Tuesday, September 24, 2024
Opening Prayer:
Blessed are you, O Lord; teach me your statutes! I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways. Deal bountifully with your servant, that I may live and keep your word. Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things in your law.
Confession of Sin & Prayer for Grace
Merciful Father, although you have promised me everlasting joy, I confess that I am often lazy, apathetic, and hard-hearted. Deliver me, O God, from a slothful mind, from all lukewarmness, and all dejection of spirit. I know these cannot but deaden my love to you; mercifully free my heart from them, and give me a lively, zealous, active, and cheerful spirit; that I may vigorously perform whatever you command, thankfully suffer whatever you choose for me, and be ardent to obey your holy love in all things.
Old Testament Reading: 2 Kings 5:1-14
The Lord’s Prayer
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.
New Testament Reading: Mark 9:14-29
Prayer of Adoration:
Jesus Christ, Son of God, I marvel at your authority over evil and at your compassion for those oppressed by it. To those in bondage, you bring freedom. To those weak in faith, you are faithful. To the desperate, you bring deliverance. Aware of my own powerlessness in the midst of suffering, I worship you.
Psalm Reading: Psalm 54
Prayer of Consecration
O Lord, this psalm of David provides me with a pattern for my own prayers. I hear David express his anxiety and suffering to you; recall your faithfulness; and respond to your care with gratitude. Help me to be a student of David’s example. I know my own soul with its old habit of withdrawing from God when life is messy, confusing, or painful. My instinct is to pull away and try to fix things myself, and come to you when I feel better. But your word shows me something different. It reminds me that you invite my weakness. When the psalm says, “behold, God is my helper,” that’s because you know that I need help, that my frame is dust, and that I must be rescued. I invite you to form my inner person away from self-reliance, and toward an instinctive and ongoing return to your love, for Jesus’ sake.
BENEDICTION
And now may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with us now and always, until the day of Christ's return.
