Father,

How great you are Lord! Your name alone is worthy of worship and glory! Father, Son and Holy Spirit united in true love and true glory reigning from eternity past to eternity future – you alone are worthy of glory.

Father, you create out of nothing. You turn the sea into dry land, you turn the storm into calm, you provide for everyone on earth, and you heal the sick and comfort the weary.

You hate sin and evil and fight against it with everything you’ve got. You sent your one and only Son to die for sin and create a righteous people. You brought Him into the grave, Him who was truly worthy of life. You rose him from the dead and with him you turned us, who were truly worthy of death, into your people and your children.

How mighty and loving and glorious you are!

Father, blessed be your name because of Jesus. He embraced everything we run away from, everything we fear, everything we want to forget and deny. Although He was rich, He became poor. Although He was strong, He became weak. Although he was respected, He became reviled. Although He was beautiful, He became ugly. Although He gave life to human life, He died a human death. And by your great power He came victorious on the other side.

How awesome you are Lord! How great sinners we are!

Father, we saw your glory and we tried to run away from it. We worked diligently for our glory and for our respect. We claimed that our actions were for your sake and for the sake of justice, but we did it because we wanted to be somebody and WE wanted to make a difference.

Father, we saw your goodness and it was too much to bear. We did not love our neighbors and tried to find excuses. We told ourselves they were unreasonable, selfish, mistaken. We looked down on their weaknesses while silencing our consciences by pursuing good deeds and reminding ourselves of our past right actions and moral superiority.

Father, we saw Jesus’ humility and we despised it. We saw that you might call us to be less than we wanted to be and serve more than we felt we could serve. And we despised that and looked for ways to make ourselves feel better, be stronger and be somebody. All the while justifying it by a desire to do all things as best as we can for YOU.

Father, save us from our sin! Forgive us and give us a new heart and a new mind and a new soul that we singlehandedly fell, think and live for your glory. Transform us Lord!

We thank you Lord, that in your great mercy, you provide grace!

Thank you that you do not leave us prey to our sinful desires. Thank you that you are committed to our deliverance from sin and death.

Father, we thank you that you provide for us from A to Z. You not only provide help with our sin, but you provide food and clothes and everything else. We thank you that we have put us in a community where we can hear your word. We thank you for the cloud of witnesses that remind us of our calling and of your power to save, witnesses of old like Abraham or Paul and witnesses of new like our brothers and sisters that are currently suffering for your name. We think here Lord of P from Kazakhstan who was imprisoned for preaching your word and whose imprisonment you used to bring almost 100 people to you. We think of D who was imprisoned in Eritrea for his Christian witness.

We pray Lord that you glorify your name and that you transform our hearts to be fearful for your glory rather than our own, to be passionate for your name, rather than our own, to live in freedom from the worries of this world and to chase Jesus for Jesus’ sake.

We pray that you take care of our brothers and sisters these countries Pakistan, Sudan, Eritrea and Kazakhstan and to enable them to preach the Gospel and to love one another in the midst of great opposition and persecution.

We pray Lord that you enable us to love our neighbors here in Washington DC. Enable us to be bold and effective testimonies for the Gospel. Turn the hearts of the people around us to you. Soften the hearts Lord! Remove our unbelieving neighbors from their self-made idolatrous delusions about their present and their future. Shine your light on them and on us and let us all be transformed.

Blessed be your Name!

Amen