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.
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.
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.
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 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 tous. 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.
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.
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.
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