“God is still speaking” (My mom’s handwriting in bisaya)
“Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few.” Ecclesiastes 5:2
Lord, be glorified in our hearts today. You are in heaven and we are on earth, so let our words be few as Your truth surrounds us today. Repair what is broken in us so that we can go boldly to Your throne and seize Your Word and never let it go.
Remind us that we were not born with fear. Fears are finite but God is infinite. So even though Your footprints are no longer on this earth, the imprint of Your spirit lives on within us in every moment of our lives.
You see what people can’t see. You see beyond the walls that we build. You see our hearts. You see us. Let us all just have an amazing encounter with You as Your story unfolds before us. The story of love and how love always wins, how love endures beyond the wreckage of time, and how God’s love will bring healing to all things.
Tags: Christ, Christian, Church, Ecclesiastes 5:2, Glory, God, God's love, Gospel, Jesus, Love wins, Prayer, Religious, Spirit, truth, Worship
Artwork in front of North Central University in Minnesota
Lord of all hopefulness and joy, You are the One with the strength that we need. You are the One that brings us hope from this broken world. We need Your strength to keep journeying on in this life in the only direction that we can…the direction that leads us back to You.
Your word changes everything that it touches. It brings us into the experience that is the Gospel. It connects us with the Living God because not even one word of God will fall short of it’s eternal truth. So let Your glory break down the mountains that we face by healing Your church. Remind us that we are not defined by our circumstances but we are redefined by our salvation in Christ as a child of God.
Lord reveal Your truth to us each moment of our lives so that when all the odds are stacked against us, then we can have the faith to accomplish things that we never thought we could. Let us move these mountains together, let us soar on wings like eagles and let us live this life by not letting it pass us by.
Tags: bible, Christ, Christian, Church, ELCA, hope, Jesus, lutheran, move mountains, Prayer, salvation, truth
Northwest Community Church, Las Vegas NV
Lord, remove whatever keeps us from You. Calm our thoughts and focus all of our attention on You. Remind us that the hand that guides the planets also guides us.
You have wisdom that we don’t have, so guide us through the rocky terrain of life by illuminating the path that we need to take. And when uncertainty and doubt creep into our minds, reveal the strength of Your love in the truth of Jesus Christ, who is the point of impact when heaven collided with earth because God chose to meet us.
Don’t let us forget who You are. Don’t let us forget that because of Jesus Christ there is no dream that is impossible with God and that no prayer ever goes unheard. Don’t let us forget that there is always hope. There is always love. There is always the truth that sets us free from anything in this world. The truth that God love us all.
Tags: bible, Christ, Christian, Jesus, No impossible dream, No unanswered prayer, Prayer, With God all things are possible
License Plate
Lord God, make Your presence known to us. Calm the storms around us and anchor us in Your word so that we can experience You, respond to You, and grow our faith in Your truth.
Sometimes, when we look at the mirror, we forget that we were created by love to be loved. So turn our gaze off of ourselves and fix our sights on the truth that a perfect God would wrap Himself in our own imperfect skin and become the visible image of an invisible God. It is through Christ, that God leads us away from despair and carries away our burdens of disappointment.
“Because You, Lord, are our help. We sing in the shadow of Your wings. Our soul clings to You; You lift us up” Psalm 63.7
Lord, help us to keep on learning about You everyday. Show us glimpses of what love is so that we can love others with the same abandon as You love us. Thank You for life. Thank You for love. Thank You for being everything that You are.
Tags: bible, Christ, Christian, ELCA, Jesus, lutheran, Prayer, Psalm, visible image of an invisible God
Minnesota clouds
You are the voice of the truth that we need to listen to. You have always been speaking to us but we so often fail to hear. Lord, focus our minds away from the chaos that surrounds us by giving us peace and the strength to stand firm upon Your Word.
Print Your truth onto our hearts. Call something out of us that wasn’t there before by engaging our imaginations, beyond the limitations of this world, so that we can believe in miracles again…so that we can dream again…so that we can just fully experience the presence of Living God.
Awaken us now, so that we can collide with grace, mercy and love. Speak to us so we can speak. Teach us so we can teach that heaven is real because God’s love is real and alive in all of us. For “there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male or female, for we are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:28 NIV) Amen.
Tags: bible, Christ, collide with grace, ELCA, Galatians, Jesus, lutheran, Prayer, voice of truth
Altar of Atonement Lutheran in Minnesota
Lord of all creation, space and time, we thank You for the gift of each breath that we take. We pray that You will usher us into Your presence today by taking our gaze off of ourselves and fixing all of our focus on to the living Word of God.
Grab hold of us and let Your truth pour out into our hearts so that we can receive everything that You have to give. And even when taking one step forward seems too far away, we pray that You would just give us the strength to just get through the awkwardness of trusting You, so that we can believe in the miracles of grace, healing, love and forgiveness.
