Seasoned Veracity

A Prayer for the World

Almighty God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit,

We gather with believers all over the world,

  to glorify You as Creator of heaven and earth.

You alone are holy and righteous.

We submit to Your authority.

We praise and adore You alone.

 

Father, we honour You

Lord Jesus Christ, we honour You

Holy Spirit, we honour You

 

Our Father in heaven,

Thank You for loving the world so much

  that You gave Your only Son, Jesus Christ,

  to die on the cross for our sins

  so that we could be reconciled to You.

Fill us with your love as we faithfully intercede for the lost,

  the hopeless, the helpless and the world.

 

Thank You Father, for adopting us into Your family.

 

Lord Jesus Christ,

You died on the cross and

  redeemed us to the Father by Your blood.

You are Head of the Church

  and Lord of all heaven and earth.

Let Your kingdom be established in every nation of the world

  bringing transformation among peoples of all tribes and languages

  so that righteousness and justice will prevail.

May Your Name be great, from the rising of the sun to its setting.

 

Jesus Christ, You are Lord of all.

 

Father of mercy and grace,

We have sinned.

Our world is gripped by the power of sin.

Our hearts are grieved by injustice, hatred and violence.

We are shamed by oppression, racism and bloodshed in our land.

We mourn all loss of life in murder, war and terrorism.

Our homes are broken and our churches are divided by rebellion and pride.

Our lives are polluted by selfishness, greed, idolatry and sexual sin.

 

God of mercy, forgive our sins.

Pour out Your grace and heal our land.

 

Spirit of the living God,

Transform Your Church into the image of Jesus Christ.

Release Your power to bring healing to the sick,

  freedom to the oppressed and comfort to those who mourn.

Fill us with compassion

  for the homeless and the hungry

  for orphans, widows and the elderly.

Give us wisdom and insight for our world’s problems

  to use the resources of the earth for the well-being of all.

 

Holy Spirit, guide us and lead us.

 

Lord Jesus Christ,

You destroyed sin, conquered death and defeated Satan.

Remove the veil of darkness that covers the peoples.

Restrain the evil that promotes violence and death.

Deliver us from demonic oppression.

Break the hold of slavery, tyranny and disease.

Help us to tear down strongholds and ideologies

that resist the knowledge of God.

 

Almighty God, deliver us from evil.

 

King of Glory,

Come and finish Your work in our cities, our peoples and our nations.

From all continents and islands we cry:

 

Lift up your heads, O you gates!

Be lifted up ancient doors

  so that the King of glory may come in!

 

Come fill the earth with the knowledge of Your glory

  as the waters cover the sea.

The Spirit and the Bride say:

Amen! Come Lord Jesus!

  -- from Global Day of Prayer

Prayers for Pentecost

Lee Grady suggests we join together in these prayers as we anticipate Pentecost Sunday, May 27:

1. Lord, send the wind of sincere repentance. The original outpouring at Pentecost triggered a wave of repentance that resulted in 3,000 conversions. The greatest miracle on earth occurs when a sinner’s heart breaks before God and he or she is born again. Lord, unleash a flood of conversions! And as sinners repent, let backslidden Christians, disillusioned believers and weary saints return to You.

2. Lord, send the wind of spiritual renewal. One breath of the Holy Spirit can bring life to dry bones! Lord, send the refreshing wind of Your presence into lifeless congregations. And with Your wind, send a flame on every Christian’s head—especially those reluctant Gideons and timid Timothys who know they are called but need Spirit-inspired confidence.

3. Lord, send the wind of a youth awakening. When the winds of Pentecost blew the first time, Peter preached from the prophet Joel, saying, “ ‘In the last days,’ God says, ‘your sons and your daughters will prophesy, and your young men will see visions’ ” (Acts 2:17, NIV). Lord, raise up and strengthen ministries to reach our schools and college campuses. Send another Jesus Movement to this generation.

4. Lord, send the wind of supernatural demonstration. Forgive us, Lord, for limiting You! When the first Pentecost occurred, normal people were “clothed with power from on high” (Luke 24:49), and they began to heal the sick, raise the dead and cast out demons. Unleash the miraculous in the American church. Let the same miracles that are occurring in Asia, Africa and Latin America become common in our nation.

5. Lord, send the wind of bold evangelism. When the first disciples were touched by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, they declared “the mighty deeds of God” (Acts 2:11, NASB) to every racial and ethnic group that had gathered in Jerusalem. The true anointing of the Holy Spirit always results in evangelism. Lord, turn up our volume! Let the gospel be preached in every language spoken within our borders.

6. Lord, send the wind of divine intervention. Our nation is in desperate crisis. Families are disintegrating, morality has eroded, perversion is celebrated, and our culture is becoming hostile to biblical faith. Unless the Lord answers with His holy fire from heaven, we are sunk. Lord, deliver us from evil! Extend Your mercy and send a Third Great Awakening. Amen.

