Reflective / Responsive Prayer on Justification & Sanctification: Heavenly Father, as a united body we come to you by your grace. You are approachable in a way that man has never understood. When humanity creates false gods for themselves, the beings never come down to our place, to understand, experience, and listen like you explain that you do. You are unspeakably holy and powerful, but you desire for us, your little children, specks in the vastness of your universe, to come to you and have a conversation. We are here for this conversation now. Father, we stop now and we listen for you to remind us of your goodness. (observe 5 minutes of silent prayer and reflection). Christ Jesus, as your bride we experience you by your grace. We were slaves to sin, unable to cleanse ourselves of this pervasive and abrasive condition against you. You chose to do something that we could never do, by loosing your place in heaven and exchanging it to put on flesh similar to ours and feel the oppression of this world, of this toxic persuasion to our own self-will. You died to extinguish this hold on sin in the heart, so that we could walk with you, by hanging on a cross, defeating death, and rising again in three days. Now the Father sees those who accept this gift differently. Humanity who places their faith in you are justified, completely cleared of the offense that going our own way has produced. Justification is a gift from you, opening our hearts and eyes to obedience, making it possible that we could receive your Spirit and start to be renewed into what you always wanted us to be, divine image-bearers of yourself. Jesus, we respond to this gift with thanksgiving and reflection. May we use this time to praise you and thank you for your gracious justification. (observe 5 minutes of silent prayer and reflection) Holy Spirit, you dwell in us, your holy temple, because of your grace. You are our helper, and you give us strength to continue enduring in the faith, in our spiritual journey. This journey towards glorification someday with you, is known as sanctification, and it looks different for all of us. There is an infinite amount we can learn from you and be transformed into your image in. Perhaps our relationships with family, our generosity, or the way we speak with you need to be changed. No matter what we know this, that none of us is without sin, without flesh. Justification wins the victory, but sanctification is the reality of the game until the final clock sounds. We know we win because of you, because you, Holy Spirit are our seal and promise of eternity. Yet we need to play the game to the best of our ability, in love, and not just because it is what you want for us. It is because our sanctification comes with the same sort of promise that one of your ten commandments gave. You tell us to honor our father and mother so it will go well with us, and sanctification offers us a joy and happiness in obedience that we can trust in and take to the bank. Spirit, we consider the journey you’ve been walking with us on, past, present, and what you might do in the future. We seek the clarity and vision to see how you’ve been changing us into your image. (observe 5 more minutes of prayer) Triune God, we thank you for this period of time with you, that you’ve been here the whole time, and that you are always with us, ready to talk. Your salvation is magnificent. Your love is transformational. Your gifts are incomparable. We thank you and ask that as we have reflected upon wha you’ve done, that it would change our hearts. Speed the day when we get to see you face to face, and give us the strength to responsibly walk with you all of our days on this earth. And all the people said… (congregational response) Amen.