the three types of meditation, contemplation, and tongues.
Say that again because I think we didn't catch you. Meditation, contemplation, and tongues. Speaking in tongues. Christian meditation is the first one he's going to talk about.
And another name for it is Lectio Divina, which means divine reading in Latin. It was developed by Benedictine monasteries as a way to get close to Jesus and a way to help us know who God is.
So Dave is going to go through the four steps in Lectio Divina. What's gotten popular in the last 30 or 40 years is Eastern religion, right?
And you do a mantra. Actually, that comes right out of our monasteries. Except the mantra is Jesus. Monasteries have been teaching deep meditation for many hundreds of years.
They want their monks to be deep friends of God. You can only be a deep friend of someone if you trust them and spend time with them.
And it would say in our society, if you listen to them. And so Lectio Divina is a way of looking at Scripture in such a way that God speaks to us as we open our hearts to Him.
So we're going to do that today. After I lay out the steps, which you have on your sheet, then we're going to do a Lectio Divina together.
So where we go is four steps. You read the passage.
And you read it three times. And you read it devotionally. Three times allows it to penetrate into our brain housing group.
So read the passage three times. Then the second step is to meditate on the passage.
Don't let that fool you. That means catching the spiritual meaning of the passage. It's not an academic exercise. It's not, did Paul really write Ephesians?
Because most people don't believe it. Except for us. He did. Yeah. It's not an academic exercise.
It's a search for inner meaning. So, then the third is, now we get to prayer. The way you and I are used to prayer.
It's always with gratitude. And if we can dialogue in our prayer about the passage. With whom are we dialoguing?
Jesus. Yes. Jesus the Lord. As we go through the passage. And then finally, we contemplate the passage.
This is not the exercise of contemplation, however. Contemplate means to deeply consider. And so, it's not so much in words as it is in presence.
We are deeply considering. Did I put, I put contemplately. Hey, that's your one for this week.
Thank you, but I've got a lot more than one this week. So, those are the four steps of what we call Lectio Divina, divine reading. And so, we're going to demonstrate that tonight by actually doing this together in a group.
So, I need to get Bibles to everybody. Is this Leroy? Welcome, Leroy.
How are you doing? How are you doing? How are you doing? For those of you who do not know Leroy, he is a priest in the church of, what's your name of your church down there?
St. Andrews. St. Andrews in Endicott. Do you know how he got here? How did he get here? I shouted to him in his car as he was driving by the front of the building tonight as I was leaving work.
He's a very obedient priest. Yes. Let's see. Okay, so we're going to have a Bible.
And once you get that Bible, I want you to turn to Matthew 11. 11.28. And in my black Bible, it's on page 970.
All right.
So, Lord God, open our hearts and minds as we divinely read your holy word, that you might penetrate our hearts with your word.
In Christ's name, amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. We're reading verses 28 through 30. Verses 28 through 30. And I'm going to ask it to be read three times.
Okay? So, John, why don't you read the first time? Great. Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your soul. For my yoke is easy, for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
Okay. So, think about that for a minute. All right. Marty, why don't you read it a second time? Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
Okay. Thank you. Think about that again a little bit. And now, let's see.
Barb, would you read that a third time, please? Yes. Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. Okay. Now, for a review. Who said that? Jesus. Jesus. Yeah. It really wasn't Matthew who said that.
Matthew wrote it down. Jesus said it. And who do you think he was speaking to? Us. Right.
Everyone who would read it. Right. Jesus was speaking to a group of his disciples and those who happened to be hanging around. But he speaks to us across the century in his word.
So he's actually speaking to every one of us in this passage. Well, that brings us then to point two of the time, the meditating on the meaning of the verse.
And here's how we're going to do this. We're going to go through the three verses. I'm going to read that verse 28. And then group participation.
What word or phrase or at most sentence do you get God telling you about your life in light of Christ?
Then we'll do 29 and then we'll do 30. Okay. So here goes. Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Moment of silence. What has God given you now? A word or a phrase or a sentence? The promise of rest.
Amen. Okay. Thank you. Anything else? What word, phrase, or sentence? Well, all who are labor and, or all who are labor and, or all who are labor and, or all who are burdened and labor.
Have you laid? Yeah. Yeah. I think that's all of us. Yes. Come. Come. Come. Come.
Amen. Any others? Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Okay. Now we go to verse 29. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
What do you hear? Gentle. Rest again.
Okay. Learn from me. Learn from me. Okay. Yes, ma'am.
Take and learn. Take and learn. Take and learn. You're forced to read on, though, because of the word yoke.
Because if you know what a yoke is. Yeah. Demonstrate. Would you stand up and demonstrate what a yoke is? Oh, geez. It goes over your shoulders and, you know, you're carrying something.
Buckets. Or a yoke on a bull. Yeah. I mean, it's a work. Yep. Can you give us a better visual? No. Can you impersonate an ox?
No. No. No. But the important thing, I think. Yes. One of the important things, too, is that the yoke hooks two oxen together. Right.
Amen. Wow. That's right. And the older oxen can train the younger one how to bear the burden. Oh, boy. This is rich.
Then that's what happens. This is rich. What do you put on with your vestments every Sunday, Caleb? A stole. What's a stole symbolize?
The yoke of Christ. Yeah. It teaches, it reminds clergy, priests and deacons and bishops, that they are the oxen.
Well, as well as all of you. But they demonstrate servanthood by putting on the stole. And what do you do with a little cross on that stole before you put it on?
Kiss it. Yeah. Now, have you got a thing about cloth? No. No. So why do you kiss the little cross? We didn't rehearse this before.
Sorry. We did not. Sorry. So we are acknowledging the cross and acknowledging the yoke of Christ. Amen. We don't all put stoles on, but we all wear the yoke.
So thanks for developing that for us. Yeah. And the same thing with putting on the stole. We ask Christ to make us worthy to carry that yoke.
Yes. To carry the yoke. Yep. Okay. Any other word, phrase, or sentence that comes to you in that verse 29? Does it also mean that by taking Christ's yoke upon us, that we are yoking ourselves with Christ, that He's going to be walking with us?
Did He ever put on a yoke? Yes. Oh, yeah. Whose yoke was it? Ours. Our yoke.
So you can bet He walks with us as we carry the yoke. Yep. Pam. Well, I actually was going to say one other thing about verse 28.
I'm sorry. Yes, go ahead. But, but, so it says, I will give you rest. Just that verb there, to give. He's giving it of His own free will and out of His love for us.
He's going to give us rest. So, any of you kind of try to go to sleep at night and you've got a million things flying through your head? Yes. Yeah. How do you, what do you deal with that?
How do you deal with that? With that? I use contemplative prayer. Contemplative prayer. Jesus prayer. Which I think we're going to get to. We're going to talk about the Jesus prayer. prayer, to be calmed, it's a spiritual exercise in becoming calmed to go to sleep.
Jesus wants us to have rest. Everything plugging through us makes us not want to rest. Sometimes when you get my age, Leroy is almost my age now.
He's working on it. You wake up early in the morning. And like it's 5 or 5.30. And you say, you know what, I might as well get up.
I was going to get up in two hours anyway. Because you're not going to sleep anymore. And so, what do you do with that time? Rest. Rest in the Lord.
Let Him wash you. I will give you rest. Great. Okay, unless there's something else, we're going to go on to verse 30.
Okay. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. That's where He transforms that yoke concept.
It could scare you to... His yoke isn't heavy laden. Yes. Yes. There's that old, non-biblical illustration of the footprints in the sand.
And you say to the Lord, look at that way. I had to walk that by myself. You weren't there. And Jesus said, actually, that was the time I was carrying you.
And that's kind of where we are, isn't it? That yoke, once we lift it to the Lord, it becomes an easier way of living. Right? What other things come to your mind on that?
Okay. I... My aspect in that is, you have a choice. Oh, there you go.
With Christ, or against your yelping, for the world's commands. Okay. Okay. Yep. Yeah.
You may have been where I am at times, and I am at times that way. I happen to be not that way now. I've got so much crushing in on me, that I...
It's like a terrible yoke. I can't go another step further. And the scripture says, my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
How can that be? The biggest burden that we carry is our sin. Yes. And when we're giving it up. Yep. It's a lot easier. Yeah. But even all the...
Because it all reverts back to all those who are labor and are heavy burden. Mm-hmm. If we...
His yoke, we're relying on ourselves. If we rely on Him, it lightens the load. We were talking... Thank you. It lightens the load when we rely on the Lord.
Right. Yep. And you... So the mic gets you... You mentioned, get the sins off, and it's not as heavy of a yoke. We were...
A couple of us were talking yesterday. A little problem with the senior pastor of a church. And the associate...
It's a church in another universe. You don't know that church. You don't even know that person. They are... They're on Mars. So you never met them. Okay? All right.
So the associate pastor was saying that the pastor just seems hardened, and he doesn't want to pray, and he doesn't want to talk about Christ except during his sermon, which is brilliant.
And as we talked about it, I said, you know, you need to pay attention. This pastor has become a professional clergyman. He's carrying his own burdens.
He's carried them for a long time. He's learned how to deal with it. Do not rock the boat. And then, in a sense, that's really... That's professional burnout.
He's closed off. Well, that's not just in the clergy. We... If we carry our burdens, it's going to do us in.
And Jesus knows that. And so, this passage is, in summary, this passage teaches us, those of us who have accepted Christ as our Lord and Savior, it teaches us about living.
Jesus is telling us about living. His group... Yes? Sorry, I just want to mention about the yoke.
Yes? Back in the day, they used to have T-bars for skiers. So, if you are yoked on the T-bar with someone who doesn't know what they're doing, and their skis go all the wrong feet, then you fall off the T-bar, too.
So, if you've got the wrong person on the T-bar with you, you're good, which would be Jesus, as you said. And if it's the wrong person, you're all screwed up. Well, now, as a person who I can recognize skis four out of eight times, I have no idea what a T-bar is, so I don't get the illustration.
Okay, so it's like an upside-down T, and two people sit on it. And if one person's skis gets screwed up, the whole T-bar goes up like this, and you're welcome to go up the ground.
Isn't it? And that takes you up the hill. Yeah. What an interesting illustration. Yeah. Wow. See, I learned something new tonight.
Never ski. Okay, so. All right, so we have read the passage three times, devotionally.
We have meditated on the passage. What we've done is what you do in meditation. You grab hold of what the Lord has given you through that passage, and you reflect on it.
As what it has to do with your life. You meditate on it. Okay? Then we get to the third portion, and that's praying about the passage.
Always with gratitude. Make it a dialogue. So I'm going to ask that we just go into prayer now. And as you feel led, pray to the Lord aloud or in silence, reflecting on this passage.
Okay? So let's... The Lord be with you. And all of us. Let us pray. Amen. Amen.
Thank you, Lord, that you invited me to come to me. Amen. Amen. Open our hearts, Lord, that we may learn from you.
And instead of doing, find rest for our souls. Thank you. God.
Thanks. Thank you that you have been where we are when we labor and when we're laden and we don't know what to do.
We thank you that you have been human and you have borne sorrows. And you have been raised from the dead and you raise us by your blood.
Thank you, Lord, that you can come down from the throne, which is rightly yours, and become a gentle and lowly, hearted teacher for us and an example for us.
Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you, Lord, that no matter what my burden is, Lord, you will take it from me if I only ask.
Thank you. Lord Jesus, I labor and sometimes I'm heavy laden.
Come to me when I am and I might find rest in you. For we offer these prayers, Father, in the name of Jesus.
Amen. Amen. And then the last is contemplate. Not so much in words, but in attitude and divine hearing.
Discerning the presence of God in this passage. This is not so much meant to get hints from God as to what horse to play.
I grew up in Saratoga County. I know about horses. It's not so much, you know, to do that as it is just to rest in the Lord. And so I'm going to ask that we have about a couple minutes of silence and just sit quietly and contemplate the presence of Jesus in your life right now.
Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.
Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. – Amen. That I'm the things. And look at me right now.
Okay, we do this exercise every so often. These are your burdens. put your hands up. these are your burdens. Now, I don't know what your burdens are, and you don't know what my burdens are, but every one of us, every one of us is carrying something very heavy.
Okay, now we're going to do the dump. Okay, the hands below you are the hands of Jesus. Now, when you're ready, if you want to give up that burden and let Jesus take it, I hope you've got it in your mind.
I'm going to give a second for you to figure out which burden you want to give to Jesus. And you can choose all of them if you like.
That's correct. Okay, all right. Now, whenever you're ready, I want you to release that. Turn your hands over like this and see your burdens going into the hands of Jesus.
Whenever you're ready, do that. And allow Jesus to take those burdens off your life and carry them to wherever it is because he wants to take them away from you.
People who meditate this way have found that the physical act of taking the burdens and put them in the hands of Jesus can be a freeing thing for the soul.
That's Matthew 11, 28 through 30. So you now have completed Lectio Divina. Now you have to say, well, when am I going to do that?
I don't have time to do that. When you're waiting for the doctor, that's a good time. Lectio Divina takes about between five minutes and 35 hours.
But you can easily do Lectio Divina in five minutes as long as you're not in a hurry. Find time to dialogue with the Lord in the Scripture.
So that's a little bit on Lectio Divina. Okay, we view all Scripture as speaking of Jesus. And I'm going to read a passage from Luke 24, 44.
Then he said to them, These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.
We enter into a passage knowing that Jesus is there with us. Which leads us to what sometimes is called a controversial subject.
Tongues. If you want to get a discussion going, say, you know, when I was speaking in tongues the other day, boom!
We have this Archbishop of Canterbury. His name is Justin Welby. He was interviewed last month. And he said he speaks in tongues every day.
And someone said, What tongue is he speaking in every day? But you see, he was influenced in a church when he was a pastor.
Not a pastor. He was an oil executive in England. He was discipled by a church called Holy Trinity Brompton, which has been on the cutting edge of renewal in England for years.
He learned about asking the Holy Spirit to fill him. And for him, not for everybody, but for him, it issued in speaking in a language he doesn't know.
Right? That's glossolalia. Speaking in a tongue. Speaking in a language you don't know. Okay? It is a deep form of prayer. And if I go to 1 Corinthians 14, there's a...
I'm going to go to 1 Corinthians 14, verse 18. I'm going to cherry pick here. Okay.
This is Paul, right? He's speaking to the Corinthians. They had this tongues thing really going. And Paul needed to get them focused as to what's going on here.
Okay? Now, in today's world, a lot of people have a theology that says tongues and other gifts of the Holy Spirit from Corinthians died when the last apostle died.
There was no longer a need for tongues because God speaks here in the Bible. Okay? That... There's a little problem with that theology in my mind.
When Paul was addressing the Corinthians, he was not trying to get them to shut up from speaking tongues. He was trying to move them in a direction that edification would come from tongues.
Edification building up. Okay? And so he says, verse 18 of chapter 14, I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you.
Nevertheless, in church, I'd rather speak five words with my mind in order to instruct others than 10,000 words in a tongue.
What that tells me is that tongues is primarily a gift that God has given me to address Him. And the first time I really found out about tongues, I was in seminary.
I had gone through the Marine Corps. I was now a chaplain at the Naval Hospital while in seminary and somebody gave me the book 9 o'clock in the morning which is written by an Episcopal priest, Dennis Bennett, who has gone on to be with the Lord.
Now he's really speaking in tongues. But, I read this book. I'm telling you, I'm on my way back from Bethesda in the middle of Washington, D.C.
traffic and all of a sudden words are coming out of my mouth. Loud words that I hadn't planned on. Now it could have been that I was mesmerized by Dennis Bennett's book.
Or it could have been that the Holy Spirit said, now you're ready to pray in this way. I prefer to believe that's the case. Speaking in tongues is a way of lifting the burden.
And letting God speak through me. I believe God is doing work in the world when he speaks through my tongues. I believe he's building me up as I release everything to the Lord.
I release so much that I even release my tongue. Release my mind to let God work prayer through me for people in Nigeria.
I think we should not argue about tongues. If you don't sense you have the gift of tongues then that's not a problem. In a denomination such as the Assemblies of God you've got to express a tongue before you can join the church.
Well we don't have that theology. In the Anglican communion we believe that if you have a call from the Holy Spirit for a gift such as a tongue you don't you don't refuse to unwrap it.
You use the gift. You don't put it in the closet. You don't just put it on the shelf. You don't throw in the garbage. You use the gift.
And so if you have a call to tongues and I was talking to someone who said I don't talk in tongues anymore my question was why?
If you've got the gift of tongues let God use it. Now for me I'm more into introvertist use of tongues rather than extrovertist use of tongues.
we have some distinguishing ways of using tongues in the church service. You know in this particular church when communion is over and there's a little silence before we say the thanksgiving that's a time for prophecy in tongues.
What we say though if you speak in a tongue we pray that there's somebody that will interpret it because you're in a public setting. Sometimes that happens sometimes it doesn't happen.
There's another church denomination called the charismatic episcopal church. They were never episcopal actually but they took on that name. Well I've gone to their church service.
They use the 1979 prayer book but they have little sprinkled in their times where you put the book down and you speak in tongues.
And then 10 or 15 people will speak in tongues sometimes at the same time. And when the pastor has enough he gets back into the liturgy. Well that's not our churchmanship.
But it is for some people. You know Mark you said you had a pastor that jumped around on the pews right? Yeah. So Caleb's going to do that next Sunday.
But that was their churchmanship. on Palm Sunday. Yes. I just wanted to mention if anyone, I have attended a service at HTV, that's what they call it.
All the signs say HTV, Holy Trinity Brompton, on the Brompton Road in London. And I have some very definite impressions which I'd be glad to share with anyone who's curious.
Okay. We're all curious now, Pam. What is she going to say? Okay. All right. So that's using tongues and getting close to the Lord.
All right. Mary Ellen? Yeah. I was very hesitant about using tongues for a long, long time. And it wasn't until I was extremely involved in the healing ministry that I allowed God to work through me in that way.
And it was very, very, helpful to me in that setting to be able to use the gift of tongues.
But I, like Dave, I don't think I have ever spoken tongues out loud. I'm usually just in a whisper, which, but it is very, very peaceful and it's very, very edifying.
And I think that's the whole purpose of the gift is the edification.
Can I make a comment about the gift of tongues and all the gifts? Sure. if you believe you have a gift, wouldn't the best way to approach it would be to pray to have God show you that gift?
Because sometimes we tend to squash gifts. I squash prophecies. I know I have the gift of prophecy.
But, you know, that's our humanness. But the same thing with all the gifts, the gifts of healing, the gifts of tongues, the gifts of, you know, any of them. If you think you've got it, pray for the strength to need it.
And pray for the knowledge that it is a gift in your toolbox. Absolutely, right on. And, you know, there are, we call the 1 Corinthians 12 the exotic gifts.
There are a lot of gifts that are not exotic. Administration, generosity, hospitality. Use the gifts God's given you. Absolutely right.
Don't, what do you call it, squashing the gifts? Don't squash the gifts. I'm thinking of sitting on a balloon. Okay. All right. Even as you decide to do something, pray, is that my gift?
Is that really the administration? What is your gift? Yeah, back in the 70s, we used to have these what, gift inventories. Remember those? Spiritual gift inventories.
We kind of went through that psychological phase. There were some good things about that, but one, the object was for you prayerfully in the presence of others to discern what particular gifts God gave you.
Well, I think there's, I don't think we need to do church groups with that, but I think it's important for all of us to do that. One of the things to do is just to say to the Lord, Lord, I'm open to whatever you have for me.
What gift? If you want me to speak in tongues, I'll do it. If you want me to have the gift of faith or miracles, whatever you want for me, I receive that gift.
And as a pastor, I hope that you all have the gift of financial generosity, but that's just me. Okay. All right. The next one that Dave is going to talk about is contemplation.
And the Latin term is contemplatio, gazing in faith and in silent love. And the scripture passage, be still and know that I am God.
Benedict XVI says, and I'm quoting him, contemplation is an intimate dialogue in which we hear God speaking and then we respond to him with trusting openness of heart.
