Altar Server
Prayer: Father in heaven,
Your Son Jesus Christ showed his love for you by serving his brothers
and sisters in need. I now ask you to give me your help I serve you and
your people Open my mouth to praise you in word and song. Open my ears to
hear your word. Open my hand to do your work well. Take from me all
evil and distracting thoughts.
Help me to know what I should do and do it
well. Help me to serve reverently at your Holy Altar and give
you praise and glory now and for ever. Amen.
I am so delighted, and comforted, to know of
your love; they tell me, brother, how you have put new heart into the saints. Now,
although in Christ I can have no diffidence about telling you to do whatever is
your duty, I am appealing to your love instead, reminding you that this is Paul
writing, an old man now and, what is more, still a prisoner of Christ Jesus. I
am appealing to you for a child of mine, whose father I became while wearing
these chains: I mean Onesimus. He was of no use to you before, but he will be
useful to you now, as he has been to me. I am sending him back to you, and with
him – I could say – a part of my own self. I should have liked to
keep him with me; he could have been a substitute for you, to help me while I
am in the chains that the Good News has brought me. However, I did not want to
do anything without your consent; it would have been forcing your act of
kindness, which should be spontaneous. I know you have been deprived of
Onesimus for a time, but it was only so that you could have him back for ever,
not as a slave any more, but something much better than a slave, a dear
brother; especially dear to me, but how much more to you, as a blood-brother as
well as a brother in the Lord. So if all that we have in common means anything
to you, welcome him as you would me; but if he has wronged you in any way or
owes you anything, then let me pay for it. I am writing this in my own
handwriting: I, Paul, shall pay it back – I will not add any mention of
your own debt to me, which is yourself. Well then, brother, I am counting on
you, in the Lord; put new heart into me, in Christ.
He is happy who is helped by Jacob’s
God.
Asked by the
Pharisees when the kingdom of God was to come, Jesus gave them this answer,
‘The coming of the kingdom of God does not admit of observation and there will
be no one to say, “Look here! Look there!” For, you must know, the kingdom of
God is among you.’
He said to the disciples, ‘A time will come when
you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man and will not see it.
They will say to you, “Look there!” or, “Look here!” Make no move; do not set
off in pursuit; for as the lightning flashing from one part of heaven lights up
the other, so will be the Son of Man when his day comes. But first he must suffer
grievously and be rejected by this generation.’
Heavenly Father give me a new heart. As your child, help me do whatever is my duty towards my brethren. Give me a loving heart to love all your creatures as you would have me. May your kingdom come. Lord Jesus Christ come dwell in my heart, make mine heart like yours.
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