March 17, 2021
A daily prayer during this COVID-19 crisis
During these difficult days, Bishop Sudarshana Devadhar and members of the New England Conference Extended Cabinet are sharing a daily prayer based on the Revised Common Lectionary for the week.
You are welcome to use these in worship or in your own devotions.
Today’s prayer
Jeremiah 31:31-34
The days are surely coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. Lord, we long for the new covenant. We long for the day when you will reach down and share yourself with us as you bring about a new day, a better day. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt — a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD. Lord, like those who came before us, we have strayed from you and from your ways. Though you remain faithful, we follow after other gods. We cry out to you in one breath, and ignore you in the next. We ask for a new anointing and shrink from living as we should. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Lord, if your word was written on my heart, I would surely follow you with all that I am. I freely give you my heart to write upon. You are my God and I am yours. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, "Know the LORD," for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the LORD; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more. Thank you, Lord for forgiving my sin. Thank you for placing me among others who also know you. Together, we will follow you all the days of our lives, in this new covenant for we are your people and you are our God. Amen. Comfort, comfort, my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the Lord's hand double for all her sins. Isaiah 40:1-2 By Rev. Dr. Jacquelyn Brannen, Superintendent Katahdin District