Corporate Prayers September 2023

9.3.23

Father, what a gift it is to be gathered here today singing and celebrating the gospel of Jesus Christ with one another. Our time is so thin and our minds so hurried it’s good for us to be in a place where we’re able to slow down and focus our hearts. To remind ourselves of the supremacy and sufficiency of Christ. To be worshipers rather than observers of the Most High God. We’re so easily able to simply acknowledge you in our daily lives, but it’s a far greater work to surrender our daily lives to you as we should. To surrender our needs and our worries to you. To escalate mortal distractions and ills above your glory. And in doing so we lose the wander and awe of the Most High God who loves us. We’ve done our best to nudge you from the center and out into the periphery. Father, forgive us. Forgive us our faithlessness. Forgive us for not trusting you in your steadfast love and your mercy for us. Spirit, help us to remember what gives us life and breath, what gives us worth and identity, what gives us peace and assurance. Help us to remember where we find steadfast love and our refuge for all our troubled days. Help us to rightly place Jesus at the very center of our lives and the desire of our hearts for all eternity. We are loved more deeply than we can possibly imagine and you look upon us with such mercy and tenderness and we exalt you above all things. It’s in the wondrous name of Jesus Christ we have gathered and in his name we pray all these things, Amen.

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9.10.23

Heavenly Father, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we worship you this morning. Thank you for the gift that it is to gather in your Name for YOU are worthy of our praise. You are the Maker and Creator of all things. You know the very number of hairs on our heads, the patterns of our fingerprints, the codes of our DNA... our thoughts, our motives, our hearts… you made it all and know it all. There is nothing and no one worthy of our worship but you; the One true Lord. But we are a fickle people, Jesus. We so often fail to worship you as we should, but rather, we allow the idols of our day to dictate who or what we give our time and hearts to. We so easily allow pride, comfort, money, our jobs and status, personal identity, our families and children, physical appearance, technology and our phones to rule over you in our hearts and lives. Jesus forgive us. Spirit, we pray that our hearts would be softened toward you and that a fire would be ignited for you in our hearts. Help us to fix our eyes on you. Help us to see that your ways are far above ours, and that you do beyond what we can ask or even imagine. Help us to trust that you are working all things for our good and your glory- both the mountain tops and the valleys, God. Help us to find our identity in you. You created us to worship you… we pray that we would be a church that serves you well Lord and that our songs and our prayers would be a sweet sound to your ear. It’s in the beautiful Name of Jesus that we ask all of these things this morning. Amen.

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9.17.23

Creator God, We are here singing your praises this morning and lifting our hearts and hands toward you. For you are the God of the universe and the good things you offer us, we do not deserve for we are sinners who were born with a bent toward darkness and evil. From the day we entered this world until the day we leave, we have failed and will continue to fail to perfectly uphold your eternal law. Father, we try so hard to fulfill our deepest desires with our own plans and by our own strength and we put ourselves above others without even thinking about it. Failing to love you and failing to love others is so easy for us to do, we are so near-sighted and selfish. We constantly fall short of your commands to love you and to love others. Yet somehow, you still love us, Lord. For you sent your only son, Jesus, to live a perfect life, fulfilling all your commands, yet still taking the punishment for all our sins by dying on a cross then defeating death and hell by raising back to life on the third day. Father, look what you have done! The miracle of miracles that demonstrates the heights and depths that you will go to, to rescue us from the grave. God, what joy should fill our hearts with every breath we take, with every morning we rise from our beds, with every song that the birds sing, with every breeze that we feel on our skin, with every smell after a summer rain shower, with every tree that is set ablaze with the colors of fall, with every snowflake that flutters to the ground, with every sunset that paints the sky and with every star that breaks through the darkness of night, Father keep our hearts in awe and wonder of your glorious love and grace for us. Continue to shape our hearts into who you want us to be and protect us from the evil one. In your holy name we pray, Amen.

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9.24.23

Gracious Heavenly Father, we come before you and ask that you would hear our hearts. We ask that you also would speak to us through your Spirit and use this time to show us our intentions and motives behind our words and behavior. Unveil our sin that we conceal and ignore for inside us is darkness. We desperately need the light of your presence to shine into our dim, cold hearts. We confess our pride that takes over and causes us to strive and struggle, in constant turmoil as we seek to be our own God. But with you Lord, there is peace. Forgive us for our prideful hearts. We confess our complacency. For we are so accustomed to our sinful nature that we don’t even see it and certainly don’t acknowledge it. Forgive us for those moments and continue to open our eyes to see our sin and how it affects those in our lives so that we may love others well as you have called us to. Jesus, thank you for perfectly walking this earth on our behalf. Thank you for loving the Father more than your life and walking in complete obedience to him as our substitute. Soften our hearts now to the word that we may be changed and molded to who you made us to be. May we continue to look to you for our need is very great. We love you. Amen.

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