A Lutheran Prayer for a United Church

I've been reading, almost every morning, a prayer written by Martin Luther (1483-1546). Here was a man who went after the heart of God! He prayed boldly, persistently, and believingly. And his confidence to be heard was that he came in the name of God's Christ, in whom the Father calls his children to come and promises to hear their pleas.

So here's a Lutheran prayer, prayed for a united love, which I pray for my local church, New Covenant Church in Naperville. The spirit of this prayer accords wonderfully with the Spirit of love.

Luther addressing God the Father:

It is also your will that we should not individually name you Father but together call you our Father and united pray for all. So give us a united love that we may know and consider all to be brothers and sisters. United we ask you, our beloved Father, for each and all, even as one child speaks for another to its father. Amen.   

—Martin Luther, Luther's Prayers (ed. Herbert F. Brokering; Augsberg: Minneapolis, 1994), 27.