Father, we praise you for your beauty and brightness. We praise you that you love and love perfectly. Father, you are beautiful, and you are light. Your character is pure and perfect. Your love is in complete harmony with your justice and with your mercy. You are free, and you use your freedom to love.

Father, we praise you for how you made a way for us to be free. We were enslaved to sin and deserving of your eternal judgement, but in Christ you absorbed the punishment, you gave us new life and removed the fear of rejection and death which kept us enslaved to sin. We praise you for how Christ, stood between you and us and took our sin away.

Father, we confess that we have used our freedom for sin. We were free to praise you, but we praised ourselves. We were free to praise you, but we blamed you for how you don’t give us what we long for. We were free to praise you, but we forgot about it because we were absorbed with idols. We were free to love, but we chose to look down on our neighbors. We were free to love, but we chose to insist on our own right, rather than showing meekness. We were free to love, but we used our words to get back out the people next to us. We were free to love you, but we chose to work for our career, family and money.

Father, forgive us our sin and enable us to use our freedom for love. Help us remember who you are and who we are in you. Help us not fear death or humiliation or loss, but love you with all our hearts, minds and souls and our neighbors as ourselves.

Father, we thank you for your forgiveness. We thank you for freeing us from sin, at immeasurable cost to yourself. Thank you for Jesus, our Lord, who took our sin, and made us a new creation. We thank you that we will get to share in your eternal glory and love. We thank you that we don’t get to do everything we want, but that you watch over us to keep us from hurting you, our neighbors and ourselves.

Father, we thank you, that in Jesus you made a way for people to live in peace and freedom, people from all nations, people-groups, status and races. We thank you that we are no longer in search of an identity or a home, but that we are in Christ and that you are preparing a place for us. We thank you for your body, the church, in which you display your manifold wisdom in front of powers and principalities.

Father we thank you for your churches Legacy Humboldt Park, led by CP, and Progressive Baptist led by CD, who are lights in Chicago even as the city and area are hit by a wave of extreme violence. We thank you for their presence there, in the midst of the darkness. We pray that they put their faith in you, proclaim the Gospel clearly and that the people in their communities would turn to your truth for salvation. We pray you empower them not to be afraid about what is going on, but to faithfully love one another even as they have been doing.  We pray that you put an end to the violence in Chicago and bring reconciliation there.

Father we pray for freedom from sin in this country. We pray that people would not pursue their instincts and desires but pursue the love of Jesus. We pray that people would not use any freedoms provided by you to sin, but to serve one another, to hear one another and to bear with one another. We pray that you release the people of this country from slavery to money, power, sex and man-made images of happiness and prosperity.

Finally, Father we pray that you end racism in this country. We are saddened and angry that people would gather, as they are later today in this city, to claim that one race, the white race, is superior to another. You created us all in your image, irrespective of race and skin color. And yet, some people have deluded themselves into believing a devilish lie. We pray Father that this lie would fall and that nobody in this country would believe it anymore. We pray for reconciliation between people of different races, as well as for restitution, healing and forgiveness. We also pray, Lord, for people who have believed the lie of racism, that they would repent and believe the truth of Jesus Christ and be saved.

Father, given how easy it is for violence to break out, we pray that you make today’s demonstrations pass by without verbal aggression or physical violence. We pray that you give wisdom and self-restraint to all parties involved. We pray that no free publicity would be given to these lies, but that your truth would be proclaimed.

Father, you are building a kingdom of freedom. We pray that your churches in this city and this country would be a light pointing to the true freedom, the freedom to enjoy you and to love you and neighbor.

In Christ’s name, Amen.