Author Archives: odes4hg

Emmanuel, God with us, thank You for surrounding us with the Hope that only Christ can bring.  Let our words mean something Lord.  Let our words reflect our actions that glorify our Father in heaven.  Let our faith be the driving force that propels us forward into this Advent season into a deeper relationship with the One who saves us from sin and death.  Let our hearts be genuine, true and honest so that we can share the same love that You shared with us by sending Your only Son to this earth as a fragile baby that would save this world from it’s own destruction, it’s own hate and it’s own despair. So as we open the last present and take down the last ornament from our tree we can celebrate the birth of the Savior all the rest of our days because we are redeemed and loved by God and that bond can never and will never be broken.

Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly into the darkness of this world. Let Your light shine into our hearts and minds so that we can see beyond the limitations of our perspectives and instead focus on the fact that You chose to humble Yourself in human form so that all would know that God is always with us. Emmanuel. Let Your words inspire our words. Let Your love for us be the same love that we have for each other. And let Your grace, mercy and forgiveness be the model for the way that we live our lives. You reach out your hands to each and every one of us through every moment of our lives. We are never alone. So teach us to reach out our hands to all of God’s children in the same way that You do for us. That is the true revelation of story of our Savior: that God is always with us and that God, Himself, will never leave us.

Come Lord Jesus, come into our hearts and minds. Revive our faith and passion for the cause of Christ. It’s so easy to just think about ourselves this season and about what we want that we forget the stories of those around us. We pray for the families who struggle to provide, we pray for those who are alone, we pray for those who are sick, and we pray for those who have lost hope. Don’t let us hold our love for You within the confines of ourselves but instead help us to give it away this Christmas season so that in some small way we might share the joy that the Savior was born for all people. Let our life bring people to know that even though they may walk through these dark valleys, that the light of Christ is always there to guide them through and beyond the hardest of times because God Himself will never leave us. And amidst the bustles of the busyness of the holidays, when we are drained of energy, remind us that the true celebration is that God loved each and every one of us so very much that He sent His only Son not to condemn this world but to save it. Let the hope that a little baby boy in Bethlehem brought to the world be born again in all of us so that we can share God’s love with all people.

You hear our the cries of our hearts.   Father we understand that Your forgiveness, reconciliation, blessing and favor are all given to us for a reason, for a purpose and today we pray that You would forgive us.  Forgive us for when we’ve really messed up.   We need Your grace, we need Your mercy, we need Your forgiveness, we need Your love.  So as we worship You today, we don’t want our worship to be perfect.  We don’t want our worship to look good.   We want our worship to be good.   So we need to live our lives out as a thank You to our Creator by living Heaven here on earth.  Let Your Kingdom come.  Let it come into our hearts and minds so that Your will be done and not ours.  So here we our Lord, Your flock listening for Your voice.  Guide us always so that Your Kingdom on earth can be as it is in heaven.

To You alone we live and give all that we have even though it will never be enough to match the gift that You have given to us.  Our offering is our life.  Our offering is the way that we choose to live our life.  Do we live to glorify our Father in heaven in every word, thought and action?  Or do we live to glorify ourselves and the ways of this world?  Let us give thanks to God by sharing our faith and not hoarding it.  Our time is the greatest gift that we can give so help us to use our time in this life to further Your vision and not ours.   So that when we are with You in heaven, the seeds that we sowed in this life will continue to grow in the lives of others for generations to come.    The truth of the Gospel is that God and His love endures forever beyond our lifetime and beyond this world.