Almighty Creator, breathe new life onto us. Wash away the ugliness of sin and make a message out of our messes. Let the glory of the Lord walk through us, minister to us and speak to us now by breaking down the walls that cause us to be strangers to each other.
Give us the courage to reach across the room, the street, or whatever stands before us, so that we won’t miss an opportunity to bring people closer to the gospel by letting Your light shine brighter than anything else in our life. Let people see You in us.
Prepare us for the mountains and valleys. Nurture us as we grow in faith. And remind us that no matter where we go that God goes with us always.
Jehovah Jireh, You are the God that provides. The One who sees what we can’t see. You see our heart and who we really are. Although Your footprints are no longer on this earth, the imprint of everything that You stand for lives on in all of us.
Talk to us Lord. Speak to us now and reset our minds so that we can see glimpses of heaven and know the eternal truth of grace: that even as time slips away we will always be in the presence of our Creator. We will always be in the presence of love. We will always be in the presence of mercy and grace.
Lord, don’t let us miss this life and don’t let us work against You. Restore our faith so that we can see that there can be miracles, the miracles of friendship, love, kindness and compassion, which are all just reflections of the love and sacrifice shown to us on the cross.
“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.
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.
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.
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.
Lord Jesus, You make the impossible possible. You transform the ordinary into the extraordinary. You breathe life into what was once dead. You see us, and You know us more than we know ourselves because You knew us before we took our first breath and You will be there with us when we take our last.
You, Jesus, are amazing, and we ask that whatever truth we need to hear from Your word, in this moment, be given to us as a gift from God. Let Your words just fall down from heaven and touch our hearts. “For, all people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord endures forever.” (1 Peter 1:24)
Move us, right now and right here, so that the words that we hear and say today will match the way we that live out our lives. Take away the hypocrisy of religion and pride by calling on all of us to love with the same love that forgave and released us from our own regrets, hatred and shame. Through You, Jesus, we are now free to love because You first loved us. That same love, the love of God, is present now and is available/accessible to us now, today and forever. So Lord, speak into our hearts so that we can also love all and condemn no one.
Yes, this life is challenging as the enemy stares us down, “but greater is He that lives in all of us than he that is of the world.” (1 John 4:4) Here is the reality that we can all embrace: The crucified and resurrected Christ frees us all from yesterdays mistakes so that we can be brave, we can be courageous, and we can truly and whole-heartedly live in the abundance of God’s favor, grace and love.
It’s never too late to accept Christ. It’s never too late to experience His love. All of the chaos in this world is silenced by His eternity for “in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:37-39)
Why is grace so amazing? It is amazing because it is a gift. A gift that is given in sacrifice and mercy. A gift that allows us to simply let go of any condemnation or judgement for any mistakes that we have made in the past because Jesus bore all of our sins at the cross. “8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.” (Ephesians 2:8)
So many questions circle our minds as we walk through life’s valleys. We wonder why do we have to face these obstacles, we question God’s purpose and we limit God’s love. But in those times, we should remember that “the will of God will not take us where the grace of God cannot sustain us” (Billy Graham) for we are never alone. The love of God is the same love that lives within all of us. It dwells in our hearts and it sustains us, throughout all of the good and bad times, so that we can trust in the truth of the Gospel that there are no limits to this divine love that even death could not hold back.
We often attempt to tackle life’s mountains on our own shoulders, but the reality is that we cannot rely solely on our own strength as we face these giants. We foolishly pull away from God as He reaches evermore for us, but He is there for us, to lean and depend on, as He guides us through all of the joys and sorrows. Yes, we must walk through the valleys, but we do not stay there.
This song, “Amazing Grace” is a prayer that has touched the hearts of generations and nations because it gives voice to exactly what God’s love is: a gift. A gift so unimaginable that it cannot be contained by the limitations of this mortal world. We are given this gift so that we can live, and the gift of life goes beyond our first or final breath because our chains are gone and we have been set free by our God, Savior and Friend. So let’s join in one voice and sing His praises.
Several years ago my best friends mom made these origami for me. She is no longer with us and I can now return these gifts to my best friend for her wedding.
Loving Creator, You gave each of us a mother that gave us life. No matter what, we must honor our parents by loving them as You, our Heavenly Father, love us. We can lift them up instead of bringing them down. We can be thankful for their contribution to our lives instead of forgetting them. We can also forgive them as we have been forgiven. Each of us has the opportunity to reflect God’s love to all people. So let’s love those that gave us life and give thanks to those who have nurtured, cared for, and taught us even if we were not their children. Let’s watch over every mother who is currently with child. And let us help strengthen their faith and the faith of those around them in the truth of Jesus Christ. And for the child that yearns for a mother that is not there, we pray that the church will rise up for those that cannot help themselves. And for those who grieve for a mother that has left this world, we ask that You keep the memories of love, family and honor ever etched into the memories of their children so that the love of God, that dwells in all of us, will always connect us and bind us together from generation to generation until the end of time. Thank You, Lord, for the gift of life and for the gift of those who raised us. As we honor them, we honor You. To God be the glory.
This was my twist on the popular love song “Bless the Broken Road” by Rascal Flatts that I did at church for Valentines Day weekend as a way to say thank you to Jesus for always being my side through all of the ups and downs of my life.
I believe that everything that we experience, good and bad, simply leads us to His truth for our lives which includes all of the ups and downs and everything else in between. And as I get older, I can see that all of those times, places and people that maybe were not the most pleasant to experience, were merely preparing me to help find my way back to Him. And because of Him, I can forgive others as I have been forgiven because that burden is finally freed from my shoulder, so that I can really live this life in the way that He would want me to live. A life filled with grace that is sufficient for every possibility and circumstance that we will encounter on the road called life..
Yes, the road is broken but the journey always leads us back to confront the reality of the cross and the open arms of Jesus Christ. “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him (John 3:17).” So if we do not have condemnation from a God that could/should condemn us for our mistakes, then how could we condemn others? Can we forgive those who trespass against us as we have been forgiven by Almighty God? Yes, I believe that we can.
We can only share or gift something that we have an abundance of. We have an abundance of amazing grace, love and forgiveness, so let’s share that gift that was given to us on this broken road called life. We can’t run to Him by holding on to the baggage of yesterday, so let’s just let go and let God by following His truth and message; that all people are children of God, who are loved as His unique creation, and need to be treated with dignity, compassion and respect. Amen.
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