Our church building may be closed, but God’s eyes are open and his ears are attentive to our prayers (2 Chronicles 7.15).

If you would like to receive these by email, please click here.

Opening

Speak these words out loud:

Let us build with care,
building on the foundation of Jesus Christ.

from 1 Corinthians 3.10-11

Today’s Proverb

Read the proverb through three or four times, slowly. Pause in-between, maybe write it out by hand – savour the words, let them speak deeply to you.

Proverbs 16.11

The history of weights and measures is quite interesting – if you like that sort of thing. Until fairly recently, it was almost impossible to police weights and measures; buyers and sellers relied on each other’s honesty to know they were getting a fair deal.

That is why the Law and the Prophets contain things like this:

Do not have two differing weights in your bag – one heavy, one light.  Do not have two differing measures in your house – one large, one small. You must have accurate and honest weights and measures, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you. For the Lord your God detests anyone who does these things, anyone who deals dishonestly.

Deuteronomy 25.13-16 (NIV)

And it’s also why Jesus got so angry in the Temple courts, where people were doing precisely this: not only turning a place of prayer into a marketplace, but cheating the faithful too.

How do you cheat? How do you lie? How are you dishonest?

Friends, these things matter. How we live, what we say and do – these things matter. God calls us to be different, to live his way, not the world’s way. Being honest isn’t being naive, it isn’t being a doormat – it is living as God intended.

Prayers

Pray for Five – pray for your five friends / family from Thy Kingdom Come.

Our daily prayer sheet includes the names of everyone for whom we have a signed church family directory form – and local parishes and senior church leaders. Today we are praying for:

Roger Myring, JoAnne Griffin, Joyce Madeley

Father, please bless them with your peace, and a deep awareness of your presence with them, every day and in every way.

We also pray for: Knit & Natter

Please pray for our leaders and healthcare workers, and all those working to keep us safe, well, and fed. Please pray that people would unselfishly put others before themselves.

Church Family Prayer

Come Holy Spirit,
and make us one in heart and action,
so that we can serve God faithfully:
abounding in love,
maturing in holiness,
and seeking out the lost.
Help us grow as disciples of Jesus –
in commitment, in depth, and in number –
that we may be a blessing to Amington;
to the glory and praise of God the Father.
Amen.

The Lord’s Prayer

Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our sins
as we forgive those who sin against us.
Lead us not into temptation
but deliver us from evil.
For the kingdom, the power,
and the glory are yours
now and for ever.
Amen.

Closing Prayer

Unless the Lord builds the house,
the builders labour in vain.
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus
the only way to the Father.

Psalm 127.1, Hebrews 12.2 & John 14.6

May Christ our Saviour give us peace.
Amen.