Tag Archives: forgive

Prayers based on Matthew 18.21-35

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wed night week 1Prayers Based on Matthew 18:21-35
Jesus teaches on forgiveness

Prayer: Mercy-Full
High and Lofty One
My debt is beyond repayment
Yet, you forgive
Make me mercy-full as you are mercy-full

Forgive me
Heal me
From witholding what you so freely give
From feeding the cycle of revenge
From claiming I deserve at another’s expense

High and Lofty One
You forgive me for a purpose
Grant me your spirit and your heart
Renew and revive your way of life in me

Prayer: How Large Your Heart
How large your heart, my Sovereign
How great your forgiveness
How generous your mercy

How large your heart, my Sovereign
How deep your compassion
How quick your charity

How large your heart, my Savior
How extravagant your grace
How present your hope

Glory to your Holy Name!

______________

For the next few months, I’ll be posting prayers to accompany Bishop Ken Carter’s Bible Study on Facebook. Each week, Bishop Carter will bring in a guest to speak about the passage. We’ll be walking through the last chapters of the Gospel of Matthew. 

You’re most welcome to read along and to join this Facebook discussion group. You don’t need to be a Methodist or attend a Methodist church. All are welcome and all means all.

May the grace of God’s word, the challenge, and the call, inspire us to great faith and great good works in Jesus’ name. – Lisa <

Mercy-full © 2020 Lisa Ann Moss Degrenia
How Large Your Heart © 2000 Lisa Ann Moss Degrenia
You are welcome to use this work in a worship setting with proper attribution.
Please leave a comment for information and permission to publish this work in any form.

4 Ways to Practice Forgiving Yourself

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Amber Rae

Amber Rae

Recently, I began following Amber Rae on Instagram @heyamberrae. Again and again, I’m inspired by her gift for sharing wisdom and life helps in simple and effective ways.

Her Amazon bio says it well, “Her writing blends raw, personal storytelling with psychology and neuroscience, and has reached over 5 million people in 195 countries.”

This week she shared 4 ways to practice forgiving yourself. I immediately asked for permission to reprint it here and she kindly agreed.

I know of so many who struggle with this side of forgiveness, including me. We can forgive others, but we continue to withhold that same grace for ourselves.

When we withhold forgiving ourselves, its actually a form of pride. We’re saying our sin, our mistakes, are greater than what Jesus can offer us. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I pray these reminders from Amber Rae will help you claim forgiveness and freedom in Christ. – Lisa <><

4 Ways to Practice Forgiving Yourself 
1. Use guilt as a compass.
Guilt shows us that our actions conflict with our values. It helps us course-correct.

2. Watch out for shame.
Guilt = I made a mistake.
Shame = I’m a mistake.
Forgiveness = I’m learning.
Wisdom = What did I learn from this?

3. Imagine what forgiveness feels like and try this:
write yourself an apology letter. You let yourself down, too.

4. Let go of what you cannot control.
Do your part, own your mistake and let go. We can’t control how others receive our apology or how they forgive.

For more from Amber Rae, check out her website and her latest book, Choose Wonder Over Worry. 

Growing in Resilience: As Clay to the Potter, based on Isaiah 64.8

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pottery wheel

Growing in Resilience
Day 25, Read Isaiah 64
Reflection: As Clay to the Potter, based on Isaiah 64:8, NRSV

Isaiah 64:8, NRSV
Yet, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay,
and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.

It is not you that shapes God,
It is God that shapes you.
If you are the work of God,
await the hand of the artist who does all things in due season.
Offer him your heart, soft and tractable,
and keep the form in which the artist has fashioned you.
Let your clay be moist, lest you grow hard and lose the imprint of his fingers.
–Attributed to St. Irenaeus

2 Corinthians 4:7, NIV
We have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.

The Eternal One, Our Father, knows
We are seen and we are searched
No need to harden your defenses
No need to hide
It changes nothing
All that is found is loved
The blessings and the brokenness
The wins and the worry
The success and the sin
All is found and all is loved

So rest
Rest in this promise and blessing
Rest in God

Release it all
Surrender to your Beloved
As clay to the Potter
As song to the Singer
As seed to the good, dark earth
buried, but made ready
to burst forth with New Life

***********
Click Here for Potter, a powerful prayer by Steve Garnaas Holmes

Click Here for more on the Growing in Resilience Reading Plan sponsored by Bishop Ken Carter and the Cabinet of the Florida Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. 

As Clay to the Potter © 2013 Lisa Ann Moss Degrenia
Leave a comment for information and permission to publish this work in any form.

Growing in Resilience: Help Me Home, based on Isaiah 63.19

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Man-walking-on-bridge bw

Photo by John G at Campoutkid.com

Growing in Resilience
Day 24, Read Isaiah 63
Reflection: Help Me Home, based on Isaiah 63.19, The Voice

We’ve become like strangers to You,
Like people You never ruled,
Like those never associated with Your name.

My life looks the same as others
the same failures
the same unhealthy appetites
the same shame and loneliness
the same pain
the same sin

I live like I never enthroned you in my heart
Like I never claimed you claiming me

There was a time we were close
We’ve become strangers

I walked away
Strayed
Small choices
Sliding slowly

I turned my back
Gave my heart to other gods, false and failing
I didn’t remember

Lord have mercy

I have swept away your wrongdoing, as wind sweeps a cloud from the sky: I have cleared you of your sins, as the sun clears the morning mist. I have rescued you; come back to Me.- Isaiah 44:22, The Voice

Lord have mercy
Help me home

***********
Click Here for more on the Growing in Resilience Reading Plan sponsored by Bishop Ken Carter and the Cabinet of the Florida Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. 

Help Me Home © 2018 Lisa Ann Moss Degrenia
Leave a comment for information and permission to publish this work in any form.

A Prayer of Confession based on the call of Matthew (Matthew 9.9-13)

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Matthew 9_13 mercy sacrificeBased on Matthew 9:9-13, the call of Matthew the tax collector

Jesus, we bow in wonder at the expanse of your embrace
the breadth of your inclusion
the surprise of your grace

You seek and seek and seek
Including those we write off as beyond hope
the outcasts
the public sinners
the self-serving
those who collaborate with evil and oppression…

Why are we surprised?
You desire mercy not sacrifice
You are the Great Physician
coming to those most in need of healing

Forgive us
Forgive us for forgetting who you are
Forgive us for forgetting our own sin
and isolation
and collaboration
Forgive us for judging
Forgive our self-righteousness
Forgive us for limiting you
when we are so desperately in need of you
We are “those most in need” as well

Create in us clean hearts and renew your Holy Spirit within us

Lord have mercy
Lord have mercy on us all

*************
A prayer of confession based on the call of Matthew © 2017 Lisa Ann Moss Degrenia
You are welcome to use this work in a worship setting with proper attribution. Please leave a comment below for information and permission to publish this work in any form.