Grace and peace on this Saturday! I’m glad to finish out this week with you in the Pastor’s Workshop.
Our Saturday summary looks like this:
This week in our “Prepare with Prayer” series we looked into one of the most famous prayers in all the Scripture, the Lord’s Prayer. We worked with Luke’s version of the prayer, Luke 11:1-13 (Matthew also has a version in Matthew 6). We focused on the “core phrase”, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done”. We discovered how one of our “privileges in prayer” is to give our voice to praying this prayer of Jesus’ heart for our lives and for our world.
As you know, Saturday is a Sabbath in the workshop. It’s a day in which we take our work of the week and lift it to God in prayer. We ask God to bless all we’ve done. We pray God will take our work and use it in God’s Kingdom work. We ask that “the words of our mouths and meditations of our hearts” would be acceptable in God’s sight. And more than acceptable, that they would be used by God in ways that we can be “used by God” to be more effective witnesses for God’s Kingdom.
So what are your prayers on this Saturday? What are you asking for, with your “ask” being guided by this Scripture and God’s Spirit?
Here are a few of my requests:
I pray that I may see the Lord’s Prayer as the great gift of God’s grace that it is.
I pray that I may be saved from “Saying” the Lord’s Prayer, and that I would be conscious of “Praying” the Lord’s Prayer.
I pray that I might always pause on the phrase, “Thy Kingdom Come and Thy Will be done on earth as it is in Heaven”. I ask that I would think and pray about what that phrase means in my life: in my home and marriage, with my family and friends, in my job and leisure, in our community and country.
I pray that I always believe God loves to answer this prayer, the Lord’s Prayer. I ask that I am ready to discover and live into God’s answer each day.
I pray that when I say the final “Amen” on the Lord’s Prayer I know that the Prayer is not over, but the answer is just beginning in the day ahead.
These are some of my prayers. What are yours? Again and always, write them down in your notebook.
As you record your prayers, you can look back on them later. You can see how your prayers reflect your journey of faith. You can see how God answered Your prayers. You can see how you have grown in your “walk with Jesus”, your “life in Christ”.
Since it’s Saturday, I hope you can have some Sabbath time today. I hope today will hold a “change of pace” from your regular week. I hope there will be some rest and relaxation at some point.
And I hope that this time of prayer will help prepare you for worship tomorrow. I hope Saturday’s R and R (Rest and Relaxation) will lead into Sunday’s R and R (Renewal and Restoration). If you have a weekend like that you’ll be ready for what’s ahead in the coming week!
In that blessing, I pray you have a “productive” prayer time today and I look forward to worshipping with you tomorrow!
Prayer: Gracious God, thank You for the week past. Thank You for Sunday and for worship tomorrow. Thank You for how you would fill each day with Your love and grace in Jesus. Thank You for how prayer awakens us to that possibility and strengthens us to live into that potential. Lord, let Your Kingdom come and Your Will be done in our living. Let our praying Your prayer bring us into that blessing. This we pray in the name of the One who taught us to pray the Prayer, Jesus our Lord. Amen