Shared Prayers On A Day of Worship

Shared Prayers On Day Of Worship

I am grateful for Sundays – just the reminder that we can take time out to focus on God, His goodness, His caring presence with us through everything that is going on.  I hope we are doing that every day, but there is this lovely time that God has built into every week for us to just a bit more intentionally pause and focus on “the back story.”

Keeping the Sabbath is significant enough to make God’s short list of important things: The 10 Commandments. 

Remember to keep the Sabbath day holy. Do all your work in six days. But the seventh day is a sabbath to honor the Lord your God. Do not do any work on that day.  Exodus 29:8-10a

In our 24/7 never-ending activity it’s good to hear the call to stop and pay attention to the goodness of God.

Come, let us bow down and worship him. Let us fall on our knees in front of the Lord our Maker.  Psalm 95:6

Heavenly Father, it is good to lift our gaze to You again today and to be reminded that You are our Maker.  You deserve honour and praise for the wonder of who You are and all You do. 

Worship the Lord because of his beauty and holiness. All you people of the earth, tremble when you are with him.  Psalm 96:9

Thank you for giving your own son to die on the cross so we could be made completely clean from our sin and be able to come close to You where there is perfect peace and rest.  What a mess we would be in without Jesus.  Forgive us for wandering around through our days without a sense of what is beautiful and holy.  We need that stirred up in us again. 

Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name.  For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.  Psalm 4-5

Nothing pleases You more than when we give You thanks.  We pause today to look around and reflect and remember all the ways You care for us and provide for us.  There seems never to have been a time in our lifetimes when we have been so vulnerable as a people across the globe in so many ways and yet here we are today.  You’ve brought us through this far and we’re going to keep trusting You to take us forward.

We simply say with the Psalmist that You are good and we are grateful that Your love endures forever and that Your faithfulness continues through all generations.  Amen