We invite you to spend some time in prayer. Take a moment to quiet yourself before God and share your thoughts and feelings with him. If you are with others, pray out loud together. If you are alone, know that you are not alone--the body of Christ is praying with you.
Begin by praying the opening prayer. Below that are listed some suggestions for free prayer. Finally, close with the Lord's Prayer and the final prayer.
Lord, we find our safety in you. You are our rock, to whom we can always go. You are our hope and we place our confidence in you. Give us strength to trust in you and to praise you. May we experience the joy of your salvation and the hope of resurrection.
Free Prayer:
for our leaders and decision makers
for medical professionals
for the vulnerable
for uncertainty
for the body of Christ
for resurrection hope and joy
for sharing the good news of the living Jesus
The Lord’s Prayer
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.
Lord God, we pray that our capacity to know and experience life might be magnified in Christ. By your grace set the eyes of our hearts on Jesus, giving us a widened imagination to see everything from your perspective, to live in faith, and to love our Savior. Amen.
3 Further, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord! It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you. 2 Watch out for those dogs, those evildoers, those mutilators of the flesh. 3 For it is we who are the circumcision, we who serve God by his Spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh— 4 though I myself have reasons for such confidence.
If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; 6 as for zeal,persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.
7 But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8 What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowingChrist Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. 10 I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings,becoming like him in his death, 11 and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrectionfrom the dead.