Over the years it has been my practice, learned from others, to offer up praises and petitions framed by a passage of Scripture. Some of these passages were read in preparation for preaching, others offered material for meditation in daily devotion; still others were plundered specifically for the purpose of finding fresh material for prayer. As I continue to learn how to pray I have shared a few prayers with my family and friends for their use or adaptation. The Alliance has asked me to share some with you too:

Genesis 2

We come to you this morning, our Maker, Redeemer, and eternal Rest. You are the one who patterns the weeks of our lives, ordered by the work of your creation and the rest of your holy day. We praise you for giving us work for six days and rest for one day.

We know that every day belongs to you, but you have set one day apart. With your permission, we call this day a holy day. For your honor, we call this day the Lord’s day. With your encouragement, we celebrate this day designed for our good. We bless you for this gift; we ask that you would give us on this day some of the rest that we crave, and grant us a Sabbath day’s blessing, we pray.

We also know that the whole of the Christian life is to be a life of worship, but we know that you call us together to worship you as your gathered people, redeemed by your Son and our glorious Savior, the Resurrected Lord Jesus Christ. We ask that you will help us by your Holy Spirit to worship you this day. Assist us in our prayers, speak to us through your Word, bless us through every gift and means of grace we ask.

Finally, O Lord, we admit today that even as we consider your goodness, we also see our failures. We find faults in our working, when we do too little, or do too much. We see wrongs in our resting, when we treat each day alike, or shrink your day down to a sixty-minute Sabbath. And so we come to you on your day, confessing that we are weary of our foolishness and tired of our sins.

. . . continue reading at Reformation 21.

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