Give us the strength to face our fears knowing that God is in our side and that God’s love has already won the battle. Reveal to us that despair is not our destination because we never ever have to face these mountains alone.
Through Your Son, Jesus, we can face the cross and experience the presence of the Living God now, today and forever. For as long as there are people who need healing of the heart, mind, body and spirit, then we can all serve the Lord. We can serve the Lord by serving all of God’s children with the same love that served us on the cross.
Tags: bible, Christ, ELCA, God's love, Jesus, lutheran, Prayer, strength, The same love
Lord God, Architect of life, thank You for the gift of knowing You and Your truth. You are the same God of yesterday, today and tomorrow. You are the One who heals us from the oppressions of this world.
Let Your light rise up out of our own darkness to reveal a world where God is intimately involved. Talk to us. Restore us. Show us what we need to learn by opening up our minds so that our imaginations can run wild with God’s possibilities. So that no matter what the world throws at us we will never lose our provider, our creator, our healer and our friend.
“This is the rock on which I will put together my church, a church so expansive with energy that not even the gates of hell will be able to keep it out. 19 “And that’s not all. You will have complete and free access to God’s kingdom, keys to open any and every door: no more barriers between heaven and earth, earth and heaven.” (Matthew 16: 18-19 The Message)
Through Your Son, Jesus, we can share in Your glory because the grace of God is greater than anything that we have to face. It is bigger than our future. And as we stand on the shoulders of those who have paved the way for us to know the gospel, we ask that you continue to build Your kingdom right here, right now, and start with us.
Tags: Christ, Christian, Church, Creator, Friend, God's possibilities, grace of God, Jesus, Kingdom, Matthew 16, Prayer, Provider
Original Oil Painting commissioned by New Song Church
Eternal One, we are here because we need You. We need Your strength and we need Your wisdom to rush into our lives right now. Don’t hold back, because we need You to reignite our faith so that we can get out of our head and get back into living in the here and now.
Etch Your truth into our hearts today so that we can boldly speak the Word of God and not miss out on this life. Give us patience, Lord. Give us the patience to wait for You because “those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall soar on wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and never faint.” (Isaiah 40:31 TVB)
The gospel truth is that Jesus, the cross, and the resurrection all liberate us from a decaying world. And even though we can’t see or hear You, Lord, our faith tells us that You are here. You have always been right here. And even when our own hearts abandon us, You take away our burdens so that we can just lean on You and depend on You. So we wait…we wait through our joys and our sorrows. We wait through the darkness for the sun to rise. We wait and we pray for Your miracles to move the mountains and obstacles in our way. We wait for You.
Tags: bible, Christian, Christianity, Church, Cross, ELCA, Freedom, Isaiah 40:31, Jesus, liberation, Miracle, Patience, Prayer, Resurrection, wait on the Lord
God shining His light onto our city.
Lord of all, thank You for being everything that You say You are. You are the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob. The One who is, was and will always be in the presence of the world that You so love.
We step into Your presence today so that You can step into our story and interrupt the chaos of our lives. Let Your voice speak the truth that we need to hear right now so that when the world throws our mortality in our face, we can be still and know that God is greater than anything that we could possibly imagine.
Transform us. Change us. Humble us. Mend our every flaw so that we can live fully experiencing the miracle of life with each and every breath that You gift to us. For “if anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation. The old has passed away; and, the new has come.” 2 Corinthians 5:17 (ESV)
Lord, let’s try it Your way. Let’s live this life Your way. Let us let go and let God. For Your love never changes, it never falters and it will forever be the constant reminder that we never need to give up because the battle has already been won and we have victory now and forever. Amen.
Tags: 2 Corinthians 5:17, Christ, ELCA, Gospel, grace, Holy Spirit, Jesus, love of God, lutheran, mercy, Prayer, Transform, truth, Victory
“Like a rose trampled on the ground…”
Lord, we thank You for the gift of waking up to another sunrise and the privilege of coming into Your presence one more time. As we hear Your story today, we pray that Your glory would be revealed to us because freedom is more than just a word. It is an experience.
Don’t let us forget You. Don’t let us forget those who followed You and led us to this moment. We can’t forget that we stand on the shoulders of those believers who have gone before us and sacrificed so much so that generations after them would be able to know God.
Life has always been and will always be about connecting with God, but the miracle that we all share is that God chose to connect with us. He connects with us through His Son, on the cross, as He paid the price by becoming guilty for our crimes and redeemed us in His resurrection and glory.
Lord, empty us of our ego and fill us with Your Holy Spirit so that we can stop pretending that we can handle this life on our own because we can’t. We cannot rely solely on our own strength or the strength of others because we will grow weary, but the Word of the Lord shall endure forever and shall eternally be the source of our strength and the strength of our life. Love is patient and love is kind. Love is Jesus, the living Son of God.
Tags: Christ, Connect with God, ELCA, forgiveness, grace, Jesus, love is kind, Love is patient, lutheran, mercy, Prayer
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