Please find below the notes from the Elder's Prayer this past Sunday.

Father God, we have been corporately singing to each other and to you of our need to seek your will to be done, not our own will.  This requires a posture of humility that is not natural and a reality not possible without the cross.  We need to rehearse this truth over and over that your will is indeed best and your will is indeed good and your will should be joyfully celebrated and obeyed.  We know this to be true in our minds.  Help us Lord make it true in our lives.    

Thank you Father that Your word reveals your will to us.  Your will is not hidden.  Your desires for us are not mystical or somehow must be deciphered as if secretly coded.  Your will is plainly revealed in the pages of holy scripture.  Thank you for your kind clarity.  

From scripture, We know we are to not live in fear but are always to be of good courage as we walk by faith, not by sight.  Help us to live expectantly this week in confident trust in your promises for the future and coming glory even when our eyes can’t see beyond the trouble of this temporal world and our minds struggle to comprehend the greatness of coming glory .  Father, help us to walk by faith in what you have revealed as we long to be free from the sin and strife of this world and yearn to be home with you Lord.   

We know your will is for us to walk in love as we seek to imitate Christ.  We know your love demonstrated by Christ is the supreme example of self-sacrificing love towards undeserving sinners.  This divine, perfect, unconditional love can’t be matched.  Yet, Father help us to love others similarly, in sacrificial ways.  Help us to prefer others, help us to think more of others than we do ourself, help us to seek to be imitators of Christ, help us to walk in love despite our inclinations and feelings to do otherwise. 

We know your will is for us to walk as children in the light.  If we are believers, we are no longer in darkness, but live in Light in the Lord as scripture informs us.  Father, Help us to walk according to the reality of our transformed souls.  Help us be a people who pursue all goodness and righteousness and truth.  May we be marked by our pursuit of moral excellence, righteous behavior, honesty and integrity.  Help us to reject our appetite for unfruitful deeds of darkness and even seek to expose any secret dark deeds we might be hiding to the cleansing of the light.   

Father I pray for the saints of Summit Woods like Paul prayed for the saints in Colosse, that we  may be filled with the knowledge of Your will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that we might walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please you in all respects, bearing much fruit in every good work and continually increasing in the knowledge of you our God.  We know this is your will for us because you have plainly revealed it to us.  I pray we would be found faithful in pursuing these matters for your glory and our good.  Help us to walk in Christ as believers.  Help us imitate Christ more and resemble the world less.  Help us to be a people who seek after your will faithfully, continually and with unwavering zeal.