A prayer based on Psalm 136.

<aside> 🙏🏻 We give You our thanks our Lord and our God, for You are good and Your love endures forever. We thank You for the assurance and certainty we have that Your love is real, and great, and never-ending, and directed towards Your people – towards us who have faith in You.

We are grateful for the many reminders we have of this.

You have shown Your love for us in creation – in all that You have made. In Your wisdom in forming and shaping the world in the way You have, to sustain life. For the different seasons: seedtime and harvest, summer and winter. For the different conditions: cold and heat. For the rhythms of day and night, work and rest. But creation shows Your love far more than this because not does it sustain life, there is plenty in it for our enjoyment and exploration. The vastness of the night’s sky. The beauty of nature. The variety of animals. The interesting places. The flavours to taste. You have given us so much which engages the different senses You made us with. You are our glorious Creator, and You love us. Lord, our Lord, how magnificent is Your name in all the earth.

And yet You have done more than create a very good world for us to live in and enjoy. Even though we have all sinned and rebelled against You, You have continued to love Your people by choosing them and saving them.

Thank You for the way You preserved Abraham’s descendants – the people of Israel. For rescuing them through the Passover and Red Sea from slavery in Egypt. For caring for them as they wandered through the wilderness, and providing them food and water, and giving them victory over their enemies. And then bring them safely into the promised land of Canaan. We praise You that this love You showed to Israel, shows Your love for us. Not only because from Israel came the One who would save people from sin and death and hell, but because this love gives us a picture of how much You love us, as while we were still sinners, dead in our transgressions, lost in our iniquities, You set Your love upon us and sent Jesus to be our great rescuer.

We give You our thanks that He was the ultimate Passover Lamb who died so that Your wrath would pass over us. We thank You that He sets us free from slavery to sin, so that now we can live lives that please You. We thank You for His care over us as a kind shepherd and His presence with us. And that one day He will bring us safely into the promised land of heaven.

Lord God, You truly do love us. Help us not to forget this. To not doubt Your loving care for us. We confess that this is so easy to do.

So, Holy Spirit, please bring to our minds each day the many ways in which we have experienced God’s love in our lives. Help us to remind and encourage each other with the truth that the Son of God loves us and gave Himself for us. Would Your love for us fill us with joy each Sunday when we gather together to worship You, so that as one people we proclaim, “His faithful love endures forever” and give thanks to You, God of gods, Lord of lords.

Amen.

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