  -- from Fire in My Bones

 

Meditating on Scripture

Meditation is an invitation to unbridled creativity; to make wild connections; to entertain variations on a theme; to leap boundaries of time and dispensations, to one's own circumstances. One enters into a Word on the page as into a secret doorway, and is led by the Spirit into many-chambered mansions. Meditation, by its very nature, is expansive; not linear but frolicking. It beckons personalization.

  -- Andree Seu

Let There Be Light

Thou, whose almighty Word

Chaos and darkness heard,

And took their flight;

Hear us, we humbly pray,

And, where the Gospel’s day

Sheds not its glorious ray,

Let there be light!

 

Spirit of truth and love,

Life giving, holy Dove,

Speed forth Thy flight;

Move on the water’s face

Bearing the lamp of grace,

And, in earth’s darkest place,

Let there be light!

 

Blessed and holy Three,

Glorious Trinity,

Wisdom, love, might!

Boundless as ocean’s tide,

Rolling in fullest pride,

Through the world far and wide,

Let there be light!

 

 -- John Marriott

 

Equality in Marriage

One sure way to wreck a marriage is to insist on dividing everything equally: income, household duties, child care. That actually sounds more like a divorce. Only when the partners are fully in debt to each other do they become something more than partners, and equality is the least of their concerns.

 -- Janie B. Cheaney

Leading With God Watching

It is very easy for our circumstances or for the expectations of others around us to control our lives. If we are honest, we will admit that our self-esteem is often bound up with our popularity, or our status, or our income.

We need to hold the things of this world lightly, for if we are concerned with our own reputation or honor, with material comfort and security, then it is unlikely that we will live a life worthy of the gospel.

If we judge Christians by the superficial criteria of the world—titles, clothes, bank balance—we have missed what really matters. Our calling to serve Christ is likely to be very different. It might cost us our comfort, our security, or our health, and maybe even our family or life itself. We do not measure the effectiveness of leaders by the indices of worldly success, but by their conformity to the way of the cross…

Integrity as a way of life means living contentedly whatever our circumstances. It means that we rely on God’s resources, live under his watchful eye and enjoy his fatherly care.

 -- Jonathan Lamb, from Kairos Journal

Before the Throne of God Above

Before the throne of God above
I have a strong and perfect plea.
A great high Priest whose Name is Love
Who ever lives and pleads for me.
My name is graven on His hands,
My name is written on His heart.
I know that while in heaven He stands
No tongue can bid me thence depart.

When Satan tempts me to despair
And tells me of the guilt within,
Upward I look and see Him there
Who made an end of all my sin.
Because the sinless Savior died
My sinful soul is counted free.
For God the just is satisfied
To look on Him and pardon me.

Behold Him there the risen Lamb,
My perfect spotless righteousness,
The great unchangeable I AM,
The King of glory and of grace.
One with Himself I cannot die,
My soul is purchased by His blood.
My life is hid with Christ on high,
With Christ my Savior and my God!

 -- Charitie Lees Bancroft

 

The Wonderful Exchange

This is the wonderful exchange which, out of his measureless benevolence, he has made with us:

that, becoming Son of Man with us, he has made us sons of God with him;

that, by his descent to earth, he has prepared an ascent to heaven for us;

that, by taking on our mortality, he has conferred his immortality upon us;

that, accepting our weakness, he has strengthened us by his power;

that, receiving our poverty upon himself, he has transferred his wealth to us;

that, taking the weight of our iniquity upon himself (which oppressed us), he has clothed us with his righteousness.

  -- John Calvin

Believer Or Disciple?

At some point we stopped calling Christians disciples and started calling them believers. A disciple is one who follows and imitates Jesus. She loses her life in order to find it. She steeps in the language and culture of Christ until his Word and his world reshape hers, redefine her, change inside out how she sees and thinks and dreams and, finally, loves...

A believer, not so. She holds certain beliefs, but how deep down these go depends on the weather or her mood. She can get defensive, sometimes bristlingly so, about her beliefs, but in her honest moments she wonders why they've made such scant difference...

You can't be a disciple without being a believer. But -- here's the rub -- you can be a believer and not a disciple. You can say all the right things, think all the right things, believe all the right things, do all the right things, and still not follow and imitate Jesus.

The kingdom of God is full of disciples, but our churches are filled with believers.

  -- Mark Buchanan, from Your Church is Too Safe

A Grave Offense

Pornography consists in removing real or simulated sexual acts from the intimacy of the partners, in order to display them deliberately to third parties. It offends against chastity because it perverts the conjugal act, the intimate giving of spouses to each other. It does grave injury to the dignity of its participants (actors, vendors, the public), since each one becomes an object of base pleasure and illicit profit for others. It immerses all who are involved in the illusions of a fantasy world. It is a grave offense. 

 -- Catechism of the Catholic Church