"Our Help is in the Name of the LORD" - 8 January 2017 AM and PM


Sunday morning:

Our help is in the name of the LORD, who made heaven and earth (Psalm 121.2). Hear us, O Lord our help, and for Christ‘s sake answer us.

O Lord of the Harvest, have regard to the prayers of your servants in this church; send us forth as laborers into your harvest; fit and prepare us by your grace for our vocation and ministry; increase in us the Spirit of power, love and a sound mind; strengthen us to endure hardships as good soldiers of Jesus Christ; and grant that your Holy Spirit may prosper our work, that by our life and doctrine we may show forth your glory and be instrumental in the salvation of many.

We ask you to encourage and aid Txxxxxxx in Australia, and Txxxxxxx as she prepares for Thailand. Grant to them peace, protection, trustworthy co-laborers and all the financial resources they need in their mission work.

Look upon your Church throughout the world, including these congregations in the greater OKC area; Harvest Baptist Church; Harvest Assembly; Heartland Church; Henderson Hills Baptist Church; High Pointe Church; and Highland Park Missionary Baptist Church. Give your church your comforting, courage-inspiring aid. Strengthen your people in their longing to serve you more faithfully, and cause them to succeed in genuine godliness.

O Lord God, the Almighty, the Most High, we plead with you to turn your face to look upon the U.S.A. Do not forsake us nor give us over to what we may deserve, but instead turn us toward you, and spur us on to chastity, sobriety, virtuous living, generosity and equanimity. Protect us from all enemies, foreign and domestic, and guide our governmental leaders – including our Oklahoma State Senators such as A.J. Griffin; David Holt; Darcy Jech; Chris Kidd; James Leewright; and Kyle Loveless – to remember and return to their vocation “to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”

We implore your kindest care and compassion on the nations of our world, especially where there is so much that terrifies and alarms, for instance Turkey, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Mexico, Sudan and Brazil. We pray that your guidance, peacefulness, law and order would overcome. We also pray that you would restore and refurnish the lives and livelihoods of those who have been trampled upon.
O God Most High, giver of all good gifts, who provides our daily sustenance and wellbeing, we ask you to lift up those who are dispirited in body or mind, who are grieved or terribly troubled with fear and anxiety. We especially ask your care for these….grant them recovery and restored health.

Finally, we call to mind family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, enemies, and acquaintances who have not confessed Jesus Christ as Lord and who continue to walk in darkness; as well as those who have turned away from the Christian Faith…..save them, O Lord.

All of these requests we have mentioned, and those that have remained silently on our hearts, we ask in the name of Jesus Christ, your Son and our Saving Lord. Amen.

-------

Sunday evening:

LORD God, you told your people, “Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, a holy convocation. You shall do no work. It is a Sabbath to the LORD in all your dwelling places” (Leviticus 23.3). Your directive not only tells us how important sacred rest is, but it also points out how valuable our vocations are; that we have callings, jobs, careers that are good and worth investing into during the vast majority of our week. Thank you for acknowledging our work, and, O Lord, hear our prayer.

Almighty God, you worked six days, making, creating and calling all things into order. We ask your help, direction and focus in our jobs. Honestly, Father, work can grind down our hearts; bosses can grate against us making Monday a sheer drudgery; customers and clients can almost make us pull our hair out with frustration. Therefore help us to recapture and be recaptured by Paul’s valuable reminder, “whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (Colossians 3.17).  O Lord, hear our prayer.

We ask you, Lord, to be with those whose calling is to be home, or raise kids, or care for the homebound. Bless their hands and hearts. As they labor to maintain orderliness in the home; as they give their children safe places to grow up, learn, play, and develop as godly people; as they attend to their aging loved ones, some requiring more help than others; may they all know your pleasure, be filled with your presence, flourish in your provision, and see you profit their important work. O Lord, hear our prayer.

We also ask you to be with those whose occupation, for the present, is to study; whether it’s furthering their education; learning a trade; or preparing for Christian ministry. Thank you for the opportunities we have to learn and grow in learning. May our students gain the proper focus for their studies; retain what they’re learning; fathom the concepts and principles; and be able to effectively put them to good use. And may they come to rejoice in the gift of a good education, rather than grouse or grumble. O Lord, hear our prayer. 

Our Father, we pray for our denomination, this congregation, and these churches in our Presbytery, Christ Presbyterian Church; Redeemer Presbyterian Church; Christ Covenant Church; Providence Presbyterian Church-Midland; Faith Presbyterian Church; Trinity Presbyterian Church; New Hope Presbyterian Church and Town North Presbyterian Church; may we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. But rather, speaking the truth in love, may we grow up in every way into Christ who is the head (Ephesians 4.13-15). O Lord, hear our prayer.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"Was America Founded as a Christian Nation?" (Rev. Ed.) by John Fea. A Review

Image
  John Fea is a professor of history at Messiah University in Mechanicsburg, PA. A university founded in 1909 by the Brethren in Christ Church. He originally published "Was America Founded as a Christian Nation? A Historical Introduction" in 2011, and it was revised in 2016. This 328-page paperback is packed full with Colonial and American history, drawing from original sources to answer that question. It is a book written "for the historically minded and thoughtful reader who is looking for help in sorting" out this question, avoiding polemics (xix). Since we live in a sound-bite culture, Fea recognizes that it is difficult to have a sustained dialogue on this topic, but he makes a valiant effort toward having that sustained dialogue. The book reads fairly straightforward, and doesn't seem to get bogged down in the contentious mudpuddles or bogs. In the end, Fea seems to get his point across. To answer the reigning question if America was founded as a Christian...
Read more

Union with Christ - An Application

Image
  (This was my weekly letter to my congregation on Wednesday, 21 February 2024) This morning in my devotional reading, I was working through 1 Corinthians 8. Though I’ve read these words a huge number of times over the years, today one verse caused me to stop and take stock.  Paul wrote, “ Thus, sinning against your brothers and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ ” (1 Corinthians 8:12). What struck me is a couple of things. First, in God’s saving work, we are – by grace alone – united (hitched, bonded, ingrafted) to Christ so much so, that what happens to us happens to him, and what is his becomes ours (think of Galatians 2:20, for example). As Sinclair Ferguson put it, “through union with Christ all that is his by incarnation becomes ours through faith” (“The Christian Life,” 110). Let that percolate in your heart for a while. Your fear, anxiety, tears, and so forth, he feels. And his “ Peace, be still ” is yours. Second, the way we treat one an...
Read more

"Ah, Lord! We are Animated by Anger and Anxiety, Fear and Fury..."

Image
I hesitate to put this out there because of the combative environment we are in at present. But I think some souls will take courage from this, and some will also join with me as we get to the end of this little composition. I am struck by the words of God in Zechariah 8. As he rehearses the waywardness and faithlessness of his people in the past, he clearly declares that he " set every man against his neighbor " (8:10). That got me thinking long ago. I started putting the pieces together and realized that one of God's acts of judgment is division, setting a man against his neighbor. That's what happened when he divided his people into the northern tribes and southern tribes (see 1 Kings 11:26-40). Because of Solomon's turning aside, allowing his wives to turn his heart away from the God of his father, David, the Lord brings about a rift in God's people. And this pattern of divisive judgment runs throughout Scripture. On the other hand, truthful unity is the g...
Read more