Your truest Friend

Verse for the week: “Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel,
    you who lead Joseph like a flock.
You who are enthroned upon the cherubim, shine forth.”  Psalm 80.1

Prayer for the week: Restore us, O God of hosts; let your face shine, that we may be saved through Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord. Amen.

Bible reading for the day: John 15.12-17

 ¹² “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. ¹³ Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. ¹⁴ You are my friends if you do what I command you. ¹⁵ No longer do I call you servants,^[a] for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. ¹⁶ You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. ¹⁷ These things I command you, so that you will love one another.”

Prayer of the Day: Gracious and Almighty Father, thank you: Christ Jesus is the truest friend I could ever ask for, laying down his life to rescue us from the devil, the world, and our own sinful selves. Thank you for choosing to befriend me and a world of lost sinners. Grant that the abiding fruit of Christ’s love would be our way of life; through the same, Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord. Amen.

Hymn: follow this link to a beloved classic that gives further voice to today’s conversation with the Lord: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5f7MV0ypbqo&ab_channel=OliveTreeHymns   

“Lead us not into temptation”

What does this mean? God tempts no one to sin, but we ask in this prayer that our heavenly Father would watch over us and keep us so that the devil, the world, and our sinful may not deceive us and draw us into false belief, despair, and other great and shameful sins.

And we pray that even though we are so tempted we may still win the final victory that is ours in Christ. (from The Small Catechism, by Martin Luther)

Benediction: For the Lord takes pleasure in his people;
    he adorns the humble with salvation.   Psalm 149.4

 

*This is now our congregation’s 99^th year in the Word. In 2025, we are reading from Genesis to Revelation, with a few interludes along the way.