Daily Lectionary in Poetry Friday 27th February 2015

Psalm 22:23-31

You who fear the Lord, praise him!
    All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him;
    stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel!
24 For he did not despise or abhor
    the affliction of the afflicted;
he did not hide his face from me,[a]
    but heard when I[b] cried to him.
25 From you comes my praise in the great congregation;
    my vows I will pay before those who fear him.
26 The poor[c] shall eat and be satisfied;
    those who seek him shall praise the Lord.
    May your hearts live forever!
27 All the ends of the earth shall remember
    and turn to the Lord;
and all the families of the nations
    shall worship before him.[d]
28 For dominion belongs to the Lord,
    and he rules over the nations.
29 To him,[e] indeed, shall all who sleep in[f] the earth bow down;
    before him shall bow all who go down to the dust,
    and I shall live for him.[g]
30 Posterity will serve him;
    future generations will be told about the Lord,
31 and[h] proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn,
    saying that he has done it.

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If you fear the Lord
Then praise Him
He has always heard me
Always helped me
We must glorify His name
All the earth shall turn to God
All the nations shall worship Him
Everything belongs to God

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Genesis 16:1-6

The Birth of Ishmael
16 Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, bore him no children. She had an Egyptian slave-girl whose name was Hagar, 2 and Sarai said to Abram, “You see that the Lord has prevented me from bearing children; go in to my slave-girl; it may be that I shall obtain children by her.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. 3 So, after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her slave-girl, and gave her to her husband Abram as a wife. 4 He went in to Hagar, and she conceived; and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress. 5 Then Sarai said to Abram, “May the wrong done to me be on you! I gave my slave-girl to your embrace, and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked on me with contempt. May the Lord judge between you and me!” 6 But Abram said to Sarai, “Your slave-girl is in your power; do to her as you please.” Then Sarai dealt harshly with her, and she ran away from her.

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Sarah had no children
She felt so sad of this
So she told Abraham to take her slave
And that way to have a child

But it all turned upside down
And slave looked down on Sarah
Abraham allowed Sarah to deal with it
And she was harsh with her power

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Romans 4:1-12

The Example of Abraham
4 What then are we to say was gained by[a] Abraham, our ancestor according to the flesh? 2 For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. 3 For what does the scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” 4 Now to one who works, wages are not reckoned as a gift but as something due. 5 But to one who without works trusts him who justifies the ungodly, such faith is reckoned as righteousness. 6 So also David speaks of the blessedness of those to whom God reckons righteousness apart from works:

7 “Blessed are those whose iniquities are forgiven,
    and whose sins are covered;
8 blessed is the one against whom the Lord will not reckon sin.”
9 Is this blessedness, then, pronounced only on the circumcised, or also on the uncircumcised? We say, “Faith was reckoned to Abraham as righteousness.” 10 How then was it reckoned to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised. 11 He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the ancestor of all who believe without being circumcised and who thus have righteousness reckoned to them, 12 and likewise the ancestor of the circumcised who are not only circumcised but who also follow the example of the faith that our ancestor Abraham had before he was circumcised.

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Works are not the key
The key to it all is grace
Blessed are those who sin
And turn and as for forgiveness
There is nothing we must do
But stand as we are before God
To ask for Him in our lives
And to lead as as we go

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