First Draft

 OK, I don't do this very often, if ever. But here's a FIRST DRAFT... for those of you who like to edit... or to even question or criticize... here's your chance. I'm not sure if this is a prayer or a sermon. It started as a prayer to follow the sermon for next week, Reign of Christ Sunday. It started, too, partially as personal reflections in response to the last chapter of Gary Neal Hansen's Kneeling With Giants (chapter 10, "Praying with Andrew Murray"), particularly the "three giant leaps" which constitute the foundation of prayer: (1) a core commitment to holiness (being set apart by God to live in total devotion to God as a wholly consecrated vessel), (2) abide in Christ, (3) joined with Christ, take up his priestly ministry of intercessory prayer. This foundation, it seems, is not only a foundation of prayer, but of discipleship. Henri Nouwen says prayer is the "only necessary thing" and the Heidelberg Catechism says prayer is the most important way we demonstrate our thankfulness to God. So what comes first, discipleship or prayer? It seems they are inseparable. Anyway, that's a long introduction to a prayer, or a sermon clothed in a prayer. Hopefully not a rant, particularly in the area of the Sabbath. One final note, if you're interested, the outline is basically the ten commandments (mostly based on the Heidelberg Catechism's exposition) in reverse order, with the first three commandments combined as a final paragraph. Comments welcome. Peace of Christ to you all.    

 

Lord Jesus, Let your Spirit live in me, and fill me. I want to, I will…. Yes, I do yield by whole being to your rule and leading… O Lord Jesus, teach me by your Holy Spirit to truly pray in your name.

Our Father in heaven, we humbly pray; help us to follow Jesus, to stay close to Jesus, to live in our oneness with Christ and with each other. Through the power of the Spirit, help us to live as you have commanded. Indeed, we pray that not even the slightest notion or craving contrary to any one of your commandments should ever arise in our hearts.

·    Judge our tendency to bend the truth for our own purposes, our inclination to twist words, to gossip, to prejudge; instead, fill us with a love for the truth.

·    Judge our desire to finagle and manipulate so that we end up with a really good deal for ourselves; fill us with a sincere love of neighbor to such a radical degree that we always seek the other person’s good first and foremost without regard to our own interests.

·    Judge our lack of purity and unchasteness in all its forms—actions, looks, talks, thoughts, or desires; fill us with a love of light and beauty, of pure and virtuous living.

·    Judge our hidden, hideous murderous lives—our envy and vindictiveness, those times we are full of hate or anger or just plain mean…  And in your mercy and for our own well-being, fill us, instead, with patience, peace, gentleness, and mercy—with love for our brothers and sisters, our neighbors and even our enemies. Help us to forgive others as we have been forgiven.  

·    Judge me, Father, when I strive for greatness; Save us, O God, from the desire to be first; Transform your people into the image of Christ—who humbled himself and gave himself up for us—and so help us seek first to be last; to strive to be servants to all; to honor and encourage those in authority, to offer up prayers of thanksgiving and intercession for our civil and church leaders, and to be patient with their failings.

·    Judge our tendency to forget the Sabbath, much less to keep it holy;  In your mercy, grant to us a passionate desire to be filled with the Holy Spirit—burn off any contrary desires. So often we find reasons not to spend time together as your people, so often our behavior belies impatience—even contempt—for the importance of learning what the Word teaches. Do we even blaspheme the Spirit in the way we sometimes pooh-pooh the mysteries of the sacraments? Do we EVER experience the same emotion, the same FIRE in our desire to be IN you and learn of you… as we do when our worship service is too traditional, too contemporary, too serious, too flippant, too short, or seven minutes too long? Father in heaven, judge our misplaced desires and passions. Light a fire in our souls—a fire for poor and hungry souls, a fire for the mission and ministry of this church, a desire for more prayer, more worship, more opportunities to bring an offering.

·    Judge our tendency to misuse your name; judge our idolatries; judge our inventions and invocations of those gods we foolishly think we can trust in place of, or alongside of, you—the only true God—self-revealed in the Word; judge our propensity to go our own way, to do our own thing, to trust in ourselves; fill us with reverence and awe, with faith, hope and love. Dear Father in heaven, by Christ's Spirit, fill me with a tenacious and focused desire to trust in you alone; to look to you humbly and patiently for everything needful; to love, fear, and honor you, O God, with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength. Judge my life--burn it all away so that nothing remains save Christ in my life and my life in Christ.