Amen

 

Amen

Let us not forget to contemplate and affirm the Amen, that so small word, with huge meaning, which we say at the end of this most wonderful, powerful prayer.

“So be it,” we say. This is the absolute confirmation from all of our being that we want what we pray for, to be so.

We ask for food. It will be received. We ask for help. Help will be given. We ask for protection. Evil will be banished.

This is an amazing acceptance of the Love and Power of God working with us, in us and through us too.

Amen. Let it sing in your whole being, as an act of love and commitment to God’s Will; to love and mercy unbound. Amen I sing. Amen!

Let us pray this prayer humbly, knowing that as we do so, we enter intimately into the presence and essence of relationship between the Father and the Son. Let us remember that Jesus shared these words Himself when he Lived on Earth and enabled us to be included in His Sonship through them.

Let us pray with confidence and trust and with new eyes to see and new minds to know the truth of this prayer, for each of us. Let us be aware of the hope and even perhaps trepidation, with which Jesus himself  may have entered on His own pathway to the Cross and pray these words tenderly with fresh insight into the love and relationship between the Father and the Son.

It is a prayer of acceptance and absolute reassurance of God as Love, as a God who can, will and does protect us unconditionally.

Let us pray the prayer in the name of Jesus Christ, that we may know with absolute certainty, that we are held by the Love of the Father and the Son and empowered by the Holy Spirit who is the Messenger of Truth.

And that we may know that we do not pray alone. The power of the Word of God prays in us, as we utter each syllable and no harm will come to us, for of this we can be certain, all Protection, all Love and all Mercy will be received.

Amen!

Deliver us

 

Deliver Us From Evil

We certainly need protection and deliverance from evil. Evil is everywhere whispering at us, suggesting alternative paths and views or tormenting us, at our indecision or right choices, even.

You can see, feel, taste evil. It is a tangible energy, if you develop awareness and discernment. It is so much more than sin, which we perceive to be an absence of love, an inaction for love, simply healed by correcting your path.

We desperately need God’s help to avoid the temptation to follow a false voice or path, that might set us, unfortunately, toward evil and continuing wrong choice, which leads further away from love toward deliberate intent. We need the gifts of the Spirit to help us in our struggles against evil. And the power of prayer!

Discernment, Knowledge, Truth, will all aid us. But remember that the Spirit had not yet been sent when Jesus prayed these words, so it may also be seen as a prayer for fulfillment of His Passion, so that the Spirit would indeed come to be with us, so that we would have gifts from God to help us in our fight against evil, so that we would all ultimately find God’s protection and be delivered.

For we are so much smaller and weaker than Jesus was. And need all the spiritual help we can use.

Jesus chose, very deliberately and consciously, to go through his Passion, such that He would vanquish evil through the power of Love and Mercy and lift us all into life, everlasting, with Him.

These words are a prayer that we may all remain strong and true to God, defying all evil, relying totally on the Father, who is absolute Love, to protect us, as Jesus Himself, who had to go through torture and death, literally to hell and back again, before Mercy could be freed, life restored and the Spirit set free, as a messenger into the world, for all time.

Let us remember that when Jesus shared this prayer, he must have been aware of His own difficult path ahead, as well as the struggles we all face on our own paths.  He would need to be able to stay strong and true to the Will of the Father, no matter what assailed Him and that Will is, most assuredly and ultimately, always Love and Mercy. What greater gift can we ask for in prayer and what greater gift can He give us than this prayer. For every time someone prayed that prayer, before His death, they were in effect praying for the success of His Mission of Mercy to save humanity and overcome evil for all time on the Cross. And every prayer prayed after His death reaffirms His success and confirms that evil can and will be overcome.

For mercy, above all, is a gift of pure love that overcomes all evil.

Where Mercy is, no evil can exist.

This is the message of the cross and the affirmation of this prayer. This is our prayer of protection.

A New Year Blessing

The suffering never leaves us
May the year ahead be blessed

And so we change our focus
May the year ahead be blessed

And look for light to guide us
May the year ahead be blessed


(c) Greg Crowhurst

Lead us not

 Lead Us Not Into Temptation

Temptation is everywhere, so long as you have free choice in the world. Temptation is a truly unpleasant, even tormenting experience for those who have a conscience. 

There is always a decision to be made each time that temptation knocks at the door.

    Do I look after myself only?

    Do I take the easy path?

    Do I walk away when my help is needed?

    Do I avoid speaking out or speaking up, for what I believe?

    Do I ignore what I know, because it makes me feel uncomfortable to know the   

    truth?

    Do I live incongruently, speaking about faith but not living it?

    Do I talk about beliefs and values without embracing them?

    Do I pass by on the other side of the road or can I truly be the good Samaritan?

    Do I want to live with my eyes blinkered from the truth?

    Do I love conditionally rather than unconditionally, which is so much easier?

    Do I justify hating others for the harm they do to me or others or do I choose to 

    walk free from them and their narrow minded, cruel behaviours and hurts and 

    remain loving in nature?

The only way to resist temptation is to develop a sound, strong faith and belief system, that is congruent with God’s Truth, in order to protect you from the temptations that abound to be less than who you are. For we do indeed need protection, for evil gnaws at our weakness and suggests the easier, selfish, self-justified path, time and again.

It is often so much easier to be self-motivated, rather than God- motivated. God asks a lot of us, for He asks us to be love, in every moment. That is a pretty tall order for humanity.

Perhaps asking not to be led into temptation, is a cry for help, to build a strong Faith in the centre of our being, so that we will not be tempted and fail. So that evil has no influence over us.

We have to remember that Jesus knew what lay ahead of Him. He knew where His path lay and He knew that even despite all His Faith and Wisdom, His Knowledge of and His love for the Father and His mission, that despite all of this, He would still be tempted profoundly, for His own will to live as a human being, was still strong.

In the Garden he would beg God to take away the burden of this path, His temptation to remain alive on earth, presumably, was immense, rather than suffer horrendous and unimaginable cruelty and torture unto death. And who would not?

So despite all that He knew and all that he was, he also understood temptation and knew how strong He needed to be, in order to fully resist it.

The bigger the mission, the stronger evil will tempt us from our true path and assault our daily lives, shouting falsely of a different, easier, sometimes less painful way.

If Jesus Christ, who was both human and divine could be tempted, how much more so can we be? For we are tiny by comparison.

How greatly we may need to beg God not to lead us on a path that we feel is beyond our capability, so that we can stay true to Love, when life is tough. Let us ask for His help, his strength, wisdom and discernment, to see how temptation will torment us and try to lead us down a path of evil’s intent, rather than good, so that we can choose the right path and the strong way, helped by God.

For some, temptations will seem small and insignificant. What does it matter, perhaps, you might think? It matters profoundly!

For a small giving in, to what seems like a minor temptation to be false, can lead further and further away from Love and easily eventually lead us on a path away from goodness. However small or large the  temptation is, it requires us to make a choice to not be true. When the suffering is huge and vast and the experience you face, torturing in nature, you may need to beg God to help to see clearly, to not let evil obscure your view or justify a wrong thought, action or choice.

For we must always remember that we have a choice. Let us always choose truth, freedom, love, rightness, strength, hope.

We certainly need to ask God to help us build a true heart, especially when our need is great, so that we can remain alive with the power of God living with us, so that we can call upon Him to gain His help when we most need it, when we feel weak, hopeless and can easily succumb to the temptation to walk away.

Let us ask Him then to help us stay true in all things, that ultimately we can still be love in a broken world. Amen.

Forgive us

 

Forgive Us Our Trespasses as We Forgive Those Who Trespass Against Us

Forgiveness lies at the heart of Jesus ministry. Jesus knew that for us to find peace in our hearts and our being, we needed to forgive.

For it is only in forgiveness that we find the freedom and healing to live fully in the present moment, being all of whom God made us to be.

Hurts, slights, harms from others weigh us down and preoccupy us, keep us stuck in the hurt of the past, lost in grief, rumbling with anger, resentment or worse. They prevents us from loving fully, freely and unconditionally as the Father and Son Love us.

Yet Jesus also knows how hard it is for us to forgive, so He gives us this prayer to ask the Father’s help in this matter. He knows that we cannot do it alone, for oftentimes the hurt can be deep and the crime against us even heinous. It needs the power of heaven to aid us in our gift of forgiveness to others, for this is surely what it is.

