Affirm
My heart is not proud, O LORD, my eyes are not haughty;
I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me.
But I have stilled and quieted my soul;
like a weaned child with its mother,
like a weaned child is my soul within me.
O Israel,
put your hope in the LORD both now and forevermore.
Psalm 131
TEXT
Mark 12:1-6
Jesus then began to speak to them in parables: “A man planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a pit for the winepress and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and moved to another place. At harvest time he sent a servant to the tenants to collect from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. But they seized him, beat him and sent him away empty-handed. Then he sent another servant to them; they struck this man on the head and treated him shamefully. He sent still another, and that one they killed. He sent many others; some of them they beat, others they killed.
“He had one left to send, a son, whom he loved. He sent him last of all, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ (NIV)
READ
“Jesus touched the word ‘sorrow,’ which had been a dull, senseless, degrading, paralyzing thing, and turned it into Sorrow- something that now has redemptive purposes in it. A mere cross, with its writhing victim and its shame, has now become a Cross, a place where redemption is wrought out, turning tragedy into the redemptive purposes of God. Now, Sorrow takes us by the hand and leads us to God, while before it took us by the hand and led is to the clod.”
-E. Stanley Jones
Declare
“Great and marvelous are your deeds, Lord God Almighty.
Just and true are your ways, King of the nations.
Who will not fear you, Lord, and bring glory to your name?
For you alone are holy.
All nations will come and worship before you,
for your righteous acts have been revealed.”
-Revelation 15:3-5 (NIV)