Let us look to the Lord.
Heavenly Father, we want to thank You for the abundant bringing into Your presence that we have had this morning. We thank You for our Savior. We thank You that we are now continuing in Your presence.
We come to You, Lord, wanting to hear what You would say through Your Word. Lord, we pray that You would bear witness to Your Word—not my word—and that, because of Your Word coming to us, we will respond to it. We ask this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Most of you guys gave my message today during the Lord’s Table. It was an encouragement, but it also made me wonder, “How do I follow that up?” But let us go ahead.
I have three Scriptures here that have to do with what the Lord has been showing me. I do not want to say that He has put something on my heart merely to tell you something. Rather, the Lord has been using these Scriptures to show me something about His desire for me. I know it is His desire for me, but it is also His desire for us—for each of us individually. This is what He desires.
Exodus 19:6
“And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.”
1 Peter 2:9
“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him Who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.”
See what I mean? Mac brought out the same thing, just from different verses.
Revelation 1:5-6
“To Him Who loves us and has freed us from our sins by His blood, and made us a kingdom, priests to His God and Father—to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.”
Revelation 5:9-10
“And they sang a new song, saying, ‘Worthy are You to take the scroll and to open the seals, for You were slain, and by Your blood You ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and You have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.’”
All of these things have to do with one topic: being priests.
Some of these verses have been used in the last few weeks by whoever has been speaking here—this idea about priests. When I was asked to go to Toronto this year, my portion was on Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest. In preparing for that, I began thinking about being a priest and seeing what the Lord is as Priest. He is the One Who leads us into our priesthood.
There is a truth here: all believers, all Christians, are meant to be priests. Not merely meant to be priests—they are actually called. When you are called out of darkness into marvelous light, you are called into a priesthood.
I do not even want to call it a “function,” because that word has become so religious to me that it loses its meaning. But this is the priesthood of all believers.
This goes back to the Old Testament. It was intended for Israel itself. Everybody was to be a priest—everybody. But they gave up their priesthood, and they gave it up of their own accord.
That is a danger for us too. We can give up this calling, this privilege of being a priest.
The priesthood of all believers has been recovered a number of times throughout history. The first significant recovery was through Luther in the Reformation. One of the things he recovered was the priesthood of all believers, but he did not know how to implement it within the church. The Lutheran church still had a clergy-laity system.
Probably the group through whom it was most recovered and implemented among believers was the Brethren. They came into the truth of the priesthood of all believers. But it is not as though they simply thought it up: “Oh, yes, we are all priests.” No, as we have seen, it is in the Scripture.
Little groups—the Waldensians, the Albigensians, the Anabaptists—all carried in their hearts this knowledge, this revelation, that all believers were to be priests.
I do not merely want to talk about this truth. I am concerned about being a priest in my own life.
It is not simply a truth to believe so that I can say, “Oh, yes, we are all priests. That is good. I can chalk that one up. I have it in my notebook now: I am a priest. It is one of the many things I know.”
The concern I have for my own life is that I be a practicing priest—a practicing priest.
There is your title, Jack: Practicing Priests.
Practice does not mean that practice makes perfect. I looked up the English definition of practice: “the continuous exercise of a profession.” Now, by “profession,” I do not mean that we are professional priests. I put in parentheses, vocation. This is our vocation. This is our calling. This is what we are to be.
It is not a job to us; it is a life—the life of a priest.
This continuous exercise of our vocation includes acts or methods followed with regularity, and usually through choice. This is not something put upon us as a burden, saying, “You must do these things.” It is not a law upon us. It is a calling, and it is a calling that we are called to enter into.
Jonah was called to go to Nineveh. At first, he rejected that calling: “I am not going to Nineveh. Those guys are creeps. They are the meanest people in the world, and I know that if I go there, You are going to have mercy on them.” That is what the book tells us, right?
But the Lord dealt with him. He said, in effect, “I have called you for this purpose. I want you to enter into that calling.” Jonah could have said, “Let me die in the whale.” He could have given up in the whale and said, “I succumb to his digestive system.”
But he did not. In Jonah 2, he came to his senses and saw Who God is. Then he responded to Him, went out with all the digestive juices having done their work in him, entered Nineveh looking like who knows what, preached to them, and the Lord brought a great revival.
The whole idea is that it is our calling, but we can refuse our calling.
