Saturday Vespers: Christian Responsibility

As the day and this week draws to a close, we thank you for your love and guidance. Thank you for the blessings and challenges, and we look to your guidance, protection and provision for the coming week, in hope and faith. We are humbled by the vastness of Your creation and the diversity of Your people. We lift our hearts in prayer for the entire world, acknowledging Your sovereignty over all nations and peoples.

We pray for peace to reign in every corner of the globe. May conflicts cease, and may understanding and compassion prevail. Touch the hearts of leaders and inspire them to seek peaceful solutions, fostering harmony and cooperation among nations.

We pray for those suffering from injustice, poverty, and oppression. May Your divine hand bring relief to the afflicted and empower them to rise above their circumstances. Grant them strength, hope, and the resources they need to rebuild their lives.

For a lady in Australia who will need to under cancer surgery next month

For the Pastor in India who's wife needs your healing for her stage 4 cancer

For a lady in India who need your healing and relief for her back pain

Ted fuller requests prayer saying:

Please pray in Jesus' name for the postal strike to lift and for them to come to a fair agreement in Jesus' name, Amen

RK requests to "please pray for our sales to continue".

Jason says "Please pray for The Lord to help my elderly Mother heal from a fall and help help pain go away"

Trishey requests prayer for healing for Carla.

We pray for strength for a senior citizen in India suffering from cancer : may he overcome his pain and gain strength.

Someone requests "Please pray for my family that God will have mercy and grant us a miracle that we can be freed from a terrible curse, all of be healed and be able to live our lives in the peace that passes understanding".

Talmid says "Please kindly lift me up to throne of grace for mercy and timely help through the blood of Jesus".

Saturday Vespers

Image contributed by Coral Keogh

As the day and this week draws to a close, we thank you for your love and guidance. Thank you for the blessings and challenges. May we rest peacefully tonight, knowing that You are always with us.

We lift up our hearts in prayer for all humanity.

For Peace: May peace reign in every nation, and may conflict be resolved through dialogue and understanding.

For Justice: May justice prevail, and may the oppressed find relief.

For Healing: May the sick be healed, the wounded be comforted, and the brokenhearted be mended.

For Love: May love abound, and may we learn to love our neighbors as ourselves.

For Hope: May hope ignite the hearts of all, and may despair be replaced with faith.

For a lady in Australia who will need to under cancer surgery next month

For the Pastor in India who's wife needs your healing for her stage 4 cancer

For a lady in India who need your healing and relief for her back pain

For Jerry who was diagnosed with early-stage pancreas cancer. We pray for your healing and guidance as he gets treatment

Smurfs requests prayer that the Lord would provide them with funds they need for a new roof and that they can get the boiler to light up for heat

Maxime prays that God may use her talents

We entrust the world to Your loving care. Guide us, protect us, and lead us toward a brighter future.

Saturday Vespers: Come to the Water

And Jesus said : Come to the water

Stand by My side.

I know you are thirsty You won't be denied

I felt ev'ry tear drop

When in darkness you cried And I strove to remind you

That for those tears I died

Lord Jesus, you have called us and we have found you. You feel our pain, our joy and our challenges and are with us through it all.

we thank you for providing us with parents who brought us to you. We pray for all those who have gone before us to you, parents, father, mother, husband, wife, aunts and uncles and friends, as we remember them not only today but every day. We thank you for our time with them.

Thank You for the gift of this new day. May this Saturday be a day of rest, renewal, and peace. Fill our hearts with gratitude for the blessings in our lives.

We pray for healing for the sick, comfort for the grieving, and hope for the discouraged. For financial health, physical health and healing and emotional strength for those who need it. For a Pastor in India who's wife is suffering from stage IV cancer - we ask for your miracle of healing. For a senior - relief from pain in her back and hips and renewed mobility.

