Prayers 4

Almighty God, our Heavenly Father we come with confidence into your Holy presence, knowing that because of Jesus and because of his shed blood we have access right to your listening ear and your attentive heart. We Praise you for your boundless love, your abiding presence, and your unspeakable joy. Enable us to put away our selfishness and give us a heart full of compassion for others, so that we might bear witness to your unfailing love and your unending mercy. Protect us from the contaminating influences of the world, the ways of the world, and the passions of the world, and help us to live so close to you, that we may reflect heavenly and eternal things, and be loyal above all else to your Son our Saviour Jesus Christ. We confess that at times, we are so earth-bound that we loose all sight of the brevity of our time here, so help us to remember that this “life is but a vapour that appeared for a little time and then vanishes away.” Lord, enable us to invest our time, our talents, our energies and our resources in the things that matter, the things of eternity, that will remain when this world and all its trinkets and treasures have passed away! We bless you for your precious word, ever the guiding compass along the road of life. Because it embodies your heart, help us to love it…. because it embodies your mind, help us to learn it….. And because it embodies your will, help us to live by it! Bless your word to us today as we read and meditate upon it, so that it may nourish our soul and our understanding, so that we may become better equipped to live a victorious life over the things that tempt form the world the flesh and the devil! Inspire and instruct our preachers and leaders to fresh insights so that your word may be increasingly relevant to our present day. We acknowledge that your word is timeless, and it is our failure to appreciate and appropriate it that so often brings us into the ways of unrighteousness. Father grant to us the things we need and fail to ask, for we desire all these things in the Precious name of your Son our Saviour Jesus Christ, Amen.

Prayers of Intercession

Gracious and Merciful Father, we come again in all our need to acknowledge your sufficiency for those needs, and particularly do we think of the many who are less privileged and less fortunate and seemingly less blessed than we are ourselves. Your mercies and benefits have been our portion daily, and new every morning are the gifts we enjoy. Yet Lord we are conscious that across our land and our world today there are many in great need. Many in need of food, in need of shelter, in need of medicine, in need of love, in need of relief, in need of education, in need of work, in need of finances, and in need of a friend. We bless your Holy Name for the Friend that we can have in Jesus, and we pray for your help to minister in His name to the needs of others both around the world, and across the street. We pray that you will give us courage and determination to reach out to others even when it is difficult for us, so that we might become a blessing to them. We thank you that we are your instruments, your hands, your feet, your voice, and your love here on earth, so use us to your Glory and their good. Fill our hearts with compassion and concern that makes the kind of self-sacrifices, that please you and provide for others. Do not allow us to hoard up treasure on earth, but enable us to lay up treasure in heaven, for by so doing, we build for an eternal future and an eternal kingdom that cannot erode or fade away. Help our world leaders to understand their responsibility to those under-privileged nations so that wealth and food may be shared equally with our humanity, and that together we may be good stewards of the bounty that you have provided for all of our peoples.

We bless you for this green and pleasant land in which we live, and for the beauty of our world around us. We thank you for seed-time and Harvest, for sunshine and rain, for summer and winter. Help us not to take for granted the many gifts that are ours, but to preserve our food with care, and not to waste it. To rotate our crops with a plan that makes the best use of the ground and its mineral wealth. To value the drinking water in our rivers and reservoirs and to prevent the contaminating influences that can destroy life and its source. Preserve for us the things that enrich our world and give us thankful hearts for all.

We ask these things in the name of Jesus who taught us when we pray to say….. “Our Father …”