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:
‘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.
From the fruit of their mouth a person’s stomach is filled; with the harvest of their lips they are satisfied. The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit. (NIV)
You will have to live with the consequences of everything you say. What you say can preserve life or destroy it; so you must accept the consequences of your words. (GNB)
Proverbs 18.20-21
It is no coincidence that today’s Proverb comes immediately after yesterday’s. And it’s on a theme we have seen many times before: what we say, matters.
Oh, how we can wound others with a cruel word! Someone told me over a decade ago that if they walked into a church and discovered I were leading it, they would turn and walk straight out. And so on. Those words still ring in my ears, though time has lessened the pain of them. But also words of cruelty that I have spoken still ring in my ears, words I regret and have often sought forgiveness for from God.
Have any of the Proverbs about what we say made a difference to how you speak to others? Do you consciously try to speak life instead of death? How do you speak to your spouse? With kindness and love or with (passive) aggression and snide bitterness? How do you talk to (or even about) your friends? Full of gossip or encouragement? Are you quicker to complain than to compliment?
I’ve shared many a time that I often think out loud – which is the kind way of saying I often speak before I think. With me, will you ask God this morning to help us learn how to speak after we think instead of before?
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:
Marian Cox, Christine Farmer, Judith Walker
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: Youth Work – something new
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.