"O Lord God, Unlike Us..." - 3 December 2023

 

O Lord God, unlike us in your very being, unlimited by space, unrestrained by time, untouched by mortality, and unmarred by sin; yet you made us to bear and reflect your image in some way so that we might have warm communion with you! And even more, after our open rebellion you sent your Son who became as full-bloodedly and full-bodily human as we are to bring us back into communion with you! What an astounding thought! O Lord, we adore you and thank you! In grateful communion with you we plead with you for the world and the Church.

Look upon the nations of this world, including our own country. See all of the spite, insurrections, commotions, mayhem, wars, droughts, flooding, wild-fires, government-approved barbarity, orchestrated impoverishments, socially sanctioned human-sex-and-drug trafficking, as well as tribal and racial bigotry. We implore you to steer, steady and stabilize all nations; restore and renew sound justice; bring substantial relief; provide help to the orphaned, homeless, vulnerable, trafficked, insolvent, and deprived; and institute a peace that will foster tranquility so that all may flourish and enjoy some sense of hopeful order, for the good of all and your Church. Preserve and protect our military members, particularly those who are close to danger at home and abroad, as well as our area firefighters, first responders,  and Law Enforcement Officers.

We remember before you those who are crippled with tragedy, debilitating conditions, physical and mental anguish, and hardships (…). Raise them up, delivering and restoring them body and soul that they may happily serve you all the rest of their days. We pray for our friends at Project 66, RestoreOKC, Hope Center of Edmond, and the Oklahoma Baptist Homes for Children. Smile on their undertakings, granting them all they need and everyone they need to greatly aid those who are in need.

O Lord, use the carols and plentiful reminders of this Advent and Christmas season to make soft and sensitive those hearts that are hardened, and to make receptive and responsive those who are callous and coldhearted.

Look upon your global church, including this congregation, and The Free Methodist Church of Edmond, Resurrection Free Methodist, Avery A.M.E. Chapel, and First A.M.E. Church. Heal her wounds, restore her unity, clean out her filth, purge out the heresies, reinstate sound doctrine, reestablish the centrality of the Gospel, and through her mightily further your world reclamation project. 

All we ask here, Lord, we ask in faith and we ask in the name of Jesus Christ your Son. And now we join hearts and voices together to pray as he taught us, saying, Our Father…

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

“The Shift” - 2023 Movie. A Review

Image
  What do you get when you cross a dark dystopian storyline with sci-fi, alternative dimensions, theological and philosophical questions, and the biblical book of Job? You get The Shift , written and directed by Brock Heasley, produced by Ken Carpenter, and distributed by Angel Studios. This roughly one hour and 45 minute tale swirls around Kevin (Kristoffer Polaha) as he moves from one realm of life, with it’s happiness and heartbreak, to another dimension that is a dismal existence clearly governed by The Benefactor (masterfully played by Neal McDonough). A viewer will be asking questions all the way through, and picking up clues and answers that pull the story together bit-by-bit. The story bumps up against an infinite set of alternative possibilities, of time, space, and versions of one’s self that will likely stoke a viewer’s imagination. But the heart of the narrative - besides love, grief, loss, trust/distrust - is around the place of evil, specifically, personal or human evil.
Read more

Community?

Image
  (This is from my letter to my congregation I sent out today, 30 August 2023) As one of my elders was leading us through Carl Trueman’s Strange New World in our adult class , I appreciated Trueman’s emphasis on community. And our discussions, especially the last two Sundays, were very fruitful as we thought out loud together about this subject. Therefore, I thought I would share something from David Brooks, an Op-ed columnist that leans into this discussion.   Brooks published a book in 2019 titled, “The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life”. In that work he was taking a gentle punch at destructive trends he has been seeing, and giving some helpful correctives. And so, he notes that “Individualism, taken too far, leads to tribalism” (34). He then shows how the loneliness and spiritual emptiness of individualism taken too far have become more prevalent in our time and the ways that they lead to very dark social consequences. These darker social consequences foster the need t
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 another, is
Read more