Engage The Word – April 14, 2015

1. Before you read, quiet your heart for one minute of silence

2. Read the following Scripture:

1 Samuel 16: 1 – 5

The Lord said to Samuel, “How long will you mourn for Saul, since I have rejectedhim as king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and be on your way; I am sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem. I have chosen one of his sons to be king.”
2 But Samuel said, “How can I go? If Saul hears about it, he will kill me.” The Lord said, “Take a heifer with you and say, ‘I have come to sacrifice to the Lord.’
3 Invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what to do. You are to anoint for me the one I indicate.”
4 Samuel did what the Lord said. When he arrived at Bethlehem, the elders of the town trembled when they met him. They asked, “Do you come in peace?”
5 Samuel replied, “Yes, in peace; I have come to sacrifice to the Lord. Consecrateyourselves and come to the sacrifice with me.” Then he consecrated Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice.

3. What God saying to you through this Scripture?  Pause for another minute and let God speak to you in your silence

4.  Read the following Scripture:

Hebrews 11:35 – 39

35 Women received back their dead, raised to life again. There were others who were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection.
36 Some faced jeers and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment.
37 They were put to death by stoning;[e] they were sawed in two; they were killed by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated-
38 the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, living in caves and in holes in the ground.
39 These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised,
40 since God had planned something better for us so that only together with uswould they be made perfect.

5.  Does this relate to my life?  What does God want me to do with this passage of Scripture? Pause for one more minute and reflect upon what God is speaking to your heart in this moment. 

6.  The Gloria
“Glory be to the Father, and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit.  As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be.  World without end.”
 Amen.