The Prayers at NCC (1/11/15)
O Father of lights, Giver of
every good gift, we know you are never tempted with evil. Never. We know this,
Father. For you are unchangeably holy, unchangeably pure, unchangeably bright
with ineffable light. In a word, you are good.
Always good. And so we confess this
Lord’s Day, your unqualified goodness.
But we, Father, we are not good, at least not good in and of
ourselves. Not by nature. By nature, we are dark and evil. And, unlike you—the unchangeable God—we are fickle, erratic,
unsteady, unstable, prone to wander. Lord we feel it! Prone to leave the God we
love. We falter; we fail. We are often deceived by darkness. We are even, we
confess, at times deceived into thinking that we are not prone to being
deceived.
And so we confess our need
for you to keep us from being deceived. Keep us, Father, from being duped by
the Devil. Keep us from being deceived by the enemy within. Our pristine first
parents, Adam and Eve—they were deceived. They believed satanic lies about you.
They were deceived by devilish slander of your Word. They distrusted your
infinitely trustworthy goodness. And they disbelieved your good Word.
So we ask you to keep us from trusting in our own wisdom. Keep
us by your good Word from being
deceived. “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down
from [you,] the Father of lights.” And “with [you] there is no variation or shifting shadow.” Of your “own will [you] brought us forth by the word of
truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of [your] creation”—the new creation broken into this present
world in the risen and exalted Lord Jesus.
And so in his risen life,
participating in the new creation in Christ, we pray that we would be “swift to
hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath; [knowing that] the anger of man does not
produce the righteousness of God.” We believe this, want to trust this. So help
us to be ever ready to listen, especially to your Word. Slow to speak, that we
might be ever ready to hear a word from you. And swift to hear, and slow to
speak, that we might also be slow to anger.
And so, with your help,
Father of lights, help us to "put away all moral filth and rampant wickedness" from our speech. All slander. All backbiting. All carping. All
criticism. All fault-finding. Help us
to put it all away, according to your
Word: all harsh speech, all snide remarks, every lash of the
tongue, every cutting, critical word. All,
away! And help us, then, Father, to
“receive with meekness the implanted
Word [of God], which [alone] can save our souls.”
Save our souls, O God! Save
us this morning by your Word! And make us “doers
of the Word and not hearers only, deceiving ourselves.” Make us doers who act. May New Covenant Church become
known as a church that does the Word!
May we become, and be known as, the church that hears the Word of God and
straightaway, without delay, does it!
May we, being no hearers who forget but doers who act, may we thus “be blessed in our doing.”
Through our Lord Jesus we ask and pray, in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