The act itself may feel unforgivable or be unforgivable in the moment it is done, in its deliberateness and intentional hurtfulness even, yet still He asks the Father to help us to forgive.

Yet Jesus also knows that forgiveness may not always feel possible. He has lived amongst us. He understands the human heart and mind and the lives of the people he lived with and met. He knows, in truth, how hard it is to forgive, yet still it is His what He hope for us. It is the path He is to open up.

Yet even if we cannot forgive, He provides an even greater inspiration, for His intention to go through the Cross and fulfill the Father’s Will to fully be Love in the world, He pours out Mercy that indwells in the very centre of the Heart of Love and flows out to us all for all time.

Mercy is greater than forgiveness; it is immediate, pure love, bringing complete healing and wholeness to all it touches, it flows from the heart to the heart.

Mercy bypasses forgiveness, it is a complete immersion in Love that overwhelms  unforgiveness in its awesome healing power.

Jesus says forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. It seems pertinent to look at this phrase with new eyes, for we  surely need to learn  how to forgive in the same total way that They forgive. They forgive us purely, simply, totally and unconditionally. The Cross illustrates this most perfectly.

Jesus gives up His life that we might be immersed in Mercy and finally understand forgiveness. He forgives all. He forgives those who misunderstand his life and His meaning. He forgives those who harm him deliberately for He sees with eyes of Wisdom how small minded, how unaware and ignorant they truly are in the acts of harm that they perpetuate against Him. Yet still He loves them. Still Mercy flows from Him.

That is surely the greatest request, ” to forgive as we forgive” when you understand that the forgiveness required is equal to the forgiveness poured out upon us always from the Father and the Son: forgiveness vast and amazing in its awe and splendour.

Give us this day

 

Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread

Feed us with earthly bread, yes. We all need to eat to survive and more than survive, to live. Perhaps Jesus is reminding the people of their complete reliance on God for food. Of giving their trust completely to God, who, when they need Him, when they rely on Him, when they trust in Him, absolutely and totally, like the Israelites did, who received Manna from heaven in the desert, whose dependence was total, God will feed them without doubt.

Jesus demonstrates this giving of food without shortness of supply when he feeds the Five Thousand. His confidence and Trust in the Father is total. The abundance of food that flows from this confidence and relationship with the Father is immeasurably more than we need.

This is Jesus’ message, see how much the Father Loves each of us and all creation, such that even the Lilies in the field and the sparrows are provided for. How much more He will feed and provide for his earthly children.

Not only does the Father feed us with physical food, He provides us with the Bread of Heaven. He gives us the living energy of Life, the Light, to shine in us and help us grow, for we continually need spiritual sustenance.

But also, never forget that He is ultimately and also praying for Himself and His own journey through the Passion. Let us not forget that Jesus is Himself to become the Living Bread of Heaven and Earth, the one that unites both in a mystery, a holy mystery beyond words and description, where His body will become the Living Bread for us all to receive, for all time as the Holy Eucharist.

Perhaps He, too, is thinking that He will need to have the strength and confidence in God, His father, to enable Him and to hold Him on his journey into suffering unto death, such that His body and His life will be given, transfigured, transformed into the Bread of Life, that will feed us forever.

He must surely also be wanting the Father’s Will to be done in Him, that He can be the daily bread of the people.

There are so many layers of Truth and Knowledge in this one line, yet which cannot truly be separated from the whole of the prayer, because it is all about deliverance, which is ultimately brought about for all of us by Jesus Christ, as we are held in and through Him, so that Jesus’ mission of Love can totally succeed, that is the core of this prayer: this is Jesus gift of prayer, for us all, to His Father. His need and His intention are so much more profound than the more simple lives of those whom he included in this all encompassing prayer and must surely have had an influence on the words included..

This is a multi- level alive prayer that can be appropriate for each and every one of us, no matter what our need and what our life is like.

It can be prayed on whatever level of need we have, for it is deep and wide as the ocean and the provision available is deeper and wider still.

When our need is total, your response is absolute Lord and we give thanks and praise for this wonder.

Amen

Peace

 

May His Peace be upon you today and always. Amen