Praying on the Nines - A Lenten Devotion for 2022 - The Prayer Ministry of GPC's Congregational Care Committee Offers: Germantown ...

The Prayer Ministry of GPC’s
        Congregational
    Care Committee Offers:

 Praying on the Nines –
A Lenten Devotion for 2022

          www.GPCTN.org

The Prayer Ministry of GPC offers to every GPC member and visitor
the opportunity to pray together at 9:00am and again at 9:00pm each
day on the same prayer topic and/or need.

The Prayer Ministry plans to bring these opportunities to our GPC
family of faith throughout the Christian calendar year, and in 2022
this begins with the Lenten Season.

Lent 2022: Oftentimes the Season of Lent is approached with the
personal question, “What should I give up? Chocolate? Meat?
Coffee? Alcohol? So many options!” This Lenten Season, however,
the Prayer Ministry of GPC invites you to “take on” something
rather than “give something up”. What we want you to take on are
characteristics of Christ … one new characteristic each week during
Lent. Each week’s focus scripture and prayer prompt will lead you to
the upcoming Sunday’s worship service and sermon.

We hope you will join us on this journey as we pray about taking on
Jesus’ characteristics of:
        • Belief,
        • Discipline,
        • Holiness,
        • Reconciliation,
        • Faith, and
        • Humility
and Pray on the Nines (or whatever times work for you morning and
night) together as a family of faith.

Praying on the Nines Lenten Devotion
(see focus scripture passages and prayer prompts)
             (GPC’s Prayer Ministry)

Week One – Belief
Week Two – Discipline
Week Three – Holiness
Week Four – Reconciliation
Week Five – Faith
Week Six - Humility

Unless otherwise noted, all scripture quotations come from the NRSV.

Week One – (11 days - Ash Wednesday,
             March 2 – Saturday March 12) – Belief

Image credit: “Christ Mosaic,” Sacred Heart Cathedral in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia

  Romans 10:9-10: If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and
  believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
  For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with
  the mouth and so is saved.

  For Paul belief is foundational. All other aspects of the spiritual
  life – character, charity, acts of piety and justice, community,
  and many others, are mere fruits of the basic convictions one
  has about God’s grace and the assurances that come from it.

  Pray: each morning and each evening on this passage and be
  open to how God will lead and guide you in this week with
  regard to your own faith and belief.

Week Two – Sunday March 13-Saturday March 19 –
                              Discipline

    Image credit: “Jesus Discourses with His Disciples,” James Tissot

Philippians 3:17 – Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and observe
those who live according to the example you have in us.

Paul directs others to follow him as he points the way toward
Christ Jesus. Paul teaches that to be a follower of Jesus means
to follow the example of others and to model the same
discipline in your life for others to also see and follow.

Pray: each morning and evening on this passage and
prayerfully consider how you are both following the lead of
an “imitator of Christ,” and how you are living a life that
others can imitate.

Week Three – Sunday, March 20-Saturday, March 26 –
                              H oliness

     Image credit: “Christ the Redeemer,” Paul Maximilien, Leonida
                       Gheorghe, Rio de Janeiro.

1 Corinthians 10:1-13 (selections) – I do not want you to be
unaware, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the same
cloud – all passed through the sea – all were baptized into Moses in the
cloud and sea, and all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same
spiritual drink …. Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them
… [for] they sat down to eat and drink and then rose up to play … these
things occurred as examples for us.

[Therefore], we must not indulge in sexual immortality as some of them
did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day. We must not put Christ
to the test, as some of them did, and were destroyed by serpents.

No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is
faithful and will not allow you to be tested beyond your strength but will
also provide you the way out so that you are able to endure whatever comes
your way.

As harsh as this passage may seem at first read, it is good for
us to be reminded we can learn how “not to behave” from
those who’ve sinned against God. Paul is speaking about the
ancient Israelites and identifies sexual immorality as the source
of profound downfall. He equates their behavior as “putting
Christ to the test” and instructs us not to follow their pathway.
Paul’s writing provides hope, reminding us that regardless of
the temptations we might face, God will provide all we need to
overcome them and will always be steadfastly beside us, come
what may.

Pray: each morning and each evening on this passage and
prayerfully consider what temptations you are facing; ask for
God’s guidance through them so that you will be living a life
pleasing to God.

