Welcome to a Gathering of EChurch@Wartburg
The TWW community would love to pray for you!
Please include your prayer request in the comment section of this post
Here is our Order of Worship
A Prayer for Lent link
Lord, grant us simplicity of faith
and a generosity of service
that gives without counting cost.
A life overflowing with Grace
poured out from the One
who gave everything,
that we might show
the power of love
to a broken world,
and share the truth
from a living Word.
Lord, grant us simplicity of faith,
and a yearning to share it.
Amen
Martin Luther’s Prayer link
Behold, Lord,
An empty vessel that needs to be filled.
My Lord, fill it.
I am weak in faith;
Strengthen thou me.
I am cold in love;
Warm me and make me fervent
That my love may go out to my neighbour.
I do not have a strong and firm faith;
At times I doubt and am unable to trust thee altogether.
O Lord, help me.
Strengthen my faith and trust in thee.
In thee I have sealed the treasures of all I have.
I am poor;
Thou art rich and didst come to be merciful to the poor.
I am a sinner;
Thou art upright.
With me there is an abundance of sin;
In thee is the fullness of righteousness.
Therefore, I will remain with thee of who I can receive
But to whom I may not give.
Amen
The Lord’s Prayer
Matthew 6:9-13 (NASB Bible Gateway)
‘Our Father who is in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
‘Your kingdom come.
Your will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven.
‘Give us this day our daily bread.
‘And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
‘And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
[For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.’]
Scripture Reading: Luke 22:39-46 (NASB Bible Gateway)
The Garden of Gethsemane
And He came out and proceeded as was His custom to the Mount of Olives; and the disciples also followed Him. When He arrived at the place, He said to them, “Pray that you may not enter into temptation.” And He withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, and He knelt down and began to pray, saying, “Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done.” Now an angel from heaven appeared to Him, strengthening Him. And being in agony He was praying very fervently; and His sweat became like drops of blood, falling down upon the ground. When He rose from prayer, He came to the disciples and found them sleeping from sorrow, and said to them, “Why are you sleeping? Get up and pray that you may not enter into temptation.”
The Aaronic Benediction link
May the Lord bless you and keep you;
may He cause his spirit to shine on you
and be gracious to you;
May He lift up His smile on you and give you peace.
Amen
Praying for Jules and all those who trusted church leadership only to have their trust betrayed. God’s love to you, and His care to raise you up speaking truth to power.
Pray request – a financial breakthrough.
Blessings to TWW community. I was especially blessed today reading on Twitter where someone mentioned their betrayal at church and Dee offered to have them tell their story as a Post. Wow – from “stay silent” elsewhere to “tell your story here”. God can clean house.
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Summary of Martin Luther’s 95 Tweets:
Toward the end of his tweetstorm, back in 1517, Martin Luther approves of indulgences while raising the possibility of the non-existence of doubts surrounding the nature of indulgences:
#91. If, therefore, indulgences were preached according to the spirit and intention of the pope, all these doubts would be readily resolved. Indeed, they would not exist.
However earlier on he tweeted this:
#30. No one is sure of the integrity of his own contrition, much less of having received plenary remission.
#31. The man who actually buys indulgences is as rare as he who is really penitent; indeed, he is exceedingly rare.
So the whole Reformation had begun by a disgruntled Catholic priest. Luther began to notice that his business of sin-forgiving was suffering as a result of fewer people showing up to confess their sins. Instead, they were purchasing indulgences as a more convenient way of obtaining absolution.
Nevertheless, at the time of his tweetstorm he DID put his faith in the need for indulgences (#31).
Moreover, he doubted his own contrition and put even “much less” faith of having received full forgiveness (#30). Every man-made religion starts out with a guilty conscience – Genesis 3:7
Jesus took away ALL sin & ALL guilt & ALL doubt.
To be sure of one’s own contrition is as simple as having the Holy Spirit. Trying to figure it out another way won’t help. “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.”
*I sound like a charismatic, but I’m not.*
What’s harder for me is accepting God’s will in personal/little life choices. Not salvation, but things you think you have domain over (or want to have domain over). I’ve found myself kicking and screaming.