The Pastor’s Corner

Prayer: Grant almighty God that you, through your Spirit, would grant us joy in our hearts as we gather to worship you on the day you have ordered for us. Grant that we would enjoy your presence and demonstrate it as we sing your praises. We thank you that you have given us music in which we can express our love to you. Throughout your Word, we see how your people sang songs of praise for your marvelous works. Grant us that same zeal. Forgive us for being overly conscious of how we sound. Forgive us for holding back and not opening our mouths wide to proclaim your greatness. Forgive us for being selfish, forgetting that we may be sitting near a weary soul who needs the soothing ointment of song in praise to you. We know that you have gifted us with this tremendous privilege -- to sing and praise you. Please give us what you command and help us today to lift the roofs of our churches as we gather in praise to you, we pray through Christ our Lord. Amen.

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Prayer: Grant almighty God that the people you have called by name would call upon you with fear and trembling. As your children, we know that we have you as our Father who is able and ready to help us with all that concerns us and troubles us in this fallen world. We look to you as the one true God and the alone sustainer of all things. We are your people and the sheep of your pasture. You have promised good things to us and told us that if we delight in you, you will give us the desires of our hearts. Therefore, holy Father, tune our hearts to those things that you desire. Grant in us a patient and contented mind and heart to wait patiently upon you as we seek you in prayer. Give to us a will that desires only what you desire we pray through Christ our Lord. Amen.

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Prayer: Grant almighty God that we, as your redeemed people, would learn to number our days and redeem the time because the days are evil. We spend far too much time on pleasures and fail to grasp that we are to labor while it is day because the night is coming when no man can work. Due to your marvelous grace and infinite compassion, we have been brought into your Kingdom to serve you and glorify you in all that we do. We spend far too much of our time in the pursuit of frivolous things. We waste time. We don't redeem it. Forgive us, Father. Forgive our shortsightedness and laziness. Forgive us for living each day as though we are promised tomorrow. Please help us to deeply grasp that our lives are a vapor -- here today and gone tomorrow. Please give us a deeper sense of our mortality and cause us to labor diligently for you. Teach us to store up treasures in heaven and not on this earth. As your children, drive us to seek first your kingdom and righteousness. Help us to not grow weary in doing good, we beg of you. Grant us more of your grace we pray through Christ our Lord. Amen.

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Prayer: Grant almighty God that you would bless your people today with a measure of your grace and kindness. You are the LORD, and there is no other. You are a God of great kindness and compassion, knowing that we are but dust, prone to wander and prone to leave the God we love. We thank you for your Word that is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword. We thank you that it lights our way and steadies our hands helping us to live faithful lives before you. We confess our weakness and failures -- indeed, our sins and transgressions that are always before us. We mourn indwelling sin and the irreconcilable war that exists in our members. Yet, we praise you for giving us a new heart, wrought by the work of the Spirit of God, that enables us to see and live in your Kingdom. Please help us, Father, to walk worthy of the calling you have placed on our lives. We are humbled that you loved us before we ever loved you. You have demonstrated your love by giving us the Lord Jesus, our Savior, and your only begotten Son. Grant to us a greater affection for all that he did that we would have peace with you through Christ our Lord. Amen.

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Prayer: Grant almighty God that your redeemed people would take your Kingdom and righteousness seriously for the glory of your name alone. Grant that we would be willing to cast our mortal flesh aside for the glory of your name and the advancement of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. We know that your Son tells us that if we love him, we will obey him in all he commands us. We long for more love to thee. Thus we pray, "More love to Thee, O Christ, more love to thee! Hear thou this prayer we make on bended knee." Forgive us for the many ways we fall short of the high calling of being numbered as your treasured possession. We grieve indwelling sin and know that we rarely number our days and use them to serve you. We are prone to make excuses for laboring today while it is still day. We are forgetful that eternity is a long time, and many are facing a dreadful end. Please grant us a burden to seek first your kingdom and righteousness and love the souls of men enough to tell them of the hope that Christ extends to all who will listen. Forgive us for waiting our days in pointless pursuits and not setting our minds on the things above. Please grant us more zeal and more love for the Savior who became poor that we might be rich. Please help us by your Spirit we pray through Christ our Lord. Amen.

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This week I have selected two prayers from Calvin's commentary on Hosea:

Prayer: Grant, Almighty God, that as we now carry about us this mortal body, yea, and nourish through sin a thousand deaths within us, - O grant, that we may ever by faith direct our eyes towards heaven, and to that incomprehensible power, which is to be manifested at the last day by Jesus Christ our Lord, so that in the midst of death we may hope that thou wilt be our Redeemer, and enjoy that redemption, which he completed when he rose from the dead; and not doubt but that the fruit which he then brought forth by his Spirit will come also to us, when Christ himself shall come to judge the world; and may we thus walk in the fear of thy name, that we may be really gathered among his members, to be made partakers of that glory, which by his death he has procured for us. Amen.

