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

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Opening

Speak these words out loud:

‘Where your treasure is,
there your heart will be also.’

from Matthew 6.21 (Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount)

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 18.19

I wonder what your relationships with your relatives are like? I imagine it’s likely to mixed – hence the cliché ‘you can choose your friends but you can’t choose your relatives’.

I think that sometimes we can be too quick to take our relatives for granted – after all, they don’t have a choice about us, either! Especially if we live with them, they can get short shrift, the worst of our tiredness and tempers. Even if we don’t, there is a long history of struggle and delight. Also, people do change and mature, but if we don’t see our relatives regularly they can sometimes treat us as if we hadn’t (and vice versa of course).

Family grudges can last generations. I am all too painfully aware of them in my own extended family – they can extend as far as the refusal to attend a mother’s funeral. Reinforced over years of anger and bitterness – and even hatred – such grudges grow and grow until they are indeed ‘more unyielding than a fortified city’.

You may be living in the middle of a grudge like that. You may have a grudge like that. Or the gates may not be barred yet, but they’re on the way.

Friends, do not underestimate the power of forgiveness. It isn’t easy in situations like this, because it often involves first swallowing our pride. I invite you this morning to consider your family relations and ask God if there is a relationship that needs his help in the healing?

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:

Ray & Jane Skarratt, Carol Chadwick

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: People moving in to Amington

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.