Pentecost • 24

reading for: Tuesday Night, 29 october

Mark 12:28-34

  • ReAD

    Scripture Reference: Mark 10:46-52

    “29 Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.””- Mark 10:29-31

  • Commentary

    One of the scribes came up to Jesus, having heard Jesus debate with the Pharisees, Sadducees, and scribes and seeing that Jesus answered their questions well. The scribe asked Jesus, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” God gave many commandments to Israel, about 600 in total. The scribe asked a good question as he was interested to know which one was the most important.

    Jesus answered that the most important commandment was that the Lord our God is one and that they shall love the Lord their God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength. Although the scribe only asked for one, Jesus told him the second most important commandment was to love your neighbour as yourself. Jesus declared that there is no other commandment greater than these. The point that Jesus makes is that knowing and loving this God who has no other besides him and loving our neighbour created by God are the most important things.

    The scribe, unlike many of his peers who Jesus scolded for not understanding, clearly understood that Jesus was right and that obeying these two commandments was more important than all the burnt offerings and sacrifices. Jesus praised him and told him that he was not far from the kingdom of God.

  • Reflect

    Are we not far from the kingdom of God? Or are we far from the kingdom of God and need to get closer? In this passage, Jesus clearly tells us how to get closer to the kingdom of God by loving God and loving others with our whole hearts, souls, and minds.

    Prayer

    Father, help us to get closer to the kingdom of God. We confess and believe that you are the Lord our God; the Lord is one. We want to love you with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength and to love our neighbour as ourselves. Amen.

reading for: Wednesday Night, 30 october

 Ruth 1:1-18

  • ReAD

    "But Ruth said, 'Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God.'"

  • Commentary

    The story of Ruth is one of fierce loyalty, love, and stepping into the unknown. A Moabite widow, Ruth chooses not to abandon her mother-in-law, Naomi, or the God of Israel, despite the uncertainties she faces. Ruth’s commitment to Naomi and her God reflects a heart willing to connect deeply, reminding us of our call to find intimacy and purpose in our faith and in each other.

    Like Ruth, we too are invited into deep connections—not just with one another but primarily with God. Our spiritual journey at Centre of New Life (CNL) encourages us to foster genuine closeness, in the awareness that God’s love and grace accompany us at every turn. Henri Nouwen captures this when he writes, "Compassion is hard because it requires the inner disposition to go with others to the place where they are weak, vulnerable, lonely, and broken" (The Way of the Heart)​. True devotion, whether to God or each other, often means walking alongside others in their hardest times, sharing their burdens, and letting our own defenses down.

    How do we embrace this kind of devotion? By allowing God’s love to shape us from within. Through prayer, solitude, and silence, we open ourselves to God’s gentle guidance, and in that stillness, we become ready to live out the compassion that Christ models for us. When we say, “Your God will be my God,” we step into a faithful relationship that transforms us into vessels of His love.

  • Reflect

    How can I move toward this kind of devoted love, first with God and then with others?

  • Prayer

    “O Lord, grant me the strength to follow You wholeheartedly, and to love others with compassion, even in their moments of weakness.”

reading for: THURSDAY Night, 31 october

Hebrews 9:11-14

  • ReAD

    14 How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death,[c] so that we may serve the living God!” – Hebrews 9:14

  • commentary

    Jesus is the perfect and ultimate sacrifice for our salvation by which we can be restored into a rightful standing with God to serve Him as His Kingdom of priests. In fact, ‘Saved to serve’ was the name of our camp a few years ago which properly captured God’s salvation plan for us.

    While is absolutely tyrannical and seemingly self-serving of God, we are saved from darkness into His marvelous light to worship and to serve Him. Except that He alone is the one true God that we were created for and it is in Him that we live and breathe and have our being.  

    Because of our experience of this world, we intuitively hate tyranny and self-absorbed gods/kings because they were never meant to be god or kings. We have had enough of the fruits of living under false gods and kings. But what if the true King took His place. What if our tainted lens of what it feels like to serve false God was redeemed in serving our true king?

    One poignant and simple truth that struggles to be embraced today is that we were first saved and first loved then called before we were invited to follow in Jesus’ footsteps to serve and love God and our neighbours. We love because He first loved us and not the other way around.

    However, what is observed to be prevalent in churches today is this strange phenomenon that many of us Christians would easily want to die for Christ (for great causes and ministries) but are unwilling (or actively resist) letting Him die for us and love us first on a daily basis. One of the things we passively and unknowingly reject is that Christ died on the cross for me. Because most of us believe the lie that we are really not that bad.

    It is no wonder that so many of us are so devoid of the life and the love that first flows so freely and gracefully from the throne of God that we hardly resemble Him at all. It is no wonder that so many of us find ourselves easily burnt out and struggling with forgiveness.   

  • Reflect

    Brothers and sisters, let us repent this day of our propensity to reject Christ’s death, mercy and grace in our lives daily. And perhaps let us embrace our great sinfulness and how wonderful a Saviour He is. How much more would we be if more of us truly lived in His amazing grace.   

  • Prayer

    Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for seeing my utmost ugliness and brokenness and loving me so abundantly still. This day, I choose to be found in your loving embrace first once again. Help me Holy Spirit in your grace and unfailing love. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.

reading for: FRIDAY Night, 1 November

Psalms 146

  • ReAD

    Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God, who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, who keeps faith forever

  • COMMENTARY

    Why do we praise? What enables us to praise the Lord, dance and offer our entire body in praise and worship each Sunday?

    Psalms 146 is the first of five final Psalms known as the hallelujah Psalms. After going through 145 Psalms and bringing every single emotion, trial and victory before the Lord. We finally reach this place of praise.

    So what is the foundation and reason for the Psalmist to praise?

    It's not the what in his life, nor the answers to his whys, or the how to, it's the Who.

    He is blessed, he is happy and he praises the Lord because he has found and anchored himself in his heavenly Father. He is the God of Jacob, the Creator of Heavens and Earth and sustainer of all creation.

    He is the Redeemer who redeems His children in distress. He protects the foreigners cares for the outcast, the widows and orphans.

    He will never leave us nor forsake us.

    This is why we praise Him. We praise God, our Father in Heaven, His Son Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.

  • Reflect

    How much time do you spend meditating on your God and Father? How much time have you spent on your daily, weekly, monthly rhythms of life with God?

  • Prayer

    Teach me O God and ground my life and existence in You. For You alone is life. In you alone will I find joy and delight. In you alone will I be blessed. Open the eyes of my heart that it might overflow with praises of You.

    In the name of Your Son Jesus. Amen.

Season of LentCNL