Intercession Tuesday

Pray to be self-less

The Sanctuary will embark on our 40 day Lenten Journey, Breaking the Chains: A Season of Giving on Ash Wednesday, February 13, 2013.  Mardi Gras ("Fat Tuesday")  and Carnival ("Farewell to Meat") precede Ash Wednesday and Lent around the world. Everywhere Lent has ceasedto have much religious meaning. How can we give this day before Ash Wednesday some meaning for us?

Almsgiving has always been an important part of Lent. Almsgiving is the act of giving. As a little girl I remember my Father distributing gleaners before Ash Wednesday to the congregants in our Baptist Church. The nickle gleaners for the children and the quarter gleaners for the adults. We would be responsible for 40 days to filling up those gleaners with our loose change. We  would return the gleaners on Easter Sunday. I remember feeling so accomplished when I placed my $2.00 in that collection plate. It was our sacrificial offering. It was surely a small sacrifice  compared to that which our Savior made on the cross.

As I reflect back on that time I realize as an adult that Lent is a wonderful time to practice self-less, sacrificial giving. What I have learned is that it is important to give ourselves the experience of sacrifice and generosity. Generosity is not simply giving my excess clothes to a place where poor people might purchase them. It's not even writing a "generous" check at the time a collection is taken up for a cause that  benefits the poor. These are wonderful practices. But generosity should be an attitude, a way of life. It  is a sense that no matter how much I have, all that I have is gift, and given to  me to be shared. It means that sharing with others in need is one of my personal  priorities. That is quite different from assessing all of my needs first, and  then giving away what is left over. A spirit of self-less giving means that it is necessary to share what I have with others.  This kind of  self-sacrificing generosity is a divine experience. It joins us with Jesus, who gave himself completely, for us. Establishing  new patterns of giving will give real life and joy to Lent. Today, let's pray that our hearts become more self-less everyday of our lives.

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◊INTERCESSION PRAYER ◊

Dear Lord, we come to you as your humble servants with thanksgiving and praise. Lord God of  all  creation, it is from your goodness that we have this day to celebrate as we are on the threshold of the Season of Lent.  Tomorrow we will begin our journey of giving.

We thank you for the abundance of gifts you shower upon us. As we give you thanks, we are mindful of those who have so much less than we do. We commit ourselves to greater generosity toward  those who need our support. Prepare us for tomorrow. May our  sacrifice make us more alert and may it heighten our consciