Second Feast Day

The Kingdom of God Drawn Near

Second Feast Day

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Second Feast Day

Sunday, March 16, 2025

Gay B Brown

Mar 16, 2025

Yahoo! It is Sunday again and our second Feast Day!! On this Lord’s Day, enjoy worshiping with your church family, through songs and hymns, through the reading and teaching of God’s Word, through giving cheerfully, and enjoying the blessed gift of food, chocolate, social media, or anything you may have set aside for your Lenten promise.

Moments of Prayer

Today we focus on Jesus’ prayer for wisdom as He prepares to make a critical decision.

Read Luke 6:12-16

Jesus prays alone, and all night long before He makes a significant decision - who of the many disciples following Him would be tapped as The Twelve? Jesus recognizes that the choice of these twelve specific men will have lasting, even eternal consequences. These men would be tasked with carrying the gospel of The Kingdom of God Drawn Near to the entire world after His departure. This was big! I hope you noticed that the last of the Twelve mentioned was “Judas Iscariot, who would become a traitor.” (v 16) Recorded as one of the twelve disciples, Judas Iscariot was chosen to be an Apostle, chosen by Jesus to live with Him and to learn from Him. Could it be that Jesus didn’t hear His Father correctly while in prayer all night long? Was he mistaken in choosing Judas as the 12th apostle? Of course not! So, why then did Jesus choose Judas? So that the Scriptures would be fulfilled, specifically Psalm 41:9, “Even my friend, a man of my peace, one who ate my bread, has raised his heel against me.” Jesus was not surprised by Judas’s betrayal. Rather, Jesus chose Judas knowing fully that he had a wicked and unbelieving heart that would eventually lead to betrayal and fulfillment of scripture.

Are you currently facing a big decision? If so, I’d encourage you to use this season of fasting to pray fervently and specifically for wisdom. The Holy Spirit is our counselor, our wisdom and our guide. As you continue your Lenten fast, consider following the New Testament writer James’ counsel, “Now if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God - who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly - and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith without doubting. For the doubter is like the surging sea, driven and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord, being double-minded and unstable in all his ways.” (James 1:5-8)

For those of you who appreciate liturgical prayers that you can adopt as your own, here is a sweet one:

God of silence and God of all sound,

help me to listen.

Help me to do the deep listening to the sounds of my soul,

waiting to hear your soft voice calling me deeper into you.

Give me attentive ears

that begin to separate the noise from the sounds that are you;

You who have been speaking to me

and through me my whole life,

for so long that you can seem like background noise.

Today help me hear you anew.

- Author Unknown

Lastly, enjoy this beautiful song that reminds me that the same God the patriarchs, the prophets, priests and kings and His Son, our Savior Jesus prayed to, hears us when we cry out to Him: