"O God, our God, how excellent are your counsels" - 17 May 2015 PM


O God, our God, how excellent are your counsels; and faithful are you in all your actions. We pray for your church throughout the nations that you would lead them in their decisions, direct them in their actions, and prosper them in their ambitions that they are undertaking in line with your will. Please give patient endurance to our brothers and sisters who are being hounded and harmed for the faith; deliver them from the slanderous tongues of their prosecutors and from the smashing hands of their abusers. And may they stand tall and unflinching in the strength and might of Jesus your Son, the faithful martyr.  O Lord, hear our prayer.

We call upon you to be with these churches; Community Christian Church; Crossroads Church; Crown Heights Christian; Draper Park Christian; Edmond Christian; and Forest Hill Christian Church; may they experience your grace in such powerful ways that they might cast off all self-generated certainties and boast only of you; and that they may enjoy your refreshing restoration as they are drawn closer to you through your Son. O Lord, hear our prayer.

Please help this congregation as we seek to be faithful; especially as we gear up for our work in Carnegie. Continue to provide all the monies, mental agility and manpower, and grant that your work will prosper in our hands. Also, be pleased to aid us in promoting your honor and intensify our love for one another. O Lord, hear our prayer.

We remember before you those who need to repent of their sins and embrace your Son in genuine faith…. Have mercy and save them. O Lord, hear our prayer.

O Lord God, prosper our country, which we love so much, but do not prosper that which is evil or unjust. Strengthen all that is good and wholesome, but weaken and defeat what is dark and destructive. O Lord, hear our prayer.

We ask you to lead the nations of the world toward the things that make for real peace, and will allow for the peaceful progress of your Gospel throughout the lands. We continue to ask you to care for those suffering in Nepal, and bless with your compassion and protection the aid efforts going on there. O Lord, hear our prayer.


Finally, give renovated anticipations, refurbished aspirations and restored fitness – body, mind, heart and soul – to those who find they are in extreme distresses or exhausting difficulties…. O Lord, hear our prayer.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

“The Shift” - 2023 Movie. A Review

Image
  What do you get when you cross a dark dystopian storyline with sci-fi, alternative dimensions, theological and philosophical questions, and the biblical book of Job? You get The Shift , written and directed by Brock Heasley, produced by Ken Carpenter, and distributed by Angel Studios. This roughly one hour and 45 minute tale swirls around Kevin (Kristoffer Polaha) as he moves from one realm of life, with it’s happiness and heartbreak, to another dimension that is a dismal existence clearly governed by The Benefactor (masterfully played by Neal McDonough). A viewer will be asking questions all the way through, and picking up clues and answers that pull the story together bit-by-bit. The story bumps up against an infinite set of alternative possibilities, of time, space, and versions of one’s self that will likely stoke a viewer’s imagination. But the heart of the narrative - besides love, grief, loss, trust/distrust - is around the place of evil, specifically, personal or human evil.
Read more

"On Getting Out of Bed" by Alan Noble. A Review

Image
  When it comes to family members or friends going through a significant mental crisis, or suffering, we often can feel like we’re fumbling about to help them. Sometimes, we can become like Job’s friends, whom he had to call “miserable comforters” (Job 16:2). But very recently Alan Noble, assistant professor of English at Oklahoma Baptist University in Shawnee Oklahoma, and cofounder and editor-in-chief of “Christ and Pop Culture” penned a deeply beautiful 120-page hardback that addresses mental affliction. “On Getting Out of Bed: The Burden and Gift of Living” is written for those who struggle with mental affliction, but also pastors, teachers, parents, and loved ones, to “help them understand their loved one’s suffering. It is for anyone who ever struggles to get out of bed” (3). I finished this book earlier this week, and kept finding myself saying, “Finally! Someone gets it!” Eight chapters fill up this handy manual. They run through several subjects, like not sounding like Job’s f
Read more

Community?

Image
  (This is from my letter to my congregation I sent out today, 30 August 2023) As one of my elders was leading us through Carl Trueman’s Strange New World in our adult class , I appreciated Trueman’s emphasis on community. And our discussions, especially the last two Sundays, were very fruitful as we thought out loud together about this subject. Therefore, I thought I would share something from David Brooks, an Op-ed columnist that leans into this discussion.   Brooks published a book in 2019 titled, “The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life”. In that work he was taking a gentle punch at destructive trends he has been seeing, and giving some helpful correctives. And so, he notes that “Individualism, taken too far, leads to tribalism” (34). He then shows how the loneliness and spiritual emptiness of individualism taken too far have become more prevalent in our time and the ways that they lead to very dark social consequences. These darker social consequences foster the need t
Read more