Contemplation brings a new spiritual springtime. We're going to have, instead of breaking into small groups tonight, we're going to have a time for contemplation.
But we want to bring up a couple of prayer aids, let's call it. Prayer aids. Blood and wounds.
What a weird thing. Back several hundred years ago, there was a guy named Zinzendorf. Zinzendorf. And he was actually von Zinzendorf, which meant he was gentry.
He was not a commoner in Moravia. He actually started a community. Today we call them the Moravians.
Okay. From Moravia. One of the things he did was try to get his communities to contemplate the sacrifice of Jesus.
So he would have them sit before a crucifix to gaze on the crucifix, to contemplate the bloody wounds.
For a lot of us, that sounds gruesome. But in the process of thinking about the blood and the wounds, they became melded to the Christ that died for them.
That's one thing you can do in your prayer life, to meditate on Jesus dying on the cross for you, and actually live into it. Next week we're going to do that, aren't we, in church?
And that's another gift from our ancestors, to put special emphasis during the Holy Week on what Jesus did for us. So I ask you to come to church next week.
It's a whole lot of church, but it's a whole lot of God. Come every service. Live into that with us. Another thing that actually was given to me in prayer is what's called Jesus Rosary.
Now, some of you learn the Jesus prayer. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior, and I put, pray for me a sinner. Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior, pray for me a sinner.
And then I put something in the front. It sounds like the Hail Mary, except it's centered in Jesus. Not that I have anything against Mary. I mean, I like Mary.
But for Anglicans, sometimes doing a Jesus prayer feels a little more comfortable. So, in front, I say, Hail King Jesus, you are King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
By your precious blood you have redeemed us. And then the Jesus prayer. So, I say that through a I don't use beads, but I meditate on those words ten times, ten times, ten times, ten times, and ten times.
That makes fifty times. And there are little thoughts tracing the traditional rosary. You may want to Google that.
But there are mysteries. There are four mysteries to a rosary. Mysteries means concentrations, focuses, foci, meditation.
So, there's one that's called the joyful mystery. And the five decades of Lord Jesus Christ are about wonderful things that happened, like the annunciation, the visitation, the presentation.
Transfiguration is in the luminous mysteries. but, anyway, it comes out, presentation of Jesus in the temple. And then the finding of Jesus in the temple when he's twelve.
So, you use a prayer like that to help focus yourself in the Lord in a certain thing. The sorrowful mysteries, scourging at the pillar, the agony in the garden, the crowning with thorns, the carrying of the cross, and the crucifixion.
each time you pray ten times in order to have your mind focus on the Lord. And, yes? Even Catholics who use that as a rote prayer have lost sight that it began as a contemplative prayer.
Yeah. That you're supposed to meditate on the mysteries on each decade. Amen. And they just go through them like nobody's doing it. Well, yeah. They've lost sight of the contemplation.
Yeah. It's like the Lord's prayer. You can say that really fast. Amen. Sounds like mumbling. And so sometimes we lose the essence of what that's about.
You may want to think about saying Jesus' prayers. Because it focuses you on the Lord as you get close to Him. And lastly, we're going to talk about the spiritual armor of God.
in Ephesians 6, chapter 10 and following, putting on the whole armor of God to keep us safe and protect us from the enemy.
Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
Therefore, take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all to stand firm. Stand, therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace.
in all circumstances, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one, and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the spirit, with all prayer and supplication.
To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplications for all the saints. So, I strongly suggest that we all do this every day, put on the whole armor of God every single day, before we do anything else, because we need God's protection.
While I was helping at the healing center in Greenwich, New York, for several years, before every healing service on Tuesdays, we would pray a prayer of protection that was written by Father Francis, well, Francis McNutt, he's not a father, but not anymore.
And then at the end of every healing service, we would pray a setting free, a cutting free prayer prayer that cuts us loose from anything that we may have picked up during our prayer sessions, and covers us with the blood of Christ and the peace of Christ.
And I suggest that we should all be doing that as well. I should bring some of those cards. Yeah, you can bring some of those good cards.
things. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so we put on the armor every morning, the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, shouting our feet with the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, with which we can quench the fiery darts of the devil, right?
