Sheenagh
I was reminded this morning of the second part of Psalm 24 as we were singing about slumbering and not slumbering, about the church awakening. I felt that God wanted to speak to us through this passage. It says:
“Lift up your heads, O gates, be lifted up O ancient doors that the King of Glory may come in. Who is this King of Glory? He’s the Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle. Lift up your heads O gates and be lifted up O ancient doors, that the King of Glory may come in. Who is this King of glory? He is the Lord of Hosts, the Lord of heavens armies. He is the King of Glory."
I felt that the church, is like the gate, that we need to open the gate to let the King of Glory in, that people will see Him and be saved.
Paul
I love the whole idea that we are the ancient gates because we are the church. We’ve been worshipping our Lord and our God this morning and giving Him everything, everything. It’s time for everything, opening up our hearts and our lives in every area, saying come in, come in. Our Majesty, our might God, come in, fill me afresh, fill me afresh. Give me freedom again, where I’ve been bound up. Give me healing, in my body, healing in my mind. Or simply I open up the gates of my life, to allow the King of Glory to come in, what a great invitation. When we do, you know He gives us everything. He’s a father who can give us everything, how wonderful it is, so let’s just take a moment, wherever you are today personally. I’ll always want more of Him, I always want to invite Him in and when life gets busy, I don’t do it as often as I might.
Graham
Let’s pray: Lord we want to say this morning that we want to give you room to move. What we say in our lives with you Lord, would you move afresh? We’ve been speaking in recent weeks of your presence Lord, our desire is that you would move afresh in our own hearts and lives that desire is to ask that you would move afresh in Jubilee. So now we say this morning, in response to that word, Lord, we want you to open the gates for you to move Lord. We want to open the gates for you to have your way and to do what you want to do. So Lord, as we say, as we open the gates to our hearts, as we, as it were, open the gates to your church, it’s your church, would you come and move afresh? Would you move afresh? We welcome you here, Lord, we welcome you to have your way.
Gates allow people to come in and to go out and we’re going to finish our time of worship now but I want to draw us back to where we started this morning, about letting our light shine. So long as we, as it were welcome you in through ‘these gates’, we say Lord, would you send us out through these gates into your world? We’re going to take what we’ve heard this morning, take what you’ve done in our hearts afresh. We’re going to take the light that you’ve freshly ignited in our hearts Lord, into every situation you send us this week.
We went to go out of these ‘gates’ into the world you created, we want to go out into every situation you put us in this week to bring your light, your goodness, your love. So we pray Father right now that you would send us afresh, out of these ‘gates’ into this world you’ve created.
Lord, we pray for every workplace we go to this week, every home we enter this week, every shop we go to, every place of leisure, every place our foot treads, we say Lord, would you send us and would we take your light and your goodness and your presence, into these places around us. Lord we think of the places that we have influence in and on, the people that we will see in the coming days, will you let your light shine there. We raise our eyes and our thoughts to your world as well, so Lord, let your light shine in dark places, like places of conflict and war, where there is trouble, let there be your peace. We think of wards and conflicts in Israel, Gaza, Russia, Ukraine, the list could go on Lord, let your light shine, let your peace come and we’ll let your glory fill the earth. Let your glory fill the earth, we ask in Jesus’ name, Amen.