Holy God:
We praise you for you are worthy of praise. You are great, greater than all we can ever know. You are all wisdom, all knowledge, all power, all goodness. Everything belongs to you, and all things and all people have been made to praise you.
And so, we have gathered in your house and with your people to offer the sacrifice of praise. We join our voices in song, we join our hearts and prayer, we approach you with open hearts and open ears, waiting upon a word from you.
We open our lives to you. May the words from your holy book, the words from your beloved son, reshape the way we see ourselves and our world. May we, each and every one, leave different than we arrived. Today, make us a little more joyful, a little more holy, a little more like Jesus. Free us from our ways, our thinking. Free us from what we’ve been taught, what we’ve always done.
Make us into a people who serve you. Make us into true followers of your Son Jesus Christ. we yield to his ways, even though we don’t always understand them. Sometimes they seem so foreign to us, sometimes Jesus teachings seem so impractical to us. We are born selfish creatures, and he has taught us to yield our lives in humble service and joyful abandon. We have come to the end of our ways—what we have always done is no longer working for us. So, holy God, teach us your ways today. Grace us to live in your way.
Our hearts break for those who have been affected by recent floods in Louisiana. Lord, be merciful to the victims of this disaster, and to all who are affected by natural disasters around the world. Turn our hearts to compassion to ease the sufferings of others. May our faith be of action and never of words alone.
Amen.
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