Week: Me and Myself
As usual, each day we will simply pray (P.R.A.Y.) together.
P: PAUSING to be still.
R: REJOICING with a Memory Verse and REFLECTING on some verses from the Bible.
A: ASKING God to help us and others.
Y: saying YES to God’s ways.
We start by pausing and taking a deep breath:
In and out.
In and out.
We remember that God is here, and so together we prepare ourselves to be with God.
Pause
Jesus, You came to bring peace and healing, and because of You we can now be reconciled with God, with ourselves, with other people and with the whole world. We’re ready for You to restore our relationships a little bit more today.
We REJOICE and celebrate God’s goodness with this week’s memory verse:
Read by Elanor
Psalm 139:14
I praise you because you made me in an amazing and wonderful way.
What you have done is wonderful. I know this very well.
Psalm 139:14 (NCV)
God, help us to remember Your Word.
Today we are REFLECTING on Jesus’ response to a question He was asked by one of the teachers of the Law of Moses, ‘What is the most important commandment?’
Read by Elanor
Mark 12:29-31
Jesus answered, ‘The most important command is this: “Listen, people of Israel! The Lord our God is the only Lord. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.” The second command is this: “Love your neighbour as you love yourself.” There are no commands more important than these.’
Mark 12:29-31 (NCV)
If these verses seem familiar, it’s because we’ve already used them a few times in Lectio for Families, but they’re so important that we’ve decided to use them again. This week is all about being reconciled to ourselves, which means learning to love, value and accept ourselves because God made us and loves us.
In these verses, Jesus tells us to love others as we love ourselves. We often learn about how to love others but we don’t spend much time learning about how to love, value and see ourselves the way God does.
Let’s press pause and talk about today’s question, which is: What different ways could we love ourselves this week? Let’s see how many we can think of.
Let’s close our eyes and ask ourselves a really honest question: How well do we value and love ourselves? Would our friends and family say we love and accept ourselves just the way we are?
Holy Spirit, we ASK You to help us show ourselves a little more love and kindness today.
How about we try to put this into practice? Let’s think of one thing we can do to love ourselves this week. Maybe we could choose one of the ways that we talked about just now?
Let’s quietly talk with God about what we’re going to do.
As we read the Bible again, let’s listen for a word or a phrase that the Holy Spirit might want to say to us from today’s verses.
Mark 12:29-31
Jesus answered, ‘The most important command is this: “Listen, people of Israel! The Lord our God is the only Lord. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.” The second command is this: “Love your neighbour as you love yourself.” There are no commands more important than these.’
Mark 12:29-31 (NCV)
What word or phrase stood out from today’s Bible verses?
And now, let’s say YES to God together.
Jesus, we say YES to loving God, others AND ourselves, just like you taught us to.
After enjoying this time with God and each other, let’s say our memory verse together:
Psalm 139:14
I praise you because you made me in an amazing and wonderful way.
What you have done is wonderful. I know this very well.
Psalm 139:14 (NCV)
Let’s put a hand on our heart.
Father God, fill us with Your love. Help us to love You, and everything that You’ve made.
Let’s point to our eyes.
Lord Jesus, help us to see You, and to see others the way that You see them too.
Let’s point to our ears.
Holy Spirit, help us to hear You, and give us courage to do what You say.
Unathi lives in Johannesburg, South Africa, with her husband and 5 kids; and has a passion for seeing families thriving.
You’ll most likely find her homeschooling the tribe, reading, writing, or dreaming about the next DIY project.
She also loves good coffee, dark chocolate and hiking.
Elanor is 12 years old and lives in East London with her parents and younger brother. She enjoys going on adventures with her friends, reading lots of books, horse riding, acting, singing, dancing and finding different ways to pray to God.
