O LORD our God, great is your name and greatly are you to be praised … you and the Lamb beside the throne … who is worthy to break the seven seals and unroll the scroll … worthy to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise.
We join our hearts and minds today with your people around the world …
We lift our voices and confess our faith in Jesus Christ our LORD.
We renew our promises and we start all over again - on this, the first day of the week, when we remember the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead … the victory of life over death, and hope over despair … when the stone was rolled away, because nothing can stand in the way of love.
In these moments of worship, O God, help us, we pray,
To set our lives upon Christ,
To embrace his love and to seek his guidance …
To heed anew his invitation , and follow him with all that we are … and all that we hope to be …
To leave here prepared …
To face the week ahead of us …
To live in faith …
To be gracious in our ways and kindly in our thoughts.
Save us, we pray, from
The crudeness of materialism,
The rudeness of impatience,
Help us, we pray, to think upon the best and noblest things of life …
To be united with Christ …
Having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose.
Looking not only to our own interests, but also to the interests of others.
Conform us, we pray to the image of Christ … and transform us, we pray, by the renewing of our minds …
We pray, O God, for those near and dear to us …
Our children and grandchildren,
Our parents and grandparents …
Our friends and our neighbors.
We pray for those with whom we work …
We pray for those who serve us the burgers and check us out at the store …
We pray for the man at the street corner, deeply tanned from too many days in the sun … holding a sign that he’s homeless and hungry …
Give us the eyes, we pray, to really see the people around us … to see how real they are … how they fret and fuss just like we do, how they want a chance at life, just like we do; how they love and cry, how they laugh and grieve, just like we do …
We pray for our governor and for our mayor …
We pray our legislators and for our judges …
And we pray for the President and his wife and their children …
We pray for Christians around the world …
And we pray for people of faith everywhere …
We pray for soldiers in every army …
Everyone who has taken up arms …
And we pray that the political forces behind armed conflict
Will find better ways of managing this world …
That soldiers will no longer have to take up arms …
That the sound of guns will cease and the laughter of children will prevail.
We are not fools, LORD.
We know the world in which we live.
And we know ourselves – our own instincts, sometimes so dark.
But we are faithful to Christ, the prince of peace.
And by his grace, we strive to be peacemakers.
Bless us, we pray, in the remains of the day.
Give us some rest and set us upon the paths of righteousness, for your name’s sake.
Help us to catch our breath and renew our vows …
We have a lot to do this week …
And you’ll be there at our side, and for that we thank you.
In the name of our LORD Jesus Christ, who taught us to pray, saying, Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven …
No comments:
Post a Comment