Ben requests prayer for his Mum that the skin cancers she has been diagnosed with yesterday, will be completely and successfully removed on Friday 13th December. Please pray that all cancer cells will be removed and that she will be 100% cancer free after the surgery. Please pray that God will comfort her and take away her worry and fill her with peace as He protects her and His healing hands will be upon her.

Anonymous requests us to pray for healing for her husband, mom and dad.

Trishey and Tanu ask for prayer in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.

Rajeev P prays For his personal life with Jesus and giving him wisdom and strength through tough times

Sara says "Please join me in prayer for my mom. She has a severe bacterial infection for 8 weeks now (2 months) and she slips into bouts almost of hysteria. There is demonic influence with it because she has demons come to her in the night telling her she is going to die soon. Please pray for my whole family for deliverance from generational strongholds and for my mom to be healed".

Lord Jesus, May Your love and grace surround us all.

Preach to Yourself!

In management, there is a concept of self-talk. There is nothing crazy about talking to oneself. Self-talk is the internal dialogue that people have with themselves, and it can have a big impact on how a person feels and acts. Positive self-talk can help people feel better about themselves, and can have many benefits, including goal attainment and building an overall positive attitude.

Drawing a cue from this concept, when we do our daily devotions and or read the Bible, instead of a mechanical tick in the box, if we relate what is being read to our own lives, each phase or period, we will be able to spot where we went wrong and what we did right. This knowledge will help to correct ourselves for future, aligning our life to Christ and Gods ways and will.

That is exactly how computers also work. They analyze the past to predict the future.

What does it mean to "preach to ourselves"?

"Preaching to ourselves is essentially the biblical call to "meditate" on Scripture - hearing and reflecting on both the Word and how God is speaking through it. It is personally applying the Word of God to our hearts and lives with the aim of glorifying and enjoying God" - Pastor Joe Thorn

This self-preaching, if done regularly, will turn itself into a meaningful meditation, the outcome of which is transformation of the person.

Paul Tripp says that no one is more influential in your life than you are, and that you should preach the gospel to yourself daily.

King David too, learned to preach to himself when he was threatened by fear. Psalm 56 includes some of David's preaching, such as "When you get afraid, don't be afraid!" and "I am trusting in God. I'm not going to live in fear".

A Piece of Bread

RC Sproul once related a possibly not so well known story:

"After the Korean War ended, South Korea was left with a large number of children who had been orphaned by the war. We’ve seen the same thing in the Vietnam conflict, in Bosnia, and in other places. In the case of Korea, relief agencies came in to deal with all the problems that arose in connection with having so many orphan children. One of the people involved in this relief effort told me about a problem they encountered with the children who were in the orphanages. Even though the children had three meals a day provided for them, they were restless and anxious at night and had difficulty sleeping. As they talked to the children, they soon discovered that the children had great anxiety about whether they would have food the next day. To help resolve this problem, the relief workers in one particular orphanage decided that each night when the children were put to bed, the nurses there would place a single piece of bread in each child’s hand. The bread wasn’t intended to be eaten; it was simply intended to be held by the children as they went to sleep. It was a “security blanket” for them, reminding them that there would be provision for their daily needs. Sure enough, the bread calmed the children’s anxieties and helped them sleep".

Like many of us, the children, felt secure when they had a provision for their need, albeit small, in their hands. 

Man has two needs - physical needs and spiritual needs and, Complete dependence on God - for spiritual as well as physical needs is the essence of the Christian practice. The absence of either - means death.

While we are quite aware of our physical needs, the Bread we need for spiritual sustenance is Jesus. We need to ask for His presence, His guidance and His protection, every day, to be provided through His Holy Spirit.

As we depend on God, pray to God for our daily physical needs, we need to depend on and ask God for meeting our daily spiritual needs. We need a daily portion of both.

That piece of bread in the children's hands at night gave them an assurance of provision the next day. Likewise, our prayers to our father give us an assurance of provision, protection and presence of God in our lives at all times and prayer is that piece of bread in our hands assuring us of God today and every day.

You can read RC Sprouls post here.