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Prayer: Grant almighty God that we, as your redeemed people, would not worry or fret because of evildoers and wicked people dwelling in our world. We mourn the state of our world, and we witness atrocities of all kinds. We witness the outright rebellion of men and women made in your image. We see how they suppress the truth in unrighteousness and call good, evil, and evil good. We listen to the blasphemous ways the world speaks and mourn their muddled thinking and hatred of you. We, too, were once like them, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when your goodness and loving-kindness appeared, you saved us not because of anything in us, but because of your mercy and grace. We mourn our own sin and grieve the irreconcilable war that wages in our members. We long for the day in which we will never battle the flesh, the world, and the devil again. We thank you for reminding us of that glorious promise -- the hope of eternal life -- and the incessant rest we will enjoy each Lord's Day. We thank you for giving us a small picture of that which those who love you will enjoy. We thank you for the means of grace that guide us and help us on the journey, and we pray that you will minister to all of us today and grant us more of your favor and grace through Christ our Lord. Amen.

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Prayer: Grant almighty God that we, as your redeemed people, would take seriously and uphold the ordinary means of grace that you have graciously given to your church. We confess that we live in a day and age when your people have departed from those means, inventing newfangled ways of worshiping you. Yet, your Word plainly tells us that we are to approach you on your terms. The church of old was given strict and exacting instructions as to how they should approach you. Under penalty of death, they risked their very existence by offering strange fire before you. Therefore, because you are holy, you demand that we approach you with fear and reverence, as to a Father who loves and cares for us. Yet, somehow, we think you need our help by inventing strange and weird things, calling it worship when it is, in fact, an abomination before you. As we look around our world and see the state of the church, we are forced to concede that we are not better off for engaging in such behavior. We are lured and enticed to invent worship out of our feeble and fallen minds. Our hearts seem to desire that which you have not ordered. Forgive your church, Lord. Please grant us a great zeal for your worship and give us that same frame and desire that you have for it as well. These things we pray and confess through Christ our Lord. Amen.

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Prayer: Our Father in heaven, you alone are sovereign over all creation. You made the world and all things in it. You are the Creator, and we are your creatures. You govern and uphold all things by the word of your power. We thank you that you have ordered our days and told us to number ours carefully and wisely. Though we have plunged your world into chaos through our own sin, we thank you that you have provided a Redeemer who is reversing the effects of the fall. Though this life is often filled with misery and strife, we thank you that we can flee to you and plead with you for the things that we need. Therefore, we pray for our brothers and sisters living in challenging circumstances today. Many of them are under great threat from wicked people. Many of them are worried and anxious. Many of them are scared. We ask you, the Father of all comfort, to help them. We plead with you to frustrate the intentions of wicked people for the sake of your people who you love. Please be gracious to your chosen people, and help them lean on you through times of great turmoil with pray through Christ our Lord. Amen.

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Prayer: Grant, Almighty God, that as we have not only been redeemed from Babylonian exile, but have also emerged from hell itself; for when we were the children of wrath thou didst freely adopt us, and when we were aliens, thou didst in thine infinite goodness open to us the gate of thy kingdom, that we might be made thy heirs through thy Son, - O grant that we may walk circumspectly before thee, and submit ourselves wholly to thee and to thy Christ, and not feign to be his members, but really prove ourselves to be his body, and to be so governed by his Spirit, that thou mayest at last gather us together into thy celestial kingdom, to which thou daily invites us by the same Christ our Lord. Amen.

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Prayer: Grant almighty God that we, as your redeemed people, will listen to what you say to us today. You have made the Sabbath for us to enjoy. It is that one day in seven in which we have the privilege to come apart from our worldly employments and recreations to sit at your feet, to worship you, to enjoy the fellowship of your people, and to serve and love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Forgive us for trampling underfoot this day. We know that you take this commandment very seriously -- as you do all of them. We know that we tend to wander from it because we are still worldly. We are often tempted to do what is forbidden on this day. We go astray and seek our own pleasure. Please help us, by your Spirit, to take great delight in the Christian Sabbath we pray through Christ our Lord. Amen.

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Prayer: Grant almighty god that you would remind us of the great heritage we inherited from those who have gone before us. Throughout history, you orchestrated the events that brought us to faith in Christ. By your divine will and providence, you brought us into families who taught us the precious doctrines of our historic faith. Due to the faithfulness of our fathers in the faith, we were introduced to your Son and your Word. We are reminded of the importance of teaching our children and raise them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. We know the calamity that befalls a generation when we do not teach the next generation the gospel and the doctrines that your Word proclaims. Please grant us the diligence and zeal to avoid hiding these things from our children. Help us to open our mouths and speak to them about the Savior. Grant us the grace needed to live before them with words and deeds that point them to that which will truly satisfy them. Forgive us for introducing our children to many things and not pointing them to the one thing necessary for their soul. Forgive us for being distracted by the cares of this life and leading our children to regard your church as common and ordinary. Forgive us for not teaching our children to pray to you and read your Word. Grant a new generation that will be faithful to you and help us be faithful to that end. All of these things we pray through Christ our Lord. Amen.

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