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Lord's Prayer

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever.

Sunday Morning Invocation

God of glory, by the raising of your Son you have broken the chains of death and hell: fill my spirit, and the spirit of all the people of your universal church, with faith and hope; for a new day has dawned, and the way to life stands open in our Saviour Jesus Christ.

by Mason Barge

George Washington's Sunday Prayer

O  most Glorious God, in Jesus Christ my merciful and loving father, I acknowledge and confess my guilt, in the weak and imperfect performance of the duties of this day. I have called on thee for pardon and forgiveness of sins, but so coldly and carelessly, that my prayers are become my sin and stand in need of pardon. I have heard thy holy word, but with such deadness of spirit that I have been an unprofitable and forgetful hearer, so that, O Lord, tho' I have done thy work, yet it hath been so negligently that I may rather expect a curse than a blessing from thee.

But, O God, who art rich in mercy and plenteous in redemption, mark not, I beseech thee, what I have done amiss; remember that I am but dust, and remit my transgressions, negligences & ignorances, and cover them all with the absolute obedience of thy dear Son, that those sacrifices which I have offered may be accepted by thee, in and for the sacrifice of Jesus Christ offered upon the cross for me; for his sake, ease me of the burden of my sins, and give me grace that by the call of the Gospel I may rise from the slumber of sin into the newness of life.

Let me live according to those holy rules which thou hast this day prescribed in thy holy word; make me to know what is acceptable in thy holy word; make me to know what is acceptable in thy sight, and therein to delight, open the eyes of my understanding, and help me thoroughly to examine myself concerning my knowledge, faith and repentance, increase my faith, and direct me to the true object Jesus Christ the way, the truth and the life, bless O Lord, all the people of this land, from the highest to the lowest, particularly those whom thou has appointed to rule over us in church & state. continue thy goodness to me this week to come.

These weak petitions I humbly implore thee to hear accept and answer for the sake of thy Dear Son Jesus Christ our Lord,

from The Prayer Journal of George Washington (verbatim)

Doxology

Now to him who is able to keep us from stumbling and to present ourselves blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever.

by Mason Barge, from Jude 1

Think of the day ahead in terms of God with you, and visualize health, strength, guidance, purity, calm confidence, and victory as the gifts of His presence.

Direction

1 John 3:1-3 (ESV)

The World Does Not Know Christ

See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.

Beloved, we are God's children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.

Notes on the Scripture

Today's reading is related to the “host of the redeemed” passage in Revelation 7. There, John the Divine gave us a picture of what it would be like when Christ comes again. We will wear snowy white, to symbolize the perfection and sinlessness in our souls, because we have washed our clothes in the “miracle detergent” of Christ's forgiveness. We will “hunger no more, and thirst no more; . . . and God will wipe away every tear from [our] eyes”. (Revelation 7:15-17)

ur reading from 1 John was probably written by the same John who wrote Revelation (although some scholars think otherwise). Here, he tells us why the world can be so hard on us. The world does not “know” us, because it does not know Him. How can we not be comforted? If somebody is critical of God Himself, who made them and is perfect, why would we expect them to like us? Their criticism of us is warped, because they are warped. If we seek to praise of men, then, we must necessarily warp ourselves to their blindness.

Once we have repented our sin and truly accepted Christ, with all our heart, we become the children of God. It is the best thing possible, for we are assured that our existence will become one free of pain, an existence of perfect happiness and joy. But we cannot expect all the world to understand this; it was the world, after all, which rejected Christ and killed him. Evil and stupidity have been powerful in the world ever since God gave us free will.

And if the world did not recognize Christ for who he was, how can we expect that it will recognize us for who we are? Is the world a mess? Yes, of course it is. But knowing that judgment will come, and that we will stand before Christ in perfect knowledge, as his children, is the hope that sustains us through all the tribulations and foolishness of the world.

And in the meantime, we must follow the advice of Peter, in the great sermon he gave at Pentecost: “Save yourselves from this crooked [or perverse] generation.” (Acts 2:40) Christians have neither instructions nor authority to change the secular world. We have the Great Commission, to preach the Gospel so that those who might be saved, will be. But Christ himself told his apostles, if nobody wanted to listen to them, to “shake the dust from your sandals”.

Daily Inspiration

“ I Come! ”

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