Adoration

Lord, how great, how just and how merciful you are!

You sit enthroned above the cherubim. You sit above the circle of the earth and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers. You stretch out the heavens like a curtain and spread them out like a tent. Our idols we carry in our hands, our minds and our hearts. But nobody carries you – on the contrary, you lovingly carry your people!

Lord, you are so righteous and just that we can’t even comprehend the notion. Lord, you are passionate for what is right at all times and you do not compromise for the sake of comfort. We come to you with our pleas for justice and you not only provide deliverance, either in the immediate or in the expected, but you show us how much bigger your justice is. You remind us that justice is ultimately about your name which has been treated unjustly through our idolatry and short-sightedness.

O Lord, and how merciful you are! In your manifold wisdom you managed to be just to your Name and merciful to us who had rebelled against you. We seek justice Lord and desire no mercy for our enemies, but you took your enemies and lavished love and blessings and riches on them. Maybe, maybe some people might manage to forgive their enemies, but who lavishes them with blessings and hope? And all at the expense of the Lord Jesus who was treated unjustly by His own creation!

Confession

Lord, we confess that there were times over the past week when we didn’t appreciate your name, we didn’t trust your justice and we forgot your mercy. Your glory seemed abstract and distant. Our problems were bigger so we focused our thoughts on them, tossing and turning them in our minds. Praising you was hard at times and we wondered how it could possibly help us.

When people hurt us this week, we swiftly demanded justice and looked down on their faults. Your justice seemed far off, delaying a great while, so we appealed to our resumes and intelligence and moral superiority to punish them in our minds.

At times our problems seemed big this week and so we grumbled. We forgot your past mercies and your future ones and the promises we have in Jesus and wondered if it wasn’t time for us to do something. Other people seemed to be better off so we tried to rationalize our reaching out to the work of our hands to solve our problems and make ourselves feel better.

We ask Lord for forgiveness and for faith to believe your promises and for strength to move away from the lies we hear in our heads about ourselves, the world and you.

Thanksgiving

But Lord, we are grateful that in your great justice and mercy you forgive us, through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. We thank you that you reveal our sin to us and you give us strength to repent and faith to confess our sins.

Lord, we are grateful for your daily provision of all our needs. You provide food, drink and shelter. And you provide your Word and your Spirit who keep us.

We thank you that we get to hear your word and to meet with one another. And we thank you that we can send a team to the Middle East to encourage our brothers and sisters there.

Supplication

We pray that you would save many people among the B. K. and among all the Syrian refugees in that region. We pray that the Bible would be translated into B. soon and that all your servants laboring there would see much fruit. We pray that you strengthen them and encourage them and give them unity of mind and spirit to serve you.

In particular we pray that you give N., J., J. and D. opportunities to speak the truth of the Gospel to the people they meet and that that truth would produce good lasting change.

Lord we pray for our persecuted brothers and sisters the broader Middle East region. Lord, give them grace to be faithful and bring their persecutors to you. Glorify your name by breaking the hearts of murderers and giving them faith in you.

Help us here in Washington DC not to stray from your truth under peer pressure and other types of pressures. We are tempted to believe we have a lot to loose if we speak the truth and that makes us weak. Help us put those things behind us and speak the truth in love. Would you bring sound thinking and life to the city we live in?

Lord, I pray you empower J. to preach your word faithfully and us to be transformed by it.

In Jesus’ Name

Amen.