Tuesday, May 19, 2015

  Acts 20: 17 -  27

    Paul sent word from Miletus to Ephesus, summoning the presbyters of that church.  When they came to him he delivered this address: "You know how I lived among you from the first day I set foot in the province of Asia - how I served the Lord in humility through the sorrows and trials that came my way from the plottings of certain Jews. Never did I shrink from telling you what was for your own good, or from teaching you in pubic or in private. With Jews and Greeks alike I insisted solemnly on repentance before God and on faith in our Lord Jesus. But now, as you see, I am on my way to Jerusalem, compelled by the Spirit and not knowing what will happen to me there - except that the Holy Spirit has been warning me from city to city that chains and hardships await me. I put no value on my life if only I can finish my race and complete the service to which I have been assigned by the Lord Jesus, bearing witness to the gospel of God's grace. I know as I speak these words that none of you among whom I went about preaching the kingdom will ever see my face again. Therefore I solemnly declare this day that I take the blame for no man 's conscience, for I have never shrunk from announcing to you God's design in its entirety."

Psalm 68: 10 - 11, 20 - 21

    A bountiful rain you showered down, O God, upon your inheritance; you restored the land when it languished; your flock settled in it, in your goodness, O God, you provided it for the needy. 

    Blessed day by day be the Lord, who bears our burdens; God, who is our salvation.  God is a saving God for us; the Lord, my Lord, controls the passageways of death.

Gospel of John 17: 1 - 11

    After he had spoken these words, Jesus looked up to heaven and said:

   "Father, the hour has come!  Give glory to your Son that your Son may give glory to you, inasmuch as you have given him authority over all mankind, that he may bestow eternal life on those you gave him.  (Eternal life is this: to know you, the only true God, and him whom you have sent, Jesus Christ.)  I have given you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. Do you now, Father, give me glory at your side, a glory I had with you before the world began. I have made your name known to those you gave me out of the world, these men you gave me were yours; they have kept your word. Now they realize that all that you gave me comes from you. I entrusted to them the message you entrusted to me, and they received it. They have known that in truth I came from you, they have believed it was you who sent me.

  For these I pray - not for the world but for these you have given me, for they are really  yours. (Just as all that belongs to me is yours, so all that belongs to you is mine.)  It is in them that I have been glorified. I am in the world no more, but these are in the world as I come to you, O Father most holy, protect them with your name which you have given me that they may be one, even as we are one."