Transformation

Focus

Before today's readings, use this breath prayer from John 3:30 to prepare your heart, mind, and spirit to understand how transformation is a part of our purpose as disciples and followers of Christ.

Inhale: He must increase;

Exhale: I must decrease.

Listen

Nikos Kazantzakis - Report to Greco

One day, Nikos asked Father Makarios, “Do you still wrestle with the devil, Father Makarios?” The old monk reflected for a while and then replied: “Not any longer, my child… I have grown old and tired, and the devil has grown old with me. So I leave him alone, and he leaves me alone.

Nikos asked, “Then life is easy now?”

Father Makarios responded, “Oh, no. Life is much harder now. For now, I wrestle with God.”

Nikos exclaimed, “You wrestle with God and hope to win?”

“No,” said Father Makarios, “I wrestle with God and hope to lose.”

Apply

What do you think Jesus means to deny yourself, take up your cross daily, and follow him? What does it mean to lose your life to find it?

In the story from Report to Greco, why do you think Father Makarios wrestles with God and hopes to lose?

Respond

Close your devotional time in prayer, reading these lyrics from the classic hymn, Take My Life and Let It Be:

Take my life and let it be

consecrated, Lord, to thee.

Take my moments and my days;

let them flow in endless praise,

Take my will and make it thine;

it shall be no longer mine.

Take my heart it is thine own;

it shall be thy royal throne.