As we come before God in prayer now, we remember that God knows and understands the things that burden, worry and frighten us and that there is nothing he does not know and nothing he cannot accomplish for us. Ask and you will receive, Seek and you will find, Knock and the door will be opened. We also remember that prayer does work, that prayer accomplishes things when they are within God’s will, and that the prayers of a righteous person are strong and effective. We know that the Lord has counted us as righteous in his saving work on our behalf. So believing that our prayer can accomplish much we approach now the throne of God with our prayers. Let us pray:
Lord, we know that you see all and know all and that you are a just and righteous God. We know that our friends Roger and Dot are safe with you now.
Lord, we ask for your blessing and your power to see, to discover and to know to be poured out on the police who are working on their case.
We ask that their minds be clear, that they are blessed with discernment and that they are able to find the person or persons who took the lives of our friends. Lord give the police energy, wisdom and courage for their task. Lord, our friends deserved to live out their days in peace and we grieve that their lives were taken from them.
Lord let your justice roll down like mighty waters and your righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
Lord may your hand be upon the person who did this to them.
May they not rest in body or spirit until they confess their sin.
May they take no pleasure in life until they confess.
May they profit in no way from their sin.
Lord pursue them and stop them from any further violence or evil.
Lord make the desire to confess be uppermost in their minds.
We trust you to do these things for us. We know that you can accomplish this. And we know that you encourage us to pray unceasingly and we do that now. We will pray unceasingly Lord, until justice is found for Roger and Dot.
O Lord we turn now in our time of deep need to you. We seek for the things that are sure and certain, and we find them in your love and grace.
We thank you that when we leave this life, no matter how we went, we also go with You, you who have ever loved us and sought us and who knows us by name. You are our Alpha and our Omega, our beginning and our end, you were there in our coming in, and you will be there in our return to you.
Our Father, we thank you for the great company of those who have kept the faith and finished the race, and who now are a part of the cloud of witnesses who watch over us and cheer us on. We thank you for those with you who are dear to us, whom we name before you now. (silence) Especially today we thank you for Roger and Dot whom you have now received into your loving presence. Help us to believe even though we have not yet seen, comfort us in our grief and doubt, and help us to trust you to lead us in kindness through our years. Bring us at last with all your saints into the joy of your Home, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who taught us to pray saying,
Our Father who art in Heaven
Hallowed be Thy name
Thy Kingdom come
Thy will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread
And forgive us our debts as we forgive those our debtors
And lead us not into temptation
But deliver us from evil
For Thine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory, forever…AMEN.
