"Our Help Is in the Name of the LORD" - 7 March 2021

 

Our help is in the name of the LORD, who made heaven and earth. Lord, please hear us and for Christ’s sake answer us.

O God Most High, who uses our trials and the testing of our faith to bring about steadfast endurance in us (James 1:2-4), we ask you to lift up those who are dispirited in body or mind, those who are grieved or terribly troubled with fear and anxiety, and those who are walking through troubled times in home and health. We especially ask your care for these (…). Grant them recovery and restored health, and grant them vitality and valor.

O Lord of the Harvest, have regard to the prayers of your servants in this congregation; 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, so that by our life and doctrine we may show forth your glory and bring forward the salvation of many.

Look upon your Church throughout the world, to include West Metro Church of Christ, Abundant Life Church, Calvary Christian Center, and Cathedral of Deliverance. Give your people your comforting, courage-inspiring aid. Strengthen us in our longing to serve you more faithfully, leading us away from the doctrines of demons to that which is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, and cause us to succeed in genuine godliness.

O Father who sent your Son into the world for the life of the world, and whose Son has sent us into the world; prepare the way for our planting a faithful congregation in Yukon. Raise up people with generous hearts and plentiful means to financially support this work. Prepare individuals and families to enter into this plan. And stir up the unbelieving and wayward so that they may come to faith or be restored by the gospel proclaimed afresh through this church plant.

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, big-heartedness, and equanimity. And protect us from all enemies, foreign and domestic.

We implore your kindest care and compassion on the nations of our world, especially where there is so much that upsets and alarms. We especially pray for your guidance, peacefulness, law and order for Myanmar, Ethiopia, and Tunisia.

All we ask in union with Jesus Christ your Son, and our Lord and Savior, as we pray together what he taught us, saying; Our Father…

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