Daily Worship

An Unshakeable Hope

August 27, 2012 0 0

John 14; 1-4

​If the Olympic ideal is ‘to take part rather than win’ then the Christian aim is ‘to be obedient rather than successful’.

St Paul writes about fighting the good fight, and running the straight race, but he knows that the prize has already been won for us. We don’t have to prove anything, we simply want to respond to what God requires of us, Christ calls us to, and what the Holy Spirit enables us to do. Finishing well means remaining faithful to the end. We don’t need to look over our shoulder like Peter and say ‘Lord, what about him?’ It is enough that our Lord sees a greater purpose for our lives than we could ever ask or imagine, and that we seek simply to ‘trust and obey’.

 

So St Paul can also say that if our faith is for this life alone, then we haven’t understood it right. Our Lord told the disciples not to worry, ‘I am going to prepare a place for you, and if it were not so I would have told you.’ …. Where there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain.’

 

Reading ‘I go to prepare a place for you, and if it were not so, I would have told you.’ St John 14; 1-4 

 

​Almighty God and Father of us all, have mercy upon this troubled world of ours. We are a pilgrim people made of clay, captives of our own greed and frailty, and yet, we are the work of your hands. You have made us in your own image, and we bear within us your Spirit of life, the seeds of eternal life.

Give us we pray, a stronger faith, that we may walk joyously into the unknown;

an unshakeable hope, that we may comfort the despairing; 

and a love as vast as all the oceans, so that we may hold all humanity in our hearts.

All powerful God, look in your love upon us, your pilgrim people, as we struggle towards you. Be our food for the journey, our wine for rejoicing, our light in the darkness, and our welcome at the journey’s end.  Amen