led by Kari Keyl on July 23, 2009
First Reading: Ephesians 3:14-21
I kneel in prayer to the Father. All beings in heaven and on earth receive their life from him. God is wonderful and glorious. I pray that his Spirit will make you become strong followers and that Christ will live in your hearts because of your faith. Stand firm and be deeply rooted in his love.
I pray that you and all of God's people will understand what is called wide or long or high or deep. I want you to know all about Christ's love, although it is too wonderful to be measured. Then your lives will be filled with all that God is.
I pray that Christ Jesus and the church will forever bring praise to God. His power at work in us can do far more than we dare ask or imagine. Amen.
(Contemporary English Version)
Prayer:
O God, we hunger for stability, to know what we can count on. Teach us to count on your love. Show us how to give up counting on ourselves, and how to root ourselves in you. Give us courage to speak up about our own experiences of your love and power, that we might teach one another. In your name we pray… amen.
Second Reading: The Wondrous Gift
How silently, how silently
the wondrous gift is given!
So God imparts to human hearts
the blessings of his heaven.
No ear may hear his coming;
but, in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive him,
still the dear Christ enters in.
(verse 3, O Little Town of Bethlehelm)
Prayer:
Your wondrous gifts, O God, are beyond what words can express. Sometimes in the silence, in the stillness of a praying community, we can sense those gifts in new ways... O Holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray. Cast out our sin, and enter in. Be born in us today. In your name we pray… amen.
Third Reading: Christ Dwelling in Us… Now
With only believing in Jesus and not “the Christ,” we had no understanding of the indwelling Christ that we are. To believe in Jesus Christ is to make two distinct faith affirmations, one in the historical Jesus, and the other in the Christ of space and time, which we are a part of! Most of history argued about the historical Jesus instead of experiencing the Christ now.
Salvation is simply conscious experience of our union with God and the lifestyle that proceeds from that conscious union. But at any rate, it happens now—“in Christ”—as Paul says over 200 times. Paul never knew Jesus but he knew Christ and believed in Jesus as the revelation of the Eternal Christ Mystery. (Think about that!)
We are all sons and daughters of God and at the same time sons and daughters of earth. We’ve got to stop running from our “earthiness”; hating it, denying it, projecting it onto other, so called, unworthy people. For some wonderful reason, this mixture of heaven and earth that we are, and that all creation is, is what God loves and where God dwells. You cannot get better than that!
(from Richard Rohr's The Cosmic Christ)
Prayer:
O Christ beyond space and time, do you really dwell in me? Whisper to me of your mysteries. Teach us to love all of creation, all that is earthly, yet somehow heavenly as well. Set our feet upon the steady ground that is you. In your name we pray… amen.
First Reading: Ephesians 3:14-21
I kneel in prayer to the Father. All beings in heaven and on earth receive their life from him. God is wonderful and glorious. I pray that his Spirit will make you become strong followers and that Christ will live in your hearts because of your faith. Stand firm and be deeply rooted in his love.
I pray that you and all of God's people will understand what is called wide or long or high or deep. I want you to know all about Christ's love, although it is too wonderful to be measured. Then your lives will be filled with all that God is.
I pray that Christ Jesus and the church will forever bring praise to God. His power at work in us can do far more than we dare ask or imagine. Amen.
(Contemporary English Version)
Prayer:
O God, we hunger for stability, to know what we can count on. Teach us to count on your love. Show us how to give up counting on ourselves, and how to root ourselves in you. Give us courage to speak up about our own experiences of your love and power, that we might teach one another. In your name we pray… amen.
Second Reading: The Wondrous Gift
How silently, how silently
the wondrous gift is given!
So God imparts to human hearts
the blessings of his heaven.
No ear may hear his coming;
but, in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive him,
still the dear Christ enters in.
(verse 3, O Little Town of Bethlehelm)
Prayer:
Your wondrous gifts, O God, are beyond what words can express. Sometimes in the silence, in the stillness of a praying community, we can sense those gifts in new ways... O Holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray. Cast out our sin, and enter in. Be born in us today. In your name we pray… amen.
Third Reading: Christ Dwelling in Us… Now
With only believing in Jesus and not “the Christ,” we had no understanding of the indwelling Christ that we are. To believe in Jesus Christ is to make two distinct faith affirmations, one in the historical Jesus, and the other in the Christ of space and time, which we are a part of! Most of history argued about the historical Jesus instead of experiencing the Christ now.
Salvation is simply conscious experience of our union with God and the lifestyle that proceeds from that conscious union. But at any rate, it happens now—“in Christ”—as Paul says over 200 times. Paul never knew Jesus but he knew Christ and believed in Jesus as the revelation of the Eternal Christ Mystery. (Think about that!)
We are all sons and daughters of God and at the same time sons and daughters of earth. We’ve got to stop running from our “earthiness”; hating it, denying it, projecting it onto other, so called, unworthy people. For some wonderful reason, this mixture of heaven and earth that we are, and that all creation is, is what God loves and where God dwells. You cannot get better than that!
(from Richard Rohr's The Cosmic Christ)
Prayer:
O Christ beyond space and time, do you really dwell in me? Whisper to me of your mysteries. Teach us to love all of creation, all that is earthly, yet somehow heavenly as well. Set our feet upon the steady ground that is you. In your name we pray… amen.
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