Author: Bellshill Central

Good day friends,

Our prayers which we ask you to begin at 7pm this evening focus on Climate Justice, and have been taken from Church of Scotland Worship Resources, available online

CALL TO WORSHIP

Glorious God,
The whole of creation proclaims your marvellous work:
Increase in us a capacity to wonder and delight in it,
That heaven’s praise may echo in our hearts
And our lives be spent as good stewards of the earth,
Through Jesus Christ our Lord

Approach to God

Eternal and wonderful God

We come together in Your presence now,
bringing to You our united praise and adoration.
You are a great God beyond all measure
and we bow in awe before the dazzling brightness of Your being and glory.
We join our heart and voice with the seraphs
in Your presence who call to one another,
‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory.’

We worship You, God of creation
and stand in awe before the myriad ways
in which the vast universe and the world of nature around us
display the wonder of Your wisdom and love, generosity and beauty.
Open our eyes to the signs of Your presence everywhere.
Fill us with delight and gratitude as we remember how in love
You gave to each of us our being
and the ways You have enriched our lives from our earliest years.

King of salvation,
we praise You that You have not kept at a distance from our human predicament,
but in Jesus You have come into our fallen, broken world fully
to share our humanity and to bring us redemption.
We marvel again at Jesus’ willingness in love to identify in this way with us,
to share our sorrows and to walk the long and painful road
to a new exodus in the achievement of the cross,
gaining for us freedom from sin and pain and death.

A prayer for climate justice

We open ourselves to You
Recognising the light of Your power within every living thing.
We open ourselves to You
Thanking You for the beauty and love woven into our lives.

It is all too easy to look away
To not see:
The connections that bind us together
The devastation that humanity is wreaking
The suffering of living creatures.

It is all too easy to look away
To refuse to acknowledge:
That we benefit from imbalances of power
That little choices can contribute to great harm
That not calling our leaders to account makes us culpable.

We call on You to grant us the ability to see with clear eyes
To know the truth, to feel the truth.
Please grant us the ability to call for justice,
Even when it may take from us
Some measure of our own comfort.

Please grant us the ability to recognise every person in this world
As a member of our family,
Please grant us the strength to hear Your call to act
To protect this precious planet
Full of divine glory.
Amen

Intercession

Lord Jesus Christ,
as we think of the testing to which You were subjected in the wilderness
and throughout Your ministry to its very end,
we bring to You all who today are struggling with life’s trials and pressures.
We remember those who are facing tough choices and hard situations;
those enduring physical or mental pain;
those striving to come to terms with painful loss – of a loved one, of employment, of cherished hopes;
those facing challenges for which they feel hopelessly inadequate.
Hold them in Your love and let them know Your peace
and the sufficient strength of Your grace
which is able to turn even calamity into a blessing.

We pray for all who find themselves wrestling with powerful temptation:
those who struggle with things that are destructive,
those tempted to give up on God in light of life’s harsh realities;
those who wonder whether life is worth living at all in face of the bleakness of their prospects.

Lord Jesus Christ,
You are familiar with the wilderness of life.
Through that wilderness, in all its desolation,
You have made a way and You are leading Your people by a new exodus to a new creation, a perfect world of peace, justice and love.
Help all who today are worn down by the trials and temptations of life
to turn their face to Jesus, the suffering servant.
Let us all find in Jesus the joy of liberation,
the assurance of unfailing companionship on the journey home from exile
and the sure hope of a new heavens and a new earth, in a future more glorious than we can begin to imagine.

We offer these our prayers in Jesus’ name. Amen