Prayers of Church & Community, October 6, 2024
Westminster Presbyterian Church
Holy God, Eternal Light … you invite our prayers, you welcome us into your heart … you give ear to what we say, what we ask, what we give.
We give you our hearts, O God … we offer ourselves to Christ … we come to the cross and raise our eyes to behold eternal mercy, Love divine, all loves excelling …joy of heav'n to earth come down …
We pray for the world, O God … those who’ve lost so much in fire and flood … families devastated by loss and grief … lands torn by war.
We pray for the leaders of the world - can people of good heart and mindful spirit staunch the flow of blood? Can the road to peace be chosen over the road to war? Might compassion replace greed and malice?
We sometimes wonder, O LORD, about the value of prayer … do our petitions and ponderings add to the goodness of things, or is it all meaningless? Do our prayers change anything, dear God?
Yet, every day, O God, we see the horrible evidence of a world without prayer - people who love but themselves, who tell lies and mislead others … who practice the crafts of hell …
Remind us, dear God, that a world without prayer is a world of death … remind us, holy God, that our prayers, our love, our faithfulness to Christ, is never a lost cause, never a waste of time, never without value … eternal value for the ages … and a hedge against the evils of the day.
With your Holy Spirit, O God, make us people of fervent prayer, all the more … people of truth and hope … people who never cease raising our minds to Christ on high, only to find him at our side, on the lowly roads of daily life.
Cleanse our aspirations and dreams, O God, of selfish ambitions and jealous thoughts, that we might more completely love thee and more worthily serve thy cause.
With hope and courage, with trust and mercy …
In the name of our LORD Jesus Christ - who taught us to pray, saying:
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors; and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen.
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