Vespers - 13 May 2018


  • (Coming Week): Father, since we recognize our lives, successes, upswings and downswings are in your hands; that though every way of a man is right in his own eyes, yet you, O LORD, weigh the heart (Proverbs 21.2): we pray for this coming week… Smile on us in our day-in-and-day-out routines; guide our conversations with family, neighbors, fellow-workers, employees, fellow-parents, grocery clerks and baggers, doctors and nurses. Direct our plans and proposals we will be mapping out; provide richly for us, and supply us with thankful hearts. O Lord, hear our prayer. 
  •  (Persecuted Church): Sovereign God, mighty in power, deep in love, rich in compassion; you know all of those who suffer in your name, for whom we now pray…: we remember those who are imprisoned for their faith. May they, like Paul and Silas, still sing your praises in their cells and see you do mighty things on their behalf. For those who are being tormented both in body and mind, give them the grace to endure and to see you comforting them in their afflictions that they may be able to comfort others with the comfort you have given them. For those who will be martyred because of their love for you, may they truly know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death. For those abandoned and banned because of their loyalty to you, may they know you are walking with them through this and be strengthened to endure. Make us ever mindful of our brothers and sisters around the world; and may we together overcome by the blood of the Lamb, by the word of our testimony, and by not loving our lives so much as to shrink from death. O Lord, hear our prayer. 
  • (Hardships): Almighty God, whose thoughts are not our thoughts and whose ways are not our ways: you never pledged us an easy life; you never guaranteed us unending success; yet we affirm with Proverbs and the Shorter Catechism that as long as it serves for your glory and our own good, there is the promise of long life and prosperity. We pray with, and pray for, those who are facing various hardships….Some are in deep desperation; others find themselves dented and debilitated; several are staggering; and not a few are stumped. O Lord, you who care about these and their predicament, bring them the props and provisions they are in need of. Send them hope and help. And may they all come to rise up and rejoice in you and your name. 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