Instructions: The words and videos below are meant to be read and played in sequence, together forming one complete worship service. Begin by pressing play on the first video.
God Bless!
To be Christian is to commit to a life of trying.
Trying to be better, to honor God, to serve our fellow humans, to care for our world.
To follow through the hard times, the recessions, the holocausts, the pandemics.
To raise a hallelujah, and sing through the storms.
This is persistence, and persistence is faith.
But all of that is humanly impossible. We know this. We lose faith because we know it.
We lose faith because the world has trained us to demand perfection from ourselves, and making God in our own image, we believe that God demands perfection, too.
God does not demand that we humans BE perfect. God is more realistic than that.
God demands that we STRIVE FOR perfection.
And that we can do, with God’s help.
Certain spaces in the prayer are left open for you to add whatever is on your heart to add.
And Let Us Pray…
Lord God, Creator, Redeemer,
We lift before you the concerns that we share with our world…
… with our nation …
… with our communities …
… our families …
… our friends …
… our neighbors …
… and ourselves …
Watch over us, and guide us in these times of uncertainty and fear, into your promise and your future.
Forgive us for all the wrong that we have done,
Willingly and unwillingly,
Knowingly or unknowingly.
Give us your grace, to resist tomorrow whatever temptation we have given into today,
To persevere in challenges we have yet to face,
To live beyond fear.
In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
Now, I’m pleased to introduce my father, Pastor Norman Bude, and his message for this Sunday.
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear … We love Him because He first loved us.
~1 John 1:18, 19
To be Christian is to be persistent.
We can be persistent only because we are first persistently loved.
So go out this week to share God’s persistence with the world.
