"O Lord, We Adore You" - 11 June 2017


O Lord, we adore you with the words of the prophet Isaiah who said, “O LORD, you are my God; I will exalt you; I will praise your name, for you have done wonderful things, plans formed of old, faithful and sure” (Isaiah 25.1).

On behalf of your Church throughout the world, for this congregation along with Unity Baptist Church; University Fellowship Church; Victory Church; Victory Missionary Baptist Church; Village Baptist Church; Ware Chapel; and Waterloo Church of the Nazarene; we pray. For those of your people who are suffering for righteousness sake, show yourself strong on their behalf. With those who have lost their way and exchanged your glory for their own greed or their own reputation, reclaim them; for those who are working and toiling, spending and being spent for your honor, fill up what is lacking and cause your work to prosper in their hands.

May your protection be on our commissioners as they head to General Assembly, and when they return home. May the righteousness, peace and joy of the Holy Spirit (Romans 15.13) hover over them and fill their meetings, overture discussions, votes, decisions, directions, debates and determinations. And may the honor Christ reign supreme and the fellowship of Christ flourish.

Holy God, send forth your Gospel and your enlivening Spirit, so that Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, and Western Secularists may come to acknowledge the Lord Jesus Christ. And save these for whom we now pray (…).

Look upon the President of these United States, the Governor of Oklahoma, our State Representatives, such as Weldon Watson; Josh West; Kevin West; Rick West; and Tammy West, and all others in authority. Remind them that they lead and rule at your pleasure. Remind them that their governance is for the wellbeing of the people under their care. Remind them that their leadership is supposed to reflect your justice and righteousness. Yes, remind them and direct them. And may the inhabitants of our nation make considerable progress in honorable, upright lives and families.

With all the instability, insatiability, insufferableness and insufficiency in the world, we ask you to guide the nations of the earth, and leaders like President Danny Faure of Seychelles; President Ernest Bai Koroma of Sierra Leone; and President Tony Tan of Singapore, into the way of justice and truth, establishing among them that peace which is the fruit of righteousness, and guiding them to love you and their neighbors.

Merciful Father, you have taught us in your Holy Word, that you do not willingly afflict or grieve the children of men: look with kindness upon the sorrows and needs of these for whom our prayers are offered (…). Remember them in mercy, nourish their souls with patience, comfort them with a sense of your goodness, lift up your countenance upon them, and give them peace and wholeness.

We commend to your gracious care all those in the armed forces, whether at home or abroad (…). Defend them day by day with your heavenly grace; strengthen them in their trials and temptations; give them courage to face the perils which beset them; and grant them a sense of your abiding presence wherever they may be.

O God, whose never-failing providence orders all things in both heaven and earth: We humbly entreat you for ourselves and all whom we have mentioned, please put away from us all hurtful things, and give us those things which are truly profitable for us; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

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