Holy God:
We thank you for the love you have poured out to us, the love you are pouring out right now, and the love you have sent before us for the needs ahead of us. We thank you that you chose us without regard to our deserving. We thank you that you have given us your word, your spirit, your very lifeblood. You have given us each other. You have given us new hearts and loving friends, countless sermons and Bible Studies, a comfortable building in which to worship, and so much more than we can ever name.
You have told us to abide in you, and we are thankful that you want to abide with us. You also said that if we abide in you and your word abides in us, then we would produce fruit that would last. Those words comfort us, but they also worry us. Because they teach us that the life you have invested in us should produce a return. And you have taught us that you will hold us accountable for producing the fruit that your love should produce.
So help us to take a hard look at ourselves, both as individuals and as a church. Help us to honestly take account of what we have produced--how we have loved others, how we have grown as disciples, how we have helped others to come to faith. Today, let us honestly hear from you what good has come from all those hours in church and all those sermons and all our religious activity. We want to be made new. We want our lives to be fruitful.
We cannot be anything other than what we have always been unless you remake us. So help us, holy God, to feel our need to be nourished, shaped, transformed, and reconnected. And help our lives to bring a harvest of righteousness.
Amen.
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