Lord Jesus, help us to enter into Your presence today. Help us to hear Your Word manifest truth in our lives. Help us to be still and just listen to You and to each other. Help us to connect with You by taking the spotlight away from us so that we can focus our gaze on the light of Your truth. We want to see how You see and we want to hear how You hear. And when we stray or when our hearts turn cold, then empty us of selfishness, vanity and pride. Help us to let go of any foolish thing that we think that we can hold on to in this life because the truth is nothing of this world will last forever except for Almighty God. So let us do what You do: Let us love, help and nurture each other on this journey called life by emptying ourselves so that we can receive Your amazing grace. Lord, don’t let us assume that someone else will step up to the plate or that we have done enough. For as long as we are blessed to live another day then surely we can do great things that will glorify our Father in heaven. For “those who exalt themselves will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be exalted” (Matt 23:12).
Category Archives: Conversations with God
Empty us
For as long as we still have breath
View of Las Vegas from New Song Church in Henderson, NV
Almighty God, thank You for this gift called life. Forgive us when we forget how to live. Forgive us when we walk away from the opportunity of experiencing and sharing Your presence. We can share the gift of Christ’ salvation to anyone, anytime and anywhere, so get rid of the idea that we can only share the gospel on a Sunday morning. And even through the trials and darkest valleys of this life let our light so shine that we may glorify our Father in heaven. Let our faith in You not falter but, instead, be strengthened by Your Holy Spirit. Let everything that You want to do in and through us be done. For as long as we still have breath we can still do good works in His name. Unite us in Your cause Jesus so that our bonds with You are manifested in all that we do: through our joys and sorrows. Help us to pray for those that are close by yet so far away. Guide us all back to Your Word so that we can live in freedom knowing that this world can never imprison the message of God’s grace, forgiveness, love and mercy.
Help us to experience You
New Song’s Altar Construction
Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, thank You for this time together. Thank You for the gift of knowing You and what you have done and continue to do for all of us. Bring us into Your presence today through the guidance of Your Holy Spirit. Wash away all of the doubts, worries, and shame of yesterday so that we can experience You today. So that we can experience Your grace, Your mercy and Your love. Keep us close and hold our hearts in Your caring arms so that our motives can be pure and filled with the joy of Christ. Release us from the darkness of ignorance and arrogance so that we can live in Your truth, confidently knowing that God is never far away and that His message of love and forgiveness is more important than anything that this world can possibly offer.
A New Hallelujah
New Song Building prior to completion
Lord Jesus, thank You for this life. Thank You for the gift of another year. Seasons come and go but You are always there. Thank You for stepping into this world as one of us. Your choices defined what love is. Love is sacrifice, unconditional and never ending. Because of Your sacrifice You redefined who we are. We are not our mistakes or successes of the past. We are, instead the beloved children of the most High God living in His truth and in His possibilities. Step into our story Jesus so that we live. Help us to live. Help us to hope. Help us to love. Help us to experience the joy that is “For God so loved the world that He sent His only Son…not to condemn the world but to save it.”
God Gave me you
This was my tribute to the 10 years of ministry of New Song Church. 10 years ago, I was searching and praying for a church home. I received a phone call to come and play the piano for a Lutheran Church that didn’t even have a building. I was told that I would just be needed for 2 weeks. Well, I am still there 10 years later and I am so grateful that God has answered my prayers. I have been able to grow in my faith and relationship with Christ because of this congregation and my pastors. They have guided and nurtured me as a child of God and I will forever be thankful and humbled to worship Him alongside this congregation. Thanks be to God!
To You Alone
New Song Prayer Labyrinth
Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, thank You for being all that You are. Thank You for bringing back hope and joy. Thank You for showing us just how much we are loved by Almighty God. We ask for patience and guidance throughout this life. Take away the doubt and fear that the world throws at us and let our faith in You be the firm foundation that our life is built upon. Help us to let go of grudges or any ill will against our brothers and sisters knowing that we are all sinners and saints. Let us give the same compassion, kindness, forgiveness and love that is given to us from the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. To You alone we live and give all that we have knowing that because Christ lives we can live, confident and free, knowing that this world is not our home.
Bring us back to You
From Evangelical Lutheran Worship Hymnal
Lord God, thank You for allowing us to come into Your presence and experience Your grace, mercy and love. You are in the business of changing the world and changing lives. We ask that You would change whatever needs to be changed in our hearts and minds so that we can be the people that You made us to be: People of compassion, forgiveness and hope. And even though we may wander, just help us to listen and hear Your constant voice that will always lead us back to You. Bring back joy into this life. Bring back hope. And bring back the love that we should have for each other. Clear away any of the nonsense that would distract us from accessing our faith so that we can live this life confidently knowing that this world is not our home because we have been promised a life after this in eternity with the Heavenly Father through the sacrifice of His only Son and by the power of His Holy Spirit we have all been saved forever.
Transform the ordinary into the extraordinary
St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church in Northridge, California.
Lord Jesus, thank You for the miracle of life and the blessing of this moment where we can come together in Your presence. We search for peace where there is no peace in things that are only of this world. But You are not of this world. You are everything. You are Hope and You are truth. So step into our lives so that we can go beyond the typical and be transformed from the ordinary into the extraordinary possibilities of God. The problem is we believe too much with our eyes and not enough with our faith. Help us this season to look past the Santa’s and the gifts. Show us how to give what You have given to us: never ending unconditional love, mercy and grace. Help us to see You. Help us to experience You as never before. So that the words of the Gospel will be true for us: that we are all made new in Christ because the former self and all of our past mistakes and successes are shed away by the love of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Come Emmanuel
Art work from New Song Church in Henderson, NV
Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, thank You for being the truth, the light and the way. So here is Your church, Your body here on earth. We pray that You would unify us with the power of Your Holy Spirit by coming into a world that hungers for hope. Come into our lives, which so desperately needs Your presence. We need You. We need You ever hour and every moment to shine the light of eternal truth into the darkness of this world and our hearts. As the years fly past us, You remain the only constant in our lives so let us be open to hearing Your word. Let us be open to learning from Your truth by helping us to step into the story that changed the world. The story that reveals the never ending truth of the gospel that God so loved all of us that He came near to us, as one of us, to let all people know that there is hope, there is mercy and that there is love through the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Emmanuel, God with us. You fulfilled the promise of the Eternal One, that God will not forsake us, and even as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death we will not fear because God is always with us.
Bless the Lord
Art provided by New Song Church in Henderson
Thank You Lord for this day. Thank you for the air that we breathe. Thank You for emotions, thoughts, and everything that we feel and experience in this life that let’s us know that we are alive. Let us let go and let God so that we can come into Your presence with a grateful heart and never forget or take for granted the many ways that You bless us. We come to You with both our successes and our failures and ask that You reach deep into our souls and release us from the past so that we can move forward in the future that You have in store for us. Fill our lives with all that is good and when we cross the line please be patient with us. Only You know how much time and breath each of us have left in this life, so give us the wisdom to live fully in the cause of Christ so that we can step into the miracle that is God’s unfailing and never ending love for all people. Let us praise You God, in everything that we do, and let our faith shine in every word that we speak, every thought that we think and every step that we take so that all people who see us will experience the awesome and life changing love of Almighty God whose mercy and grace endures forever.
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