Prayer for Today, Saturday, September 24

Dear God,

It is a BEAUTIFUL day and are hearts soar. May this be a day when we open our eyes, embrace the beauty of creation, and give You thanks. Help us to pause, even for brief moments, to celebrate Your love and grace. Forgive us, Dear God, when our focus is on clocks, green lights and speed limits. Forgive us, we pray, when our concern is on tomorrow’s deadlines and we fail to appreciate and bask in the beauty of the present moment. Open our eyes, Lord, and slow us down. This is our prayer in Jesus’ name. AMEN.

Please pray for Judy and Gene Mason and their daughter as they travel tomorrow to Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Ruby Register’s graveside service will be in Pine Bluff at 2:00 p.m. on Monday.

The 9/11 Prayer Vigil will be broadcast on Pegasys Channel 11 again on Monday and Tuesday at 6:30 p.m.

Remember to make regular worship a part of the rhythm of your life.

The scripture for today is 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18:

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.¹⁴For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died.¹⁵For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will by no means precede those who have died.¹⁶For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first.¹⁷Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever.¹⁸Therefore encourage one another with these words.

Grace and peace,

John McLemore