Sep 26, 2021

372 Doing What We Know To Be Right, A Guided Christian Meditation on James 4:13-17 with the Recenter With Christ app

I'm Chaplain Jared and I work as a hospice chaplain and an ICU chaplain, my purpose in making this podcast is to help you find more peace in your life and to be more open for your heart to be changed by the Spirit of God. By using centuries old form of Christian Meditation named Lectio Divina:

Outline: Relaxation, Reading, Meditation, Prayer, Contemplation and Visualization.

Get into a place where you can sit comfortably and uninterrupted for about 20 minutes.You should hopefully not be driving or anything tensing or unrelaxing. If you feel comfortable to do so, I invite you to close your eyes.

Guided Relaxation / Guided Meditation:

Breathe and direct your thoughts to connecting with God. Let your stomach be a balloon inflate, deflate.

Bible verses for Meditation:

James4
NRSV
13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there, doing business and making money.” 14 Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wishes, we will live and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil. 17 Anyone, then, who knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, commits sin.

NABRE
13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we shall go into such and such a town, spend a year there doing business, and make a profit”— 14 you have no idea what your life will be like tomorrow. You are a puff of smoke that appears briefly and then disappears. 15 Instead you should say, “If the Lord wills it, we shall live to do this or that.” 16 But now you are boasting in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. 17 So for one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, it is a sin

Meditation on Scripture:

In a great eternal irony when we feel shame and run from responsibility before our sin, we become even more disempowered and less able to overcome our failings. Who among us can truly say they do everything they know they should? When we are able to accept our wrong doing before the Lord for not doing what we should, while embracing His grace, we are in a much better position to actually do something about it. We are in a position to ask forgiveness, we are in a position to change. It is not enough to simply ignore that we do wrong things, but we need to come to terms with our fault before the Lord for the myriad things we do against His will. It can be paradoxical when we truly are able to be honest about our fallen state and petition the Lord for forgiveness at first we may feel as though we walk through fire but as we continue in faith, this fire is quenched by God. And yet all of us can receive God’s grace as we trust Jesus as our savior.

It seems that there is a connection to sin and the illusion that we are able to control the future in general. When we operate under the assumption that we control the world, we may think that we get to choose the consequences of our actions, which is a complete falsehood. We can not choose the actions of tomorrow no more than we can choose the effects of sin. There is a deep and eternal connection to truly receiving God’s grace, and our willingness to be honest with our failings. And ironically we can become more willing to look our sin in the face when we trust God’s grace. The Gospel is not a message of vanilla self acceptance but true redemption from the hellish consequences of choosing evil. Our peace then, does not come from covering our sin but from the assurance that God has indeed redeemed us from it all. This is the peace Jesus offers.

Meditation of Prayer:

Pray as directed by the Spirit.

Dedicate these moments to the patient waiting, when you feel ready ask God for understanding you desire from Him.

Meditation of God and His Glory / Hesychasm:

I invite you to sit in silence feeling patient for your own faults and trials.

Summarize what insights you have gained during this meditation and meditate and visualize positive change in your life:
This is a listener funded podcast at patreon.com/christianmeditationpodcast

Updates:

Final Question: How does God’s grace empower you to be able to take accountability for your failings?

Final Thought:

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