The helmet of salvation, salvation, and taking the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. I'll tell you, I'm not being, it's not magic, and I'm not being superstitious.
This is what God calls us to do every day. And I put the armor on my family members as well. God wants us to be protected, and he wants us to go with the word as an offensive, not offensive, but as an offensive weapon.
Okay. Praying at all times in your Holy Spirit. All right. So now, we're going to end by having a time of contemplation.
Now, you saw this picture and a few words the second week we were together. And we're going to use that as an object.
Yes, Raymond. I struggle with figuring out the difference. Maybe I'm the only one, I don't know, but I've seen this lecture many, many times over the years.
I've read it, followed it, I've heard teachings like you have, and I've got to confess, I understand very well what reading the scripture is. I got that down the road though.
I could read it three times or ten, but I have a hard time figuring out, at least from a personal standpoint, the difference between meditating on it, praying on it, and contemplating on it.
Maybe I'm overly rational, but I'm trying to somehow get a grip on those three things and doing something different with those three things, and I've never been able to grab them.
Maybe I'm blowing your hole. I don't know. I can give you... And in the same way, the contemplation that you talk about after, I can't dice it.
Right. Because we don't need to dice it. What works for you in your relationship with God? So, I'm glad you brought that up, because we're not saying that from nine to ten, you do Lectio Divina.
And then, ten to eleven, you speak in tongues, and then eleven to twelve, you do contemplation. You may find that you don't want to do any of those. Okay?
If your life is sustained by Christ, you're not going to get to heaven, and he say, you know what? You missed Lectio Divina.
Yes, Pam? I think that for me, I'm just replying to what you said, Ray. For me, I have to remember that the Word of God is alive and active.
And if the Word says it's alive and active, so I believe it. So, if it is alive and active, then every time you read it, God can speak to you about a different aspect of that scripture.
I find whenever I prepare the Bible study, for instance, I read a verse that I read a hundred times, and it's different. It's different.
I don't know how. It's just the Holy Spirit. Amen. So, I can figure that out real well. I understand that, but I can't, I'm just having a hard time figuring out, all right, first I'm going to meditate, then I'm going to pray, then I'm going to contemplate.
I don't know what I'm doing differently each of those times. Yeah. I just don't know. Yeah. What we're doing, trying to be very, monks were very simple people, and monks were always checklist kind of people.
And so, that's a checklist. If you want to do contemplation up here, knock yourself out. But these are steps people can use to grow closer in the Lord.
Head of hand here. And what is the difference between, what's the difference between meditation and contemplation? Right. Good question. And I mention here, this is not contemplation. In Lectio Divina, to contemplate something is simply to think deeply about it.
And that's to meditate on it. Same thing? Yeah. Basically. pray on it. This is to think spiritually. This is to think deeply.
This has words. This doesn't necessarily have words. And some of us just don't groove. We don't groove. We all have different personalities. Some of us love words.
Some of us don't need words. Some of us would rather not have words. We were doing a silent retreat for our clergy one time. And after about the third day, a real extrovert came up to me and said, you know, what we need to have to balance this out is we need a word retreat where you've got to talk.
I understood who he was talking about. Yes, ma'am. Well, I think for me, what I'm getting out of this is, you know, if I read the Bible, don't just, all right, I'm going to read a chapter, I'm going to read a chapter, I'm going to go, the Bible and God, I'll get you, whatever you want.
It's thinking about what I've read a little bit, and listening to God when I pray, listening to see what he has to say to you, and I'll give you a chance to speak to my heart.
Bingo! And sometimes you're going to read, you say in your mind, I'm going to read chapter 13 of something today, and all of a sudden you get stuck on verse 1, 2, and 3, and that ends up being your meditation, and then you say, oh heck, I was going to read this whole chapter, but I didn't get a chance because God had a different...
And the answer to that is, oh well. Oh well, right. The other thing that you just ask God what he wants to do with those verses. Yeah. Yeah. Yep.
Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. We're doing a stylized version of what the two of you just said.
Yep. Okay, so we're going to go into an act of contemplation now, not to contemplate the deep thinking deeply.
this is from the monastic existence of divine silence, and there's a process we go through it.
