Pearl of great price

Merciful God

We come to you in confession

We who know of your great love

Who have sat at your feet and known we are precious.

We who have reached out and touched your cloak and felt your healing come to us

Who have known the freedom of handing our heavy things to you

And we confess that sometimes

We hold this pearl of great price

Close to our chests

Bury it deep in our pocket

Keep it somewhere safe where it won’t get us in trouble.

And sometimes we get so used to having it around we take it for granted and lose sight of the treasure that it is.

Forgive us.

Your great love so lavishly and abundantly given

Is not something to be hidden away.

Teach us how to share it, to be aglow with it, to be overflowing with it.

In Jesus’ name Amen.

Thanks for those who pointed us to God

Loving God,

 

We give thanks for those people you put in our way in order to call us to yourself

We thank you for your endless creativity

In finding ways to woo us.

We thank you for the way you are all about connectedness and relationship

And as we are made in your image we are about those things too.

We thank you for your great love for us

And that you seek us out.

Thank you for the courage and faithfulness of those people

Who prayed for us

Shared their story with us

Encouraged us

Found the right moment

Took the plunge

And pointed the way to you.

 

When we consider the people who did these things

for all of us here today

it’s overwhelming

Many many people

Some of them now gone to be with you

A great cloud of witnesses around us.

 

God of abundance and love

We praise you

God of abundance and love

we thank you.

Amen

The amazing love of God

"Your love is amazing,

Steady and unchanging,

Your love is a mountain, firm beneath our feet."

 

We praise and thank you for the

Many ways you reveal yourself to us

 

In creation which speaks of your power and your gentleness

Of your love of growth and renewal.

 

In the signs of grace we witness in your people

who are made in your image

 

And in the gift of your Word

Which despite its great age

Remains a living letter of love

Never losing its power,

its ability to transform us

and to bring us towards wholeness.

 

We thank you for the complexity of your Word

For the simplicity of your Word

For the constant surprises we find in your Word

For the way we meet you in your Word

 

"Your love is amazing,

steady and unchanging,

Your love is a mountain, firm beneath our feet.

 

Hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah

Your love makes us sing"

We praise you.

Amen.

 

(With grateful acknowledgement to Brian Doerkson and Brenton Brown for first and two last stanzas taken from the song “Your love is Amazing (Hallelujah)” This prayer is best used following that song in worship.

Isn't it just like you, God

Isn’t it just like you, God

To create a vast universe filled with millions of stars and who knows how many galaxies

And yet you know each of us by name.

 

Isn’t it just like you, God

To fill the world with Danes and Fijians

Liberians and Peruvians

People of every creed and tongue

Yet you know exactly what plans and potential you have placed within each one of us.

 

Isn’t it just like you, God,

To be God of the whole vast universe

Beyond time and space,

 and yet you know what each of us is doing and thinking and wondering about today.

 

Who are we that you should know us and love us

Who are we that you should call each of us by name

Who are we that you should call us into your plans for your creation?

And yet you do.

We lift our praises to you.  Amen.