Lent Prayers for Wednesday, February 17, 2016
Lent creates a space for becoming more fully abandoned to God, and the heart of Lent is identification with Christ. Identification with Christ means more than identification with his resurrection and victory over sin. It also means intimate familiarity with Christ’s humility, trials, and death. This type of dying demands a posture of humility and unconcealed neediness before God. Lent beckons us to consider our true state of existence apart from God. Apart from Christ, our lives are marinated in mess and crumple into darkness and ash. This is the vivid reminder of Ash Wednesday with its imposition of ashes onto our foreheads. With Christ, however, darkness gives way to light and restoration. The theological heart of Lent is embodied by the spiritual discipline of fasting. Self-denial, whether applied to food, activities, or enjoyable habits, frees us for more intimacy with Christ. It creates spaces for reflecting on our radical need for God’s grace. – St. Peter’s Fireside
Lent Theme Verse: God blesses you who are hungry now, for you will be satisfied. – Luke 6:21
During this 2016 Lent, Jesus, we need You to:
Morning Prayer | Enliven Your compassion in us and help us to make room in our hearts for others. Spark your love and peace in us and make us thankful to put others before ourselves.
Prayer Verses: Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. – Colossians 3:12-15
Afternoon Prayer | Fill our minds with Your wisdom so that we continue to learn how You are the Way, the Truth, and the Life in everything. May we proclaim Your Word, adorn Your Church, and explore Your creation more and more each day.
Prayer Verses: Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. (Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ.) – Colossians 3:16 (1:28)
Evening Prayer | Enable Your sacrifice in our actions as we move to help the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs around us. Cause us to obey Your Great Commandment so we love our neighbors and the poor well.
Prayer Verse: And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. – Colossians 3:17
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