Friday • 7/14/2023 
A Friday in the Season After Pentecost (Proper 9) 

This morning’s Scriptures are: Psalm 16; Psalm 17; 1 Samuel 17:17–30; Acts 10:34–48; Mark 1:1–13 

This morning’s Canticles are: following the OT reading, Canticle 10 (“The Second Song of Isaiah,” Isaiah 55:6–11; BCP, p. 86); following the Epistle reading, Canticle 18 (“A Song to the Lamb,” Revelation 4:11; 5:9–10, 13, BCP, p. 93)   

Welcome to Daily Office Devotions, where every Monday through Friday we bring to our lives that day’s Scripture readings, as given in the Book of Common Prayer. I’m Reggie Kidd, and I’m grateful to be with you this Friday in the Season After Pentecost. We are in Proper 9 of Year 1 of the Daily Office Lectionary.  

A single line from one of today’s psalms prompts prayers of thanksgiving based on today’s New Testament readings: “My lines have fallen in pleasant places” (Psalm 16:6).  

Because of all that Christ is, and because of all that our Heavenly Father has accomplished through him, and because of the fullness of life we enjoy in Christ by the Holy Spirit, there is SO.MUCH.TO.BE.GRATEFUL.FOR: 

Thank you, Lord, that you did not leave your people Israel in permanent exile, but you raised up a voice in the wilderness to prepare for the coming of the Lord of rescue (Mark 1:1–4). 

Thank you, Lord Jesus, for identifying with us sinners in the waters of baptism, so that you could wash our sins away (Mark 1:9; John 1:29–34).  

Thank you, Father, for the love you have had from eternity for your Son, for the love you declared for your Son at his baptism, for the love with which you brought him back from the dead, and for the love that you have for sons and daughters who are baptized in him (Mark 1:11; Acts 10:44–48).  

Thank you, Father, that in the Holy Spirit, you gave your Son every resource he needed to accomplish his mission on this earth: to resist Satan in the wilderness, and to go about doing good and healing broken bodies and oppressed spirits (Mark 1:10–13; Acts 10:38). Thank you, Father, for baptizing us with that same Spirit, manifesting your grace in so many wonderful graces within and through us (Acts 10:46; Romans 12:3–8; 1 Corinthians 12:4–11; 1 Peter 4:10–11).  

Thank you, Lord, that there is no place on the earth where, nor any people on this planet among whom, you do not accept those who “fear God and do justice” (Acts 10:35). Thank you for the confidence this truth gives us to go and tell of Jesus the Lord of all and the Judge of the living and the dead…who has come to bring peace! (Acts 10:36,42) 

Thank you, Lord, for raising up reliable witnesses of your resurrection and for providing foundational proclaimers of your gospel, so we can know that when we speak of Jesus’s dying for sinners and rising to make saints, we speak of true truths, things that are not fabulous fables, mere myths, and saccharine stories (Acts 10:41–42; 2 Peter 1:16; John 18:35; 21:24–25; 1 John 1:1–4).  

Thank you, Lord, that my lines have fallen in pleasant places, and that, indeed, “I have a goodly heritage” (Psalm 16:6). 

Be blessed this day,  

Reggie Kidd+