Week Four – Sunday March 27-Saturday, April 2 –
                           Reconciliation

   Image credit: “Reconciliation,” Josefina de Vasconcellos, Coventry
                                Cathedral

2 Corinthians 5:17-19 – So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new
creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!
All this is from God, who reconciled us to God’s self through Christ, and
has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was
reconciling the world to God’s self, not counting their trespasses against
them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.

Paul invites the church to consider a deeper criterion than our
human point of view – namely, the orientation of one’s heart
toward God. What might this transformation of our “old

selves” into “new selves” look like? Paul suggests it will be a
radical alteration of priorities and perspectives to be more in
line with the way and will of God – a true reconciliation of our
hearts and minds with the heart and mind of God in Christ
Jesus.

Pray: each morning and each evening about your own
perspective – that is, your worldview. Is it through the lens of
Christ? Pray about your own transformation to a new creation
– someone who is reconciled to God’s self through Christ -
during this season of Lent.

Week Five – Sunday, April 3-Saturday, April 9 – Faith

                   Image credit: “Prayer,” D Shannon

Philippians 3:10-12 – I want to know Christ and the power of his
resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his
death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I
have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on
to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.

We hear in this verse echoes of Jesus in the Gospels, who told
the disciples that to be first, they needed to be last, and that
they needed to lose their lives to gain them. Paul upends
conventional wisdom to point to one of the chief principles of
living in God’s kingdom: it is not about us – it is all about
Christ!

Pray: each morning and each evening on this passage as you
prayerfully consider what changes you need to make in your
own life to put Christ first in all your relationships – with God,
with your life partners, with your children, and with yourself.

Week Six – Sunday, April 10-Saturday, April 16 –
                             H umility

          Image credit: “In the Night of Faith,” Paolo Medina

Philippians 2:8 – He humbled himself and became obedient to the point
of death – even death on a cross.

This is Holy Week: it begins the triumphant entry of Jesus into
the city of Jerusalem and then follows his last week on this
earth. It begins with the crowds cheering him and ends with
the crowds shouting “Crucify him! Crucify him!” We invite you
to read all the scripture passages during Holy Week slowly and
carefully so that you will be well prepared to hear of his
execution on Good Friday, and then, then, of his glorious
resurrection on Easter morning.

Palm Sunday: Luke 19:28-40
Monday – John 12:1-11
Tuesday – John 12:20-36
Wednesday – John 13:21-32
Maundy Thursday – John 13:1-17, 31b-35
Good Friday – John 18:1-19:42

Read and pray: each morning and each evening as you slowly
ponder these passages and the last week of the life of our Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ.

Saturday – rest and prepare yourselves for Easter Sunday

Humility comes from the Latin word humus – which literally
means dirt. To be humble means to see oneself as grounded,
drawn from the earth, connected to all of life, no better and no
worse than the rest of all creation. Consider your own life lived
through the lens of humility each day.

Sunday, April 17 – EASTER, RESURRECTION
                   SUNDAY! Victory

       Image Credit: “The Glory of Christ,” Stephen B. Whatley

1 Corinthians 15:19-26 - But in fact Christ has been raised from the
dead, the first fruits of those who have died … the last enemy to be
destroyed is death.

Praise be to God! He is risen! He is risen, indeed! Let us live
our lives as Easter people, now and forevermore!

Belief – Discipline – Holiness – Reconciliation – Faith –
Humility – these are the essentials of Christian character.

As you’ve read these passages of holy scripture and prayed
each day on the nines, we hope you’ve been inspired by God’s
Holy Spirit to adapt each one into your own lives and that you
now feel as though you are new creations in Christ!

Thank you for journeying with your fellow GPC parishioners
as we’ve Prayed on the Nines together.

May God’s blessings continue to abide with you, and may you
continue to share your blessings with everyone you meet.

This Lenten devotion was written by Rev. Susan Carter Wiggins and
adapted from the “Lenten Sermon Series: Character and Calling” by Magrey
R. DeVega (Jessica Miller Kelley, compiler, A Preacher’s Guide to
Lectionary Sermon Series: Thematic Plans for Years A, B, and C, Volume
2, [Westminster John Knox Press, 2019], 185-195).

2363 S Germantown Rd
Germantown TN 38138
  www.GPCTN.org
   Ph: 901-754-5195