Prayer 

What a great love you have for us. A love that is greater than our sin, a love that reaches into the darkness to save us, a love that is stronger than the enemy’s hate, a love that holds and carries and preserves us through trial and temptation. Your love is so great for us that you would now call us children of God.  

We remember our lives before we were your children, before we knew you. Ours were lives marked by sin, marked by lawlessness, were lives of deception.  

We remember that we did not do right, that we hated others, hated those that you called your children. 

We remember that our lives were tied up in our own riches, our own pride, boasting of ourselves, thinking highly of who and what we were. And not thinking of you. 

But your love for us was greater than all of that.  

Your love helped us understand our sin – its guilt, its penalty, its consequences. You helped us to see the chasm that separated us from you. Where we thought we knew you, your love showed us that we were indeed far, far away. 

Your love helped us to understand our savior.  That Jesus Christ was sent to take away sins. That his life and death and resurrection were the greatest display of your love for us – that he lived a righteous life that we could not live, that he died a worthy/sufficient payment for sin that we could never make, and that he was raised to life to show us that your love is greater than our sin. 

Your love asks us to believe in Christ in order that we would be saved from our sins. We don’t have to do what Christ did to be saved from our sin. We don’t have to achieve what Christ achieved before you will save us from our sin. Your love simply asks us to believe in who Christ is and in what he did – and we will be saved. 

Now because we are in Christ, because we are your children, we have your spirit in us – your spirit who helps us to understand your commands and helps us to obey them. 

We can now let go of those things that used to define us – our riches, our pride, our vanity, our self-centeredness. Those things fade as we consider the glory of your love for us in Christ. 

We can now live lives of obedience and righteousness because we are in Christ, through the work of your spirit in us.  

And when we do those things that you command us to do – to believe in the name of Jesus and to love one another – we can have assurance before you. Assurance that you know us, assurance that you will hear and answer our prayers, assurance that we are children of God.  

May our understanding of your love grow sweeter in our hearts and minds as we continue in the faith that you have given to us.  

Amen.