Opening Prayer
Ultimately turn from us all sins. By your grace fill us with all virtue and good works. Help us to become your kingdom. Grant that we may with all our thoughts, affections, and will, and with all bodily and spiritual strength, obediently serve you according to your will and commandments. Permit these powers to be ruled only by you, and not to obey themselves, the flesh, the world, and the devil. Amen.
— Martin Luther
TEXT
John 3:16-21 TNIV
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. All those who do evil hate the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But those who live by the truth come into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.”
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Yes, the greatest of all enemies is unbelief. Faith is the omnipotent lever which exalts the valleys and levels the mountains…Faith opens the gates for the King of Glory to come in; and when He is in, it takes hold of His strength to pull the pillars of Hell down. Oh, let nothing frighten you, or lure you from trust! This is the difference between a conqueror and a coward.
— Catherine Booth