Eastern religions use it. They got it from the monks, but it's a way of getting our body and our mind and our soul centered in the Lord.
So I'm going to ask you to just live through this with me if you can. First of all, we need to be seated in such a way that we can relax.
So both feet on the floor, sensing we're going deep into the Lord, our feet are on the floor. Some people like to put their hands on their knees, palms up, but the big thing is just to be relaxed.
And then I'd like you to close your eyes. And one thing we are is very tight.
when I was in flight school, I flunked and all the other Marines flunked the swimming test.
And all the Navy guys passed the swimming test. So we had to go into remedial swim eight hours a day until we passed the test.
The Navy instructor said the problem with you Marines is you're so tight muscular wise. Just relax in the water. And guess what?
We didn't have to spend eight hours in the pool. Relaxing in the Lord is important. So your eyes are closed and you begin to relax those muscles. I like to start at the feet and work up.
And I like to use the words that Jesus used when he calmed the storm. He said peace be still. And so I think about my feet and how tight they are and how I jog miles on them and I just loosen them up and I feel them loosen up.
And my legs which carry me from here to there I just let those muscles loosen up. my stomach begin because I worry too much.
I loosen my stomach muscles. My chest I just loosen that up. The small of my back and my back where I carry a million things and where most people ache in their backs.
I relax those muscles. I get to my shoulders where I carry the yoke. I do a little rolling of my shoulders and then I relax them.
I release my arms and just let them hang and be at peace. I move to my neck.
When we say someone is a pain in the neck, that's true and so I loosen my neck, that the pain is gone. I set my jaw in an easy way rather than set it tight.
I wipe my brow and I wipe away the worry. And I find that I am at peace as it was with Jesus in the boat as he calmed the store.
Once I'm feeling at peace, I get in touch with my breathing and I slow down my breathing. Some people take a deep breath and let it out, breathing in God's word and breathing out the junk.
And I let my breathing be more relaxed. first. And then I begin a process of listening for the Lord. First of all, I've got to hear things that actually are in my hearing, like little kids having fun.
So I try to listen to three different noises that I can actually hear. hear. And then I listen beyond the edge of listening.
I listen for things I like to hear. Perhaps the crackling of a fire in the fireplace. Or my favorite, heavy wind blowing through the trees.
or a soft voice that touches you. Or a river runs through it.
And finally, I listen for Jesus. And I listen as He calls my name.
And my heart melts as I realize that Jesus knows me by name. And He's calling me to Him to cast my burdens on Him.
At this point, I'm ready to just contemplate the beauty of God. So I'd ask you to look at that sheet in front of you. It says, Jesus, our model prayer warrior.
Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. In all, His words, actions, silence, miracles, Jesus serves as the best model for us to study, to meditate, to contemplate, and of course, to imitate.
So I would ask you now whether your contemplation has to do with words, or it has to do with a characterization of Jesus at prayer.
Spend a minute or two just being with the Lord. Lord, Lord, Lord, Lord, for you to do with the presied and to to to to to to the of the and the you and the you and to the to the o the the the the the the the lip the the the the the the the lip lip lip lip lip lip lip lip lip lip lip lip lipsa lip lip lip lip lip lip lip lip Can I see that one in there?
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Can I see that one in there? so summary tonight we spent time in uh prayer in uh lectio divina we spent time talking about being free to use the gifts god gives us in prayer we spent time doing an act of contemplation and whatever you want to do with it is up to you you can say that was an interesting evening or you might take some of these principles into your life so i'm going to end in prayer lord god we thank you that we have spent a lot of time with you tonight in acts of prayer we thank you for the monks and what they have taught us over the centuries lord we ask that for each one of us this week you might show yourself to us in a wonderful way as we reveal ourselves to you we pray this father in the name of jesus and in the power of the holy spirit amen next week will be our last week that's holy week and we'll talk about jesus and the disciples in their prayer life uh during holy week okay thank you i know in um the contemplative yes we don't like to talk about mantras i know but i mean when i learned about it i learned about it without it being a mantra but with something that helps you from that sorry let me shut that up helps you from that you