12 August 2014

Collects

Prayers developed from the daily readings 

Tuesday 12 August 2014 

Morning Prayer

Psalms 99 and 100

This psalm uses the theme God is king. God is a just ruler and steadfastly supports those who follow the commandments. God responds to wrongdoing. It is right to tremble at great greatness and awesomeness of God.

Sing praise and thanks to God. We are God’s people. God made us. The Lord’s love and mercy endures forever. The Lord is good.

Hosea 13: 1 – 14 (15 – 16)

Hosea says Israel has rejected God and worships Baals. Even though God fed them in the desert, still their hearts are proud. Their lack of recognition of God will bring destruction. Their actions will come back to them and dry up any chance of relief. Destruction will come.

Acts 16: 11 – 24

Paul and Silas are in Philippi, which is in Macedonia and at the time a Roman colony. They go to a place of prayer and meet Lydia. Lydia listens, is baptised as are all her household. Paul and Silas stay in her home.

There is a slave, a girl who follows Paul and Silas telling everyone they are prophets of the Most High God and are bringing salvation to all. She does this for many days. Paul orders the spirit of divination from her. She then can no longer make money for her owners. The owners become angry and take them before the magistrate.

Paul and Silas are charged with being Jews in a Roman colony, stripped, flogged and gaoled with their feet held in stocks.

Collect for Morning Prayer

Water wheel
Cape Leuuwin WA 2014 L Osburn

O Lord, how precious are your people and the communities, though small, that remember and recognise that you are the Most High God. Be with all of us when hope dries up and when we see oppression and persecution, to not stay in that muddy place, but to come to you, to seek you, and to be washed clean so that we, your people may through your spirit of truth, draw others to you and to the freedom that comes from your steadfast love and grace through Jesus Christ our Lord and Redeemer. Amen

Tuesday 12 August 2014

Evening Prayer

Psalm 103

“Bless the Lord, O my soul and all that is in me bless his holy name” (v.1).  The psalm recounts the gifts of God to us as individuals: forgiveness, healing, and redemption, crowning us with steadfast love and satisfying us with good things. God’s history of justice and mercy and compassion are listed. Humans are temporary and frail. God is eternal and mighty. “Bless the Lord, O my soul” (V.22).

Lamentations 4: 12 – 22

The destruction of Jerusalem is unbelievable. It is brought by the corruption of priests and prophets. The people are scattered, hunted and trapped. They die in hunter’s pits.

There is a warning: Edom too will suffer like this.

Romans 9: 14 – 24

God has the right to have mercy where God chooses to have mercy. God too can harden the hearts of those God chooses (like Pharaoh). God, like a potter, has the right to shape the clay any way and to use that clay to offer people a path to salvation. God has offered mercy and the riches of the kingdom to people of all nations.

Collect for Evening Prayer

Behind the net
Mandurah WA 2014 L Osburn

God of mercy, healing, forgiveness and redemption, by your grace we are kept from harm. Help us to be alert to subtle hardening of our hearts and questioning your steadfast love for us. Remind us that we have been given the path to salvation through the death and resurrection of your Son. Remind us that we are blessed. Guide us to reach out, to include others, to rescue the hunted and trapped and pass on your mercy and grace so that they too may be blessed through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen