Evening Prayers - 16 May 2021

 

O our Father in heaven, we come near to you with all holy reverence and confidence, as children drawing close to a father who is able and ready to help us.

May your name be hallowed by us and all others so that we may glorify you in every way that you make yourself known. Arrange all things – all of our conduct, hardships, desires, marriages, singleness, occupations, as well as all the governmental and civil events of this world and our country – to your own glory. O Lord, hear our prayer.

May your kingdom come. We implore you to destroy Satan‘s kingdom, and advance your kingdom of grace, notably through the prayers and works of your world-wide Church. May we all be brought into your kingdom of grace and firmly kept in it. And here Lord, we pray chiefly for those who have never turned in faith to Christ, or who have strayed away (…). And may your kingdom of glory be hastened – Come, Lord Jesus! O Lord, hear our prayer.

May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven; that you, Lord God, by your grace, would make us able and willing to know, obey and submit to your will in all things, even as the angels do in heaven. We pray this for ourselves, our families, our adult children, our congregation, our Presbytery, and our denomination. O Lord, hear our prayer.

Give us this day our daily bread; that of your free gift we may receive a competent portion of the good things of this life, and enjoy your blessing with them, including health, hope and deliverance. O Lord, hear our prayer.

Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors; This, Lord, we are strongly encouraged to ask, because by your grace we are enabled from the heart to forgive others. Therefore, remembering that we have wronged you far more than anyone has ever wronged us, help us to be quick and ready to forgive those who wrong us, and to be swift and set to ask forgiveness from those whom we have wronged (…). O Lord, hear our prayer.

Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil; O God, please keep us from being tempted to sin, and when we are tempted, please support us and deliver us; since your grace has come and saved us and is now training us “to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in the present age (Titus 2:11-12). And Father, beat down Satan under our feet (Romans 16:20). O Lord, hear our prayer.

Yours, O Lord, is the Kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. And so, these prayers we ask in the name of our Lord Jesus, 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