GREETING (Adapted from Isaiah 52:7)
How beautiful upon the mountains, O God,
are the feet of the messenger who announces peace,
who brings good news,
who announces salvation,
who says to Zion, “Your God reigns!”
HYMN 571 “Go, Make of All Disciples”
PSALM 95
PRAYER
(Think back to the beginning of this day. Start there, and mentally walk through the day again, while you thank God for the day's blessings and God's continuous work of love. Confess and repent of those times when you forgot, ignored or rebelled against God. Continue to pray with your personal prayer list.)
SCRIPTURE LESSON
(Choose a passage of scripture to read. It can be a chapter, a paragraph, or a particular story. Daily lectionaries are available online or in print that assign a lesson each day from the gospels, epistles, Old Testament and psalms on a three-year cycle. Or you can create a plan to read a book of the Bible, or the whole Bible. Then follow the steps below.)
Read a passage of scripture. Read it out loud, very slowly and carefully as if for the first time. Continue reading until a word, phrase or sentence captures your attention. Stop there to repeat the word, phrase or sentence over and over, listening to it deeply in your heart.
Reflect on why the passage got your attention. Consider the area of your life to which this may apply. Is God saying something to you in this passage? Take time to listen carefully to whatever God may be saying to you.
Respond to God in prayer (or with journaling, music, art or whatever you choose) about what you have heard. Ask questions. Open yourself to God’s will for you.
Rest in God’s company. Be still and quiet. Move beyond thinking, practicing interior silence. Let yourself be open to God’s presence. Savor this moment with God.
PRAYER
Our Father, all authority in heaven and on earth you have given to Jesus,
and, using his authority, Jesus has commissioned us to make disciples for him.
We know the fruit that such discipleship produces, its blessings and joys.
But many are those who know nothing of discipleship, and care not to learn.
Family and friends, neighbors and strangers, and especially our enemies,
believe our faith to be naïve, foolish superstition, based upon total ignorance.
Before knowing Christ, we could have reached the same fated conclusions.
Science has given us a false confidence in our own abilities and knowledge.
We have become self-reliant, trusting our technologies to solve problems.
We can put our hands on our inventions and see the results of our cleverness.
But no one can touch you, God, or see you; and precious few can hear you.
And even people who believe in a Creator, cannot believe you care about us.
After all, it is hard for humans with such a pittance of experience to imagine:
that just one being was capable of creating all the vast reaches of our cosmos;
or that such a being would make an eternal covenant with the man Abraham;
or rescue a bunch of slaves from Egyptian taskmasters to keep that covenant.
And with the universe everywhere proclaiming death is the end of all things,
who can believe Jesus is resurrected from death, or that we can live eternally?
And most unimaginable is that pure holiness can forgive the evil we create,
or that a perfect being can love us, in spite of our selfish and hateful behavior.
You call us to venture beyond our means of knowing, to live by faith alone.
But we find it so difficult to trust the only One who has never failed us. Why?
We trust our treaties to keep the peace, though so many have ended in war.
We trust legal contracts, but so often are clobbered by what is in the small print.
We trust our marriages, even though more than half of them end in divorce.
We trust in ourselves, but how many times have we been corrupt, inept or foolish?
Help us, God, and help our neighbors, to realize you are the One to be trusted.
Demonstrate your trustworthiness in the tragedies and disappointments we face.
Show others how you unfailingly walk beside us in dangerous times and places.
Let them see how you turn evil to good, and resurrect life from the grip of death.
Let others see your faithfulness, power and absolute love working in our lives.
Help us display in our lives the serenity and love that comes from trusting you.
Use us to plant seeds of faith in those who are farthest from trusting you, God.
And teach us to encourage those whose faith is wavering in times of great distress.
Let faith grow in this doubting world, as people recognize you working for them.
Reveal yourself to all the world’s children. Let them know the love in your heart.
Then new voices will be added to the multitude lifting love and thanks to you.
And disciples, new and old, will shout your praises in heaven and on earth eternally.
Amen.
SILENCE AND COMMITMENT
(Pause to reflect and listen. Work to push out of your mind any distracting or irrelevant thoughts. Concentrate your thoughts on the words of the hymns and choruses you have sung, the prayers you have spoken and the scriptures you have read. Be aware of what you are feeling. Listen for anything that God might be saying to you in this time you have spent together. As God responds to your prayer-time, seek guidance for how you can best respond to God’s will. Then commit to serving God’s will for you.)
HYMN 584 “Lord, You Give the Great Commission”
CLOSING PRAYER
You, God, are the very essence of love and grace,
and tonight as we approach our beds for needed sleep,
we turn over all our concerns to your compassionate heart.
Wrap our families and friends in your protection.
Guard those whose paths we have crossed today,
and our neighbors: known and unknown, near and far.
Heal those with diseases, wounds and afflictions;
those boiling with deep troubles inside themselves;
and those cursed with bad decisions and crippling habits.
Bring good news to the people suffering in wars;
those impoverished by ignorance or sick economies;
and those living under the burden of earth’s pollution.
Take all your people into your arms tonight, Lord.
Comfort them with your steadfast and faithful love.
Let them find rest and hope tonight in your tender care. Amen.
Copyright 2020. Robert D. Ingram, 32746 Jourden Rd., Albany, Ohio 45710 (dr.bobingram@gmail.com). Used by permission.
