Father,
We who know you desire to know you more. That’s why we have gathered this morning in this place. Though we delight in hearing your word and in fellowship, we’re really here seeking you. We are hungry for more of you, though in some ways it’s not clear to us exactly what it means to know you more. But we love you and we know that you love us. What we have already known of you has been powerful and glorious. You forgave us so that we need not be ruled by guilt and fear. You put us in a family. You give an inner peace that we can’t quite make sense of. So increase our capacity for knowing you and then help us to know you according to our capacity. It’s hard sometimes to separate thoughts of you from thoughts of your gifts. You are always enacting your love. We can’t go anywhere where we are not surrounded by evidence of your care and affection. Even in times when we experience suffering of our bodies or suffering of our souls, you do not leave us without gifts of your kindness and comforting signals of your presence.
We all fail in many ways. Every week we fall at least in small ways and often in big ways. We get angry, use words recklessly, consent to lust, or are not thoroughly honest in our financial dealings. Help us to repent. Help us to be ashamed when these things come to our attention, whether through the word of a brother or sister or solely the conviction of your Spirit in our hearts. Help us to respond quickly and not need stern or repeated rebuke before we listen. Help us to be easy to lead. Then when guilt and embarrassment have done their work and we have confessed and forsaken our sin, let those things quickly leave our hearts and restore us to full joy that the enemy may not get a foothold through discouragement.
You have ordained a wonderful reversal that happens at Christmastime. The media, which is usually the vanguard of darkness, now broadcasts hymns of praise and simple testimonies about the Messiah’s birth. No doubt, most of this is done in ignorance and unbelief, but it is a great thing for us that once a year, we get to hear you praised by the whole world. It is a hint of that time when we will see everything in subjection to you and every person will truly acknowledge Jesus’ lordship. But the great gap between this tiny foretaste and that final consummation, reminds us of the need for evangelism.
Please help each of us to have something to say when people ask us about what we believe. Help us to be quick. People have short attention spans and if we have to think for too long, the opportune moment passes. It’s easy to lash out with angry words if someone hurts us. Help us instead to be ready to lash out with gospel truth as soon as there’s an opening. Help us also to be friend-like – to give our precious attention to others. As the world becomes more and more impersonal, people are increasingly lonely. But you set the lonely in families. Many of us were lonely and you set us in this family. It is because your Spirit has bound us together with this family love that those outside will know that we belong to you. Help us to extend to those who do not yet know you, some of the overflow of this family warmth – hearty greetings, hospitality, sincerity, and compassion. Help people to believe in you when we speak your words because they see you in our love.
Please give special strength to those among us who your Spirit has specially empowered to be evangelists. Send people to them that you are calling to yourself. Fill them with fitting words like apples of gold in settings of silver. Help us to encourage them and stir up their gift. Help us neither to feel guilty or jealous, but to faithfully build up the rest of the body, and zealously exercise the unique gift that your Spirit has given to us.
Jesus, we thank you for the Cross. You are our older brother who has secured our adoption by the Father and have shared with us your inheritance. You have taken us who were made out of dirt and made us heirs of the living God. You have taken us who were worse than dirt, helpless, spiritually dead, and deserving of condemnation because of our sin and our love of sin, and you washed us, and made us alive, and seated us with you in the heavenly places.
May our words and songs and thoughts be pleasing to you this morning.