I was in one of the last years when people were drafted into the Army in the United States. I remember the question: if you are called, do you go? There was the protest attitude: “I am not going. I am going to flee the draft, move to Canada, or go to prison for five years.”
You can reject your calling. But in rejecting your calling, there is a loss of inner fulfillment for your whole life, and it will go into eternity, until we are made right after those thousand years.
We are priests, but we are not Old Covenant priests. In the Old Testament, the Aaronic and Levitical priesthood was a shadow and picture of priestly activity.
It is not that we do not do the same things. We do not have the physical symbols that they had, because those were shadows, and they were done away with when the temple was destroyed. We do not have a literal lampstand over here that we all maintain, or an altar of incense, or showbread.
Those were symbols—vessels—but they show us what a priest does: the practice or activity of a priest. Again, I do not want to say “function,” because I take that word in some spiritual way that never gets your feet on the ground.
I practice my priesthood. I will take that as amen.
My focus is not on the symbols, though we need to consider them, name them, and interpret them in relation to our New Covenant priesthood. My focus is on the activity—the practice—of a priest.
In looking at this, I wanted to pay attention to some priestly duties. The computer is a wonderful thing when it comes to research. We have so many Bible engines and apps that help us. Years ago, those of you as old as I am remember getting out Strong’s, Cruden’s, or Nave’s Topical Bible and searching through them.
Now I can go to Bible Hub and ask, “What are the duties of a priest?” It gives me a list of things and Scriptures. But having a list does not take the place of reading, thinking, meditating, wondering, and searching your own heart: “What is the truth in this that You want me to see?”
When you are studying these things, you do not study merely to find out; you study to confirm. I had things on my heart and had been looking at them, and I wanted to see whether I was on base and what others had said. I read a number of people and listened to a message by Brother Kong.
The first thing a priest does is mediate between God and men. He is the go-between.
I know what that means because I was raised Catholic. You never went to God on your own; you always went through the priest. Whether at Mass to receive the sacraments or in confession to confess your sins and receive penance, you went through the priest.
In mediating between God and man, priests offer sacrifices. How do I get to God? You have to have a sacrifice, because you are a sinner. There must be a sacrifice and an offering.
What brings God to us? Another duty of the priest was teaching the law. The law is not merely rules and regulations. The law reveals Who God is and what His nature is like. You look at the law and say, “He is holy.” By holy, I do not simply mean that He cannot be approached. It means that He is different—different from all the other gods around us. Those gods are fearmongering, trying to make you worship them. But not this God. He wants to bring you close.
The priests maintained the tabernacle and temple. This is the main thing I want to bring out today: the maintaining of the tabernacle and temple.
We do not have that tabernacle today, unless you go to Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The Amish have set up a nice tabernacle that you can see. It is regular size, though I think it is behind glass. Barb and I visited it once. It was pretty cool. But we do not have that today. The temple has been destroyed.
But, brothers and sisters, we are the temple of God. Individually, we are living stones built into the temple; yet in another way, each living stone is a temple in itself.
The very living God, Who dwelt between the cherubim in the temple Solomon built, dwells in us. In us, all these heavenly symbols of priesthood can be alive.
Priests also conducted ritual purification, blessed the people, and had judicial responsibilities in settling disputes. There are many more things that could be listed, but it is not the things—it is the practice.
What I want to deal with is maintaining the tabernacle and temple.
If we were going to summarize all the priestly duties, we could say this: priestly duties were essential to maintaining the covenant relationship between God and Israel.
Essential. Another word for essential is vital. If you stop doing what is vital, the results are serious. What are our vital signs? My heart beating, my breathing—those are vital signs. They are essential to me being alive. If my heart stops beating, I die. If I stop breathing, hopefully I can be resuscitated, but I die.
In the same way, priestly practice was essential to maintaining Israel’s covenant relationship with God.
We are not under the Old Covenant, where in the next verse of Exodus 19, the Lord says, “If you obey these words, you will be My people,” and so forth. We are under a different covenant: the New Covenant.
My particular focus is maintaining the tabernacle and temple as New Covenant priests. Our priestly activity—our priestly practice—is just as essential in sustaining our relationship with God under the New Covenant.
Notice that I changed maintaining to sustaining. I did that for a reason. Sustain has the same root as sustenance. Did you have sustenance this morning?
Sustenance is the things essential that all living things need in order to live, grow, and stay healthy.
Brothers and sisters, apply that to priestly activity and priestly practice. New Covenant priestly activity, or practice, keeps our New Covenant relationship with God alive, healthy, and growing.
If we decide that we do not want to maintain it, that relationship can die, become sickly, and crystallize into mere form. We become nominal Christians—Christian in name, but not in the practice God would have us pursue.
The New Covenant is found in Jeremiah 31:31-35 and Ezekiel 36:24-28. Jeremiah speaks of the finished work and reaches the point where the Lord says that He will remember sins no more. Ezekiel begins from the other direction, and I want to begin there.
This is a picture of Solomon’s temple, where priestly activity took place. Where did the first priestly activity take place? In the outer court, at the brazen altar, where sacrifices for sin were made.
Brothers and sisters, I want to say this because it is often true of me: my priestly activity is spent in the outer court. I am constantly in the outer court.
But the priestly activity of a New Covenant priest does not start in the outer court. There is that song, “Moving Past the Brazen Altar.” I almost had us choose it today before the meeting. We go past the brazen altar.
If we are not at the brazen altar, where does our priesthood actually start?
Jerry stole my thunder. He used this very Scripture at the table this morning.
Zechariah 3:1-5
“Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him.
And the Lord said to Satan, ‘The Lord rebuke you, O Satan. The Lord Who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you. Is not this a brand plucked from the fire?’
Now Joshua was standing before the angel, clothed with filthy garments.
And the angel said to those who were standing before Him, ‘Remove the filthy garments from him.’
And to him He said, ‘Behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you, and I will clothe you with pure vestments.’
And I said, ‘Let them put a clean turban on his head.’ So they put a clean turban on his head and clothed him with garments.”
We start in this very place as sinners. Our priesthood begins when we are born again. We come as Joshua came, clothed in filthy garments.
Notice that the Lord says, “I have taken your iniquity away from you.” That infers that something had to happen. He did not merely say, “You are forgiven.” Justice and righteousness had to be satisfied in the forgiving of sins.
At the brazen altar, a sacrifice was performed for us. We did not make the sacrifice. Who made it? God made the sacrifice for us. Therefore, He can say, “I have put your sins away from you,” because the judgment due to you has fallen on Another.
Therefore, we may begin by realizing our own unrighteousness, our own waywardness, and our own distance from God. But then we are shown Someone Who takes us past the brazen altar and brings us within the veil.
Brothers and sisters, our priesthood as New Covenant priests begins within the veil.
It is there, when we come within the veil, that we come to the ark of the covenant.
The New Covenant begins, as Ezekiel says, with the Lord taking away all our filth from the idols we worshiped, sprinkling us with clean water, and forgiving our sins. The New Covenant comes after exile, and it applies to those who have come out of exile.
We come into the place where we find the ark of the covenant and the mercy seat.
When we consider the mercy seat, our High Priest comes before us. The first thing He does is place the value of His sacrifice upon the mercy seat, where God dwells, so that God sees that blood and knows that it has atoned for us.
There is no mercy without atonement.
God does not simply say, “Oh yes, I forgive you, My son.” No. There had to be a price of atonement, a ransom. Something had to be given for atonement, and that was the life of Christ—pure.
The whole idea of Christ is not merely that He died. First, He was born a man. There was the incarnation of Who He is. Then, living before us in that life, He offered that life up and died.
But it does not end there. The Father raised Him from the dead. Then He did not leave Him on earth; He brought Him up to the Majesty on high to sit with Him there, reign, and rule with Him.
It is a four-legged stool: incarnation, death, resurrection, and ascension. All these things are included in Who Christ is and are included in our atonement. The blood is of no worth unless He is raised from the dead. And merely being raised from the dead and living the rest of His life on earth would not have been enough. He needed to be on His throne, ruling in the heavenlies, so that He could release the Spirit to rule in our lives.
My first priestly activity, my first priestly practice, is to enter into this Holy of Holies. That is the first thing I am to do.
Even though I come like Joshua the high priest in filthy rags, Jesus takes me in my filthy rags into the Holy of Holies. It is there that I am given the garments of redemption. It is not until I enter that holy place that I am clothed.
It is like the father of the prodigal son. He wanted his son to have the garments of sonship, but he could not give them to him until he came home. How do you come home? A loser—poor, wretched, saying, “I do not deserve any of this.” And it was true: he did not deserve it.
We come to what is called the mercy seat. Gary Blaylock, last Sunday, gave a great definition of mercy and grace.
Mercy is that we do not get what we deserve. We do not receive the judgment of God because it fell upon Another.
Grace is getting the blessings we do not deserve. By grace, we are given these garments.
He clothes us with everything that makes us acceptable to the Father. Everything. Nothing is missing. There is no little seam or hole in the fabric. Everything has been done.
Jesus had the garment that could not be split apart because it was seamless. You have a garment spun in heaven for you—everything that makes you acceptable to God.
These are the clothes of justification. We have been atoned for, and now He gives us clothes to wear in His presence.
It is not merely that now you are justified. It is that He is justified in bringing you to Himself. He can say, “I am justified in bringing you to Myself. Now you can stand before Me justified as well.”
He has done it because He wanted people in His presence. He did it because of what He planned for us from the beginning: that we would know Him.
“This is eternal life: that they know You, the only God, and Jesus Christ.”
Now we start our activity right there. Brothers and sisters, it is not merely a one-time thing. We have a life in us that does not sin—the Lord Jesus Christ—but we are not always walking in His Spirit. We fall.
That is why 1 John says that if any of you sin, you have an Advocate with the Father. What do you do? You come right back to this place. This is the mercy seat, where you receive mercy and grace in time of need.
This is one way we maintain—sustain—that New Covenant relationship. The burden for keeping the relationship is on Christ, but there are practices that keep that relationship vibrant on our side.
There are three vessels in the temple that have to do with our priestly practice: the lampstand, the table of showbread, and the altar of incense. I am not going to get through all of these, so, Lord willing and if the brothers are okay with it, I will finish this another time.
But I want to speak at least about tending the lampstand.
We can look at the lampstand as Christ, because everything in the temple symbolizes Christ. Yet these things also have meaning for our walk with the Lord.
The lampstand has to do with giving light in the holy place for my New Covenant relationship with the Lord. For us as believers, the lampstand is the Scripture—the Word of God.
Everything I need for light has been given to me. I have been given the lampstand. Brothers and sisters, I am given the lampstand. There is light in this Book.
Would it not be wonderful? I do not know if you remember Raiders of the Lost Ark. When they opened the ark, at first there was nothing in it, but then all this light began coming out, and the high priest’s face lit up. Well, there is light in here.
The oil is provided too. The oil is the Holy Spirit, Who illuminates the Word. The lampstand itself can seem like just a book, but the Holy Spirit makes it come alive. We have been given these things.
What do we do with them? First of all, it is just a book, just a lampstand, and just a bunch of oil. How does it give light?
It has to do with how we tend it. The first thing you have to do is light it. Duh. You have to light it.
How do you light it? You open it. That is my object lesson. You open it, and you read it.
Not merely, “I am doing my devo.” I hate that. “I am doing my devotion.” We cut everything short, so I wonder if we are cutting our time with the Lord short too.
When I say read it, I do not merely mean devotionally. I mean, read it. Read it.
I remember reading Against the Tide about Watchman Nee. He read ten chapters a day. I am not sure he read them meditatively; I think he read them.
Think of your textbooks—or better yet, instructions on how to put something together. How do you read those? First, you try to read them fast, do you not?
There is nothing worse than having to read a geology book. Rocks—how they are formed. They are not even alive. Rocks.
But you read it, and read it, and read it. The Lord has given you something amazing right between your ears: memory. This has memory.
I can go to Google, click in the place where I am going to type, and suddenly it shows all the things I have already looked at. It has memory.
Brothers and sisters, do not shortchange the reading of the Word of God, even if you do not understand it.
Remember The Karate Kid? The kid wanted to learn karate, and the man said, “Okay, I will teach you karate. Wax my cars. Wax on, wax off. Paint my fence—not like this; up and down, up and down.”
The kid kept doing it and eventually thought, “This is stupid. All You have had me do is wax cars and paint fences.” Then the teacher attacked him, and suddenly he found that the wax-on and wax-off movements had prepared him. The painting movements came in too.
The Lord has given us the Holy Spirit to bring truth to us in times of need. But the thing is, it has been placed in the memory. It is amazing what the memory does. You are not even aware of what it is collecting in your mind.
That is why I say, read the Word. From experience, I can tell you that if you start reading the Word, pretty soon you begin to say, “Wow, I wonder what this is about.”
Instead of merely reading it, you begin thinking about it. You want to know what it means. You are looking for meaning. Then pretty soon you begin saying, “I want to dig deeper.” Now you are studying the Bible. Eventually, some people start memorizing it.
But the whole thing is: the priest lit the lamp.
The other thing the priest did was trim the wick.
I do not know whether you have ever lost power in a thunderstorm or hurricane and had to use candles. Why do candles go dim? The wick gets short. You have burned material that does not burn anymore, and the flame becomes smaller and smaller. So you trim the wick.
What does trimming the wick mean for us?
The Bible has so much in it: wisdom, commands, words that lead you to know what sin is, knowledge, encouragement to faith, truth, and examples of how God deals with people. There are all these things in it.
If we are going to keep the light from dimming, one of the ways is that when we receive light, we respond to it. We respond to the light the Lord gives us.
This is not merely doctrine; it is daily living. How should I act with my friends? Should I be with these people? There is light in the Word.
When the Lord uses that Word—not simply in a study way, but when you are reading and suddenly a verse hits you and the Lord says, “I am talking to you right here”—respond to it.
If you do not respond, you let it burn down. The light gets dimmer and dimmer.
Ezra, when he was coming out of Babylon, purposed in his heart first to seek the law of the Lord. He wanted to know what was in it. That is reading it. But then it says that he purposed to do the commands. That is trimming the wick: doing what the Lord is showing you to do.
It is a boots-on-the-ground kind of thing.
Ephesians 5 teaches that we are to walk as children of light.
The Lord has given us light, and we are to walk as children who have that light. We are to walk before Him.
Some other time, we can talk about walking before others. Abraham was told, “Walk before Me and be blameless.” Walk before the Lord. Walk with the Lord.
You cannot walk with someone unless you are agreed. When the Lord is showing you something in the Word that you do not agree with, your walk is hampered. You begin walking with a limp or lagging behind. But when you come into harmony with His will through His Word, you find yourself walking together.
“Thy word is a lamp unto my feet.”
We often think of light as heavenly light, because we want to see what is in the heavens. He does show us what is in the heavens, but He also wants to give us light that shows us how to walk and where to walk. He wants us to walk before Him in that light.
This leads into an experiential knowledge of the Lord. Reading the Word gives us objective truth. Then, as we begin walking in obedience—trimming our wick—it gives us experiential knowledge of Him. We know Him personally because He is leading us as we walk in unison with Him.
Another thing that makes the light dim is neglect. We neglect to read the Word. Oh, brothers and sisters, how guilty I am of that.
You get busy. I have no excuse now—I am retired. But you get busy with school, your job, and especially with young children. You are worn out and tired.
Again, just read it. This is not about checking something off your checklist. Look at it this way: “Lord, I need Your Word. I know I am tired. I may not understand it, but I am going to open it to You as an offering. This is my offering to You: opening the Book.”
The showbread is also known as the bread of the Presence. Look at how big those loaves were. They were about five handbreadths—large loaves, folded over, made out of unleavened fine flour. Frankincense was burned between them.
There were twelve loaves, so the showbread represents God’s people.
It was placed in the presence of the Lord, before the altar of incense. The Lord looked at them and said, “I am satisfied with them. I bought them. They are blood-bought. They are Mine.”
Brothers and sisters, when we talk about the showbread, we must consider this: how do we see our brothers and sisters? How do we look at them?
This is so important because we are to eat the showbread. Some of us do not like vegetables. We may like beans and corn, but not cauliflower. We can look at a brother and think, “That brother is cauliflower to me.” Then we have a lower view of him.
But a priest should not see the cauliflower. He should see the fine flour.
Each loaf was the same weight. They were uniform. They were put into a mold and baked. It was not like rolling tortillas, where none of them comes out a perfect circle. These loaves were formed in a mold and came out the same weight.
The Lord looks at them and says, “This is Christ. I value each loaf the same.”
It does not matter where you are in the hierarchy or where you are in age. How do I see you? Do I see Christ in you?
Not merely, “Do I see you in Christ as what you should be?” But, “Do I see Christ in you?” God has put Him in you. As a priest, I am supposed to discern Christ in my brothers and sisters and have value for them.
Christ identifies with His people. He partook of flesh and blood. He is not ashamed to call them brethren.
You may look at someone and think, “When this person comes in, Christ must run and want nothing to do with him.” No. He is not ashamed to call them brethren.
He is in them by the Holy Spirit. His life in them is the substance of fellowship. I touch the substance of Who He is in my brothers and sisters. That is why we are told not to forsake eating together.
The showbread was set on a table. A table is where you set food, and you set food there to eat with others so that you can have fellowship—which we are about to do in a few minutes.
There was also a censer of frankincense. Remember the Christmas carol: “Frankincense to offer have I; incense owns a Deity nigh.” It speaks of the fragrance of Christ.
But who puts the incense there? The priest.
The priest is saying, “I willfully acknowledge what You are saying: there are fragrances in this person. I will put that fragrance there as a reminder to myself that it is Your fragrance You have put in them.”
The incense was granular, and it permeated the smoke and infused itself among the loaves. The bread was lined up so that the fragrance passed through all the loaves together as they faced one another.
We do not smell the aroma of the bread. We do not smell the natural man—his natural gifts or natural personality. We smell the fragrance of Christ, which overcomes that other fragrance.
“I set a table in the presence of my enemy.”
He sets a table in the wilderness. Wherever we fellowship together—whether under persecution or in hard times—He sets a table for us to have fellowship with one another and with Him.
The showbread was to be eaten in a holy place. Wherever two or three are gathered, He is there in our midst. If He is there, that place is holy.
The bread remained in the tabernacle or temple for seven days. You might think, “Why do they have to eat stale bread?” I am sure some young people might look at old people sitting together and think, “Why should I be among a bunch of stale bread?”
But the whole thing is, it is bread. Bread is food, and food sustains your life.
If you are with brothers and sisters and feeding on Christ, what do I mean? You are seeing something of Christ. You are hearing something from Christ in them coming out to you, and you are having fellowship together. That helps sustain life.
One of the best times in my life was when we had a Tuesday night Bible study in California. The fellowship I had with the six or seven brothers who were first there was so encouraging to us in our walk with the Lord. It helped us walk together, and it helped us see where we had to bear our cross in dealing with other brothers.
But how wonderful it was to taste Christ. You knew it was not that person’s personality or wisdom. You tasted something and said, “Boy, I met the Lord here. I met the Lord when I was having breakfast with this brother.”
I am grateful for it, and I am better for it.
Out of this showbread—being together with brothers—worship comes. Reading the Word enhances your worship because you begin to see Who God is, how He deals with people, and how He deals with you. All of a sudden, it makes your worship more real to you.
Brothers and sisters, this is part of our activity. This is part of practicing the priesthood. There are other things, and perhaps I can share them another time, but that is it for now because I am five minutes over.
May the Lord encourage us to practice our priesthood this week. These are practical things. The root word of practical is practice: you put it into practice.
Let us give these things back to God.
Heavenly Father, I want to thank You that from the beginning today, You have opened up Yourself to us in such a way that we have seen our Savior, the Lord Jesus.
Lord, we want to thank You that You have brought us into that holy place through His blood. But, Lord, You do not want us merely to dwell in the place where the blood is applied. You want us to come in further, into the places where You want us to have a greater knowing of You, a greater appreciation of You, and a greater sensing of You.
Oh, Lord, we thank You for the things You have given us. We thank You for the Word of life. Lord, where we have been slack, help us to arise and light the lamp. Give us light, we pray. We want the light from the lamp. We do not merely want to check things off. Lord, we desire Your light. Give Your light to us, we pray.
We thank You, Lord, for the bread before You—for each brother and sister. Forgive us when we think someone is cauliflower and not corn. Help us to see our brothers and sisters with Your eyes.
Lord, reveal Yourself through them to us, whether by word, by deed, or simply by Your comforting presence in them as they are with us. Lord, open our eyes.
O Lord, we thank You. We know You are not trying to chide us. We know You are simply saying, “This is what I have for you.” Lord, we want to say, “Yes, I want this. I want to practice the things that sustain my relationship with You.”
Lord, help us, we pray, in the name of Jesus. Amen.