SCHOOL OF FAITH
ASSEMBLY OF CONFESSING CONGREGATIONS
OF THE UNITING CHURCH IN AUSTRALIA
DEVOTIONAL SACRED SEASON
DAY 4 and 24 - 8th and 28th June
PRAYER TIME FOR DAY 4 and 24 - JUNE 8th and 28th
Especially designed for zoom prayer times during the Sacred Season of Prayer and Fasting but can be used in face to face prayer times as well. Spontaneous prayer is offered in times of prayers of praise and confession from group members using if possible some of themes in the psalm or scripture reading. The prayers for others can also be prayed spontaneously and can weave in thoughts from scripture reading, passage from Basis of Union and devotional reading.
AMAZING GRACE
REV IAN CLARKSON
Rev Ian Clarkson is a Minister of the Word in the UCA and is the Hopenet Field Minister. His home church, the Branches
Community Church, Modbury, South Australia
OPENING PRAYER
BIBLE READINGS: TITUS 3:4-5
Leader:
But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, 5 he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy.
Reader:
He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit,
PRAYERS OF PRAISE AND ADORATION
PRAYERS OF CONFESSION
BIBLE READINGS: Titus 3:3-18
Reader 1:
At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another.
Reader 2:
4 But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, 5 he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy.
Reader 3:
He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, 6 whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.
Reader 4:
8 This is a trustworthy saying. And I want you to stress these things, so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good. These things are excellent and profitable for everyone.
PARAGRAPH 3b: BASIS OF UNION
Reader 1:
Jesus of Nazareth announced the sovereign grace of God whereby the
poor in spirit could receive the Father’s love. He himself, in his life and
death, made the response of humility, obedience and trust which God
had long sought in vain.
Reader 2:
In raising him to live and reign, God confirmed and completed the witness which Jesus bore to God on earth, reasserted claim over the whole of creation, pardoned sinners, and made in Jesus a representative beginning of a new order of righteousness and love.
Reader 3:
To God in Christ all people are called to respond in faith. To this end God has sent forth the Spirit that people may trust God as their Father and acknowledge Jesus as Lord. The whole work of salvation is effected by the sovereign grace of God alone
REFLECTION
Reader 1
My first life memory at barely 3 years, squatting outside the kitchen window on the farm. Fascinated and mesmerised by the animal swaying a couple of feet from my face, ignorant of terrible danger. A large brown snake coiled and fangs about to strike.
Reader 2
Suddenly a thick trousered leg and boot swung from the side and kicked the reptile from my face. I see it coiling and writhing and slithering away. Years later, just recently, a wondrous thought dawned on me. It was only shortly before, that my father had gathered me up from the orphanage, a relinquished infant and adopted me in love into his and his childless wife’s home. In a split second he risked his life to save his newly adopted infant son.
Reader 3
I count that as all part of the amazing care of the great Father who through His Son has purposed, planned and protected me and by illustration, His whole church to bring us all through into an amazing future of salvation. All people need to be saved, all can be saved, all can know they are saved and all can be saved to the uttermost.
Reader 4
Can Christ save me? Can He deal with the whole deadly situation? Can He save all to the uttermost? The secret shames? The hidden impulses of darkness fearing to have exposed? Can my soul be rid of these portents of the fire of judgement? Yes, answers this amazing grace! I believe. Christ eradicated it all from Divine memory and is remaking me into His very own image. Saved in every respect. From Every serpent strike and sting! Rescued through the Father’s mighty action!
PRAYER
Leader:
Heavenly Father, thank you for revealing this Gospel of everlasting salvation by which all nations might believe and obey you, and for bringing me into your family of righteousness and love. In Jesus name.
PRAYERS FOR OTHERS
CONFESSION FROM BASIS OF UNION
Leader:
Within this fellowship of the Uniting Church in Australia, and as part of the Christian church around the world, let us confess Christ in the following words from the Basis of Union.
Reader 1:
Today we ‘confess Jesus as Lord over (our) own life’ and ‘Head over all things, the beginning of a new creation, of a new humanity’.
Leader:
We rejoice that the Uniting Church ‘preaches Christ the risen crucified One
Reader 2:
and confesses him as Lord to the glory of God the Father’.
Leader:
Let us proclaim ‘the grace which justifies through faith,’
Reader 3:
and uphold ‘the centrality of the person and work of Christ the justifier’.
Leader:
We joyously proclaim that ‘in Jesus Christ "God was reconciling the world to himself" (2 Corinthians 5:19 RSV)’,
Reader 4:
and that ‘in love for the world, God gave the Son to take away the world's sin.’
Nb. The words in quotation marks are direct quotes from the Basis of Union
Prepared by Rev Rod James.