Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he[b] predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace 8 that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, 9 he[d] made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, 10 to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.
Lord God and Father,
We gather every week in the name of the Lord Jesus as sinful, forgiven people. We basically ignore you God, and we turn up here every week with fresh sin, fresh proof that we live as if we are the gods of our lives and other people. You see the real sin inside us.
We’ve seen in Romans that you are just to punish every one of us as we deserve, but you are faithful to your covenant, you have shown mercy on us, and mercy to people all over the world. Make us amazed at your salvation, make it always fresh and powerful as we remember again and again that we are sinful, and we are forgiven, especially after we leave here tonight and start our weekly routine again. May you be gracious to us and bless us; look on us with favour, so that Your way may be known on earth, Your salvation among all nations.
Lord we thank you that we can partner with others in making Jesus known to the nations. We thank you for K in France and her commitment to learn French language and culture to serve the church there. We thank you for the people who have gone out from us to different places to meet the needs of people in the local church as well as those who need to hear about Jesus.
We thank you for our pastors and leaders, please keep them strong in their faith, and help them to work together in love and humility to make wise decisions and to keep everything fixed on Jesus. We pray for the B family to enjoy some refreshment together as R takes a week off.
We pray for the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches, our sister churches, and the upcoming annual conference which will bring the churches together from all over Australia. We pray that it will be a time of good fellowship in the gospel, and that all the churches will be encouraged to stay focussed on the gospel and the vision of seeing the kingdom of God grow all around Australia. We thank you for all the churches in the fellowship, and praise you that over a short number of years you have grown your kingdom through these new young churches.
God, you are the father of the fatherless, and your church is a family that must be like you, welcoming all who seek justice and material help. We thank you for the opportunity to care for the Afghan asylum seekers in our community and we particularly pray for M who no longer has any support from the government to stay here. We thank you for news this week that a lawyer has been appointed and we ask for compassion from our government and the people of Australia on him and many other desperate people. We pray for T and others as they continue to care for the boys.
We pray for ourselves, that we will listen to your word, that your Holy Spirit will work it into our hearts, and that we will be changed week by week to be more like Jesus. Give us opportunities to make your word known to our friends, compassion to understand others, and wisdom to reject the lies of the world.
We ask all these things in the name of the lord Jesus, that everything might be for his glory, and we submit to your perfect will to answer our prayers, knowing that you work all things for the good of those who love you.
Amen.
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