A Guided Liturgy on Hope for Your Personal Worship Today

The next is a pattern day’s readings from Daily Liturgy Devotional: 40 Days of Worship and Prayer, a 40-day liturgical devotional for each day worship and prayer.

A Liturgy on the Matter of Hope

By these biblical and historical Christian prayers, supply your adoration and gratitude to God, confess your sins, and ask for assist to learn his phrase and dwell the Christian life. If it helps, pray aloud and with bodily gestures, corresponding to elevating your fingers (1 Tim. 2:8) whenever you reward God’s holy identify or kneeling (Dan. 6:10) or mendacity prostrate (Luke 5:8) whenever you confess your sins. Utilizing totally different postures to wish can have interaction your physique and thoughts in new methods! “Get up and bless the Lord your God from eternal to eternal” (Neh. 9:5).

Adoration

Pray the prayer under. Then pause to reward God for who he’s and what he has finished.

Reward the Lord!
Reward the Lord from the heavens;
      reward him within the heights!
Reward him, all his angels;
      reward him, all his hosts!
Reward him, solar and moon,
      reward him, all you shining stars!
Reward him, you highest heavens,
      and also you waters above the heavens!
Psalm 148:1–4

Lord, I be a part of the angels in heaven, the heavenly lights—the solar, moon, and stars—and all creation within the highest heaven to elevate up your holy identify. To you—Father, Son, and Spirit—be all honor and glory and reward! Amen.

Confession

Pray the prayer under. Then take time to ask God by means of Jesus to forgive particular sins.

Almighty God, unto whom all issues are open, I set myself earlier than you. The place can I’m going out of your Spirit? The place can I flee out of your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you might be there! If I make my mattress with the useless, you might be there! If I dwell within the deepest a part of the ocean, you might be there! Darkness and light-weight are alike to you. You noticed me earlier than I was born, and in your e-book all my days have been written. There may be nothing hidden from you. And I take nice consolation on this—for you already know me intimately and take care of me deeply. But your loving data additionally disquiets my soul. I can idiot others (and I do), I can idiot myself (and I do), however I can’t idiot you! Your intimate data of me calls for honesty. You’ve got seen my outward sins, which I now confess: my deceptions, lies, gossip, hurtful phrases, loveless actions, my “me-first” self-focus, my irritability, my anger. Hear my confession of those sins. I additionally confess my interior sins, the attitudes opposite to the fruit of the Spirit, my jealousies, hatreds, and malice. Hear my confession of those sins too, Lord. Amen.
Based mostly on Psalm 139

Thanksgiving

Thank God for the reality that “If we confess our sins, he’s trustworthy and simply to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9), then pray the prayer under. Lastly, take time to thank God for particular blessings in your life. Additionally be happy to supply Psalm 118:1 (“Oh give because of the Lord, for he’s good; for his steadfast love endures without end!”) as a repeated chorus as you record off (and elevate up!) to God folks, occasions, presents, and circumstances for which you might be grateful.

I give because of the Lord, my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer. I will bear in mind his mercy, for he’s gracious and compassionate. Thanks, Lord, for calling me to religion in Christ, for placing your Spirit inside me, for giving me the thoughts of Christ, for gathering me into your church. I thanks, Lord, for extending your grace to me, for calling me to a lifetime of gratitude, for calling me to service in your kingdom. Thanks be to God! Amen.
Worship Sourcebook (Blick and Witvliet)

Supplication

After you pray the prayer under, be happy so as to add your personal particular requests.

O Lord, take away that which is mine, which is all naught, and provides me that which is yours, which is all good. You might be known as Christ; anoint me subsequently along with your Holy Spirit. You might be known as a doctor; in accordance subsequently to your identify, heal me. You might be known as the Son of the residing God; in accordance subsequently to your energy, ship me from the satan, the world, the flesh. You might be known as the resurrection; elevate me up subsequently from the damnable state whereby I most miserably lie. You might be known as the life; quicken me up subsequently out of this dying, wherewith by means of sin I’m most grievously detained. You might be known as the best way; lead me subsequently from the vanities of this world and from the filthy pleasures of the flesh unto heavenly and non secular issues. You might be known as the reality; endure me not subsequently to stroll in the best way of error however to tread the trail of reality in all my doings. You might be known as the sunshine; put away subsequently from me the works of darkness, that I could stroll because the baby of sunshine in all goodness, righteousness, and reality. You might be known as a Savior; save me subsequently from my sins, based on your identify. You might be known as Alpha and Omega, that’s, each the start and the tip of goodness; start subsequently an excellent life in me and end the identical unto the glory of your blessed identify. Amen.
Thomas Becon

Prayer of Illumination

Deal bountifully along with your servant,
      that I could dwell and hold your phrase.
Open my eyes, that I could behold
      wondrous issues out of your legislation.
Psalm 119:17–18

Scripture Studying

However we don’t need you to be uninformed, brothers, about those that are asleep, that you could be not grieve as others do who haven’t any hope. For since we consider that Jesus died and rose once more, even so, by means of Jesus, God will carry with him those that have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a phrase from the Lord, that we who’re alive, who’re left till the approaching of the Lord, is not going to precede those that have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the useless in Christ will rise first. Then we who’re alive, who’re left, will likely be caught up along with them within the clouds to fulfill the Lord within the air, and so we’ll all the time be with the Lord. Subsequently encourage each other with these phrases.
1 Thessalonians 4:13–18

Concise Commentary

All through Paul’s letters the theme of hope is featured. For instance Paul contains hope within the triad of key Christian virtues—religion, hope, and love (1 Cor. 13:13)—and he usually makes use of the phrase to seek advice from the “hope of everlasting life” (Titus 1:2; 3:7), which he additionally labels “our blessed hope” (Titus 2:13), “the hope laid up for [us] in heaven” (Col. 1:5), “the hope of glory” (Col. 1:27), “the hope of righteousness” (Gal. 5:5), a hope that will likely be met with “the showing of the glory of our nice God and Savior Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13), and the hope of sharing in heaven “the riches of his superb inheritance within the saints” (Eph. 1:18). On that day our our bodies and souls will then be with out sin and completely superb! Paul exhorts us to “rejoice in” this “hope” (Rom. 12:12). He additionally in 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18 reminds us to “encourage each other” (1 Thess. 4:18)—particularly these grieving the lack of family members—with the hope of heaven. We should always “not grieve as others [unbelievers] do who haven’t any hope” (1 Thess. 4:13), for the bottom of our hope is strong. “Since we consider that Jesus died and rose once more” (4:14), we might be sure that those that have died “in Christ” will “rise” with Christ (1 Thess. 4:16). And, when Christ does return, he has promised to collect his folks collectively to be with him all the time: “We are going to all the time be with the Lord” (1 Thess. 4:17).

Prayer Immediate

Take time to ask God, by means of his Spirit, to thank God that, in Jesus, we’ve got the reply to the query Job asks: “The place then is my hope?” Jesus is “our Savior and . . . our hope.” Thus, “rejoice in hope”!
Based mostly on Job 17:15; 1 Timothy 1:1; Romans 12:12

This text is customized from Daily Liturgy Devotional: 40 Days of Worship and Prayer by Douglas Sean O’Donnell.

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