Lord, we confess that You created the world. You set the sun in the sky to give us warmth and light. You created the night and painted the stars high above us. You created all that is. All that we see comes from God. Lord you give us rain for the fruit to grow. Lord, we need rain. We need the skies to open and the clouds to send us water. We pray for rain. Elijah prayed for rain and it rained. Lord, we pray for rain.

Lord, we pray for our nation. We have lost our sovereignty. We have become the borrower and not the lender. We borrow money from others so that we might buy from them and then we borrow more that we might buy more from them. Our debt goes deeper and deeper. They make the clothes we wear and the shoes we put on our feet. They supply us with fuel that drives our cars and gives us electricity. We have become vulnerable. While men slept and men played, while men lectured to others about their own greatness, we lost our independence and sovereignty. The Bible says that we should owe no man anything. It's all very simple. We have manipulated the value of money. We have printed money and caused the value of the dollar to sink like a heavy rock in the water. We have legalized theft.

Lord, good leaders are important to us. We need leaders with wisdom who can discern the times because they know the past and they know the nature of man. We need men who fear the Lord and seek to walk by His ways. We need wise men. Those who break the law of God will be broken by it. Lord, we have legalized sodomy. We kill babies in the womb. Yet, somehow we have swallowed the lie that the Lord owes us a blessing. Few men dare make a connection between our fall from greatness and the sins of our nation. Those who do are quickly rebuked and quickly repent. Lord give us wisdom in these things.

Our Father have mercy on the sick and suffering. For many life is good but for some it is a struggle to live day by day. Tears have been shed this week. Sadness has entered the hearts of many. Lord, we need comfort. Your comfort comes through Your people. Strangely, Lord You have chosen to use the encouraging words of our friends to calm us in the day of trouble. You have chosen the ministry of the Church to lift us up when we are down. Where is the friend who can wipe our tears when we cannot hold them back? Where is the brother who can hold our hand when our body can no longer carry us? Lord, raise up among us those who are filled with the ministry of mercy. Knowledge is a wonder thing. Wisdom we sorely needed. But the ministry of mercy is indeed the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. There we find Christ in His fullness. Lord, fill us with the ministry of mercy.

Our Father remind us day by day that we are justified by faith alone. We have no other hope save in the blood of Christ. Remind us that the forgiveness of Christ is for whoever comes to Him. No matter what we have done, no matter how bad we have been, there is cleaning at the foot of the Cross. We are sinners, but He is sinless. We are weak, but He is strong. We are hopeless, but He is our hope. When guilt drives us, may the blood of Christ free us. When the power of sin chases us, may the power of Christ deliver us. Lord, deliver us from looking inside of ourselves for there we find no good. Help us to look to Christ, for there we find goodness and purity. There we find the innocent dying for the guilty. There we find the Son of God and the Son of Man as the unblemished lamb accepted by God as a substitute for us. Lord, give us the faith that simply receives and rests upon Christ for the forgiveness of our sins.

Lord, also sanctify us. Lord, nothing but a miracle can change us. Nothing but the power of God can root sin out of our hearts and replace it with love and mercy. Give us not only purity in deed but purity in thought. Deliver us from the sins that so easily beset us.

Our Father, bless us as we worship Thee today. We need a day of rest. We need to be with God's people. For many of us we only see each other once a week, but we do look forward to that one day. We work all week. We pour ourselves into our calling. Yet on the Lord's Day, we rejoice together. When a need arises, we are there. When the call comes, Your people answer.