Blog

Prayers for Holy Week

Palm Sunday, Good Friday, Easter Sunday – I heard these terms growing up, but they weren’t really part of the faith tradition I was raised in besides Easter, which we said we celebrated every Sunday throughout the year. Prayers for Holy Week didn’t really occur to me when I was younger. The Christian calendar and using the seasons and special days to mark a celebration of our faith is something I picked up later in life. If you want to know my personal story about that, it’s at the bottom of this post.

I find that marking each day leading up to Easter is much more meaningful than just having a celebration on Easter Sunday itself. How do you do that?

Prayers for Holy Week leading up to Easter include daily devotionals on podcast.word-of-prayer.com
Easter Devotionals at podcast.word-of-prayer.com

Let me suggest two ways. There are many others possible and we’ll explore those in future Easters, but for this year I have been featuring Journey with Jesus and praying through Matthew’s gospel, so the prayers for Holy Week this year are all from Matthew.

Two ways to pray during Holy Week

First, if you want to follow our current podcast you can pray through Matthew 27 (the crucifixion) this week. This allows you to meditate on the crucifixion and its layers of meaning throughout the week. Just make sure you are subscribed to our podcast in iTunes or follow it on Spotify or your favorite podcast player (it’s on Youtube too) and you’ll be set to get each episode. The schedule is: Monday – “Ruler” (Matt 27:11-19); Tuesday – “Crucify” (Matt 27:20-31); Wednesday – “Curses” (Matt 27:32-44); Thursday – “Forsaken” (Matt 27:45-49); Friday – “The Earth Shook” (Matt 27:50-54); Saturday – “The Tomb” (Matt 27:55-66); Sunday – “He has Risen!” (Matt 28:1-6).

The second way is to keep up with each day in Jesus’ final week in Jerusalem leading up to the crucifixion on Good Friday and the resurrection on Easter Sunday. In other words, you read about what is happening on the day of the week that it happened. If you want to do that, you can read the passages yourself or you can listen to the podcast episodes that lead you through this. Here’s a suggested plan:

Monday – “Love” (Matt 22:34-40); Tuesday – “My Words” (Matt 24:29-35); Wednesday – “Bethany” (Matt 26:31-13); Maundy Thursday – “Real Prayer” (Matt 26:36-39) and/or “Seized” (Matt 26:50-56) and/or “Condemned” (Matt 26:57-68); Good Friday – “Crucify” (Matt 27:20-31) and/or “The Earth Shook” (Matt 27:50-54); Saturday – “The Tomb” (Matt 27:55-66); Easter Sunday – “He has Risen!” (Matt 28:1-6).

With coronavirus and social distancing, this year is unlike any other and I feel strongly we need to find a deeper meaning in our faith in God and also connection to others at this time. I hope praying the prayers of holy week together will help you do that now.

(more below – my personal take on the Christian calendar)

(more…)

Continue ReadingPrayers for Holy Week

How to Begin Reading the Bible, Meditation and Prayer

I have a question for you. Do you see reading the Bible, meditation and prayer as three separate things? If so, are you struggling to consistently do one or two of these on a regular basis, much less all three of them? How do you begin reading the Bible, meditation and prayer without overload?

Most Christians struggle with Bible reading and prayer and pretty much miss out on the meditation. What if you could do all three of them without adding more of a burden to your daily schedule?

Yes, that’s a lot of questions to think about, but I hope I have your interest. If you’ve listened to any of the episodes on the First Fifteen podcast, you might already have an idea of what I’m talking about. If not, and you’re a audio learner or someone who likes to listen on the go, head over there and download/listen to season 1’s first episode.

But maybe you’re a visual person. I have something for you too. Check out the new video on Youtube that demonstrates a process you can follow (it’s also less than 15 minutes).

https://youtu.be/VF4-XhJdFts (the direct link)

(more…)

Continue ReadingHow to Begin Reading the Bible, Meditation and Prayer

How to Pray with Your Breath

  • Post author:
  • Post category:Prayer is...

Life in the Spirit is freeing! “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Cor 3:17) One of the best ways to experience that is through prayer, breath prayer specifically.

Wind, like the Spirit, moves wherever it wills mysteriously

The word for spirit in both Hebrew and Greek (the two primary languages scripture is written in) is also used for wind and breath (ruach in Heb, pneuma in Grk). While that may surprise or puzzle an English speaker (given we have several distinct words for these different things), it points us to a common perception. For ancient people, things of the spirit or of the spiritual realm were related to and often illustrated by the breath and the wind, two things that are unseen but are vital to life and existence.

Stay with me on this. Jesus actually drew out the comparison in his own teaching. In John 3, Jesus taught Nicodemus about the new birth and in the process he gives an analogy for how the Spirit moves like the wind–and we really can’t explain either one very well (John 3:5-8). It’s also not a mere coincidence that when the Holy Spirit came with power on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2 there was a sound like a mighty roaring windstorm (Acts 2:2).

Further, after his resurrection Jesus appeared to his disciples several times. On one occasion that John records, he speaks a word of peace on them, then he breathes on them and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” (John 20:21-22) Again, it’s not just a coincidence because God is the one who first breathed the breath of life into Adam after making him out of clay. (Gen 2:7)

(more…)

Continue ReadingHow to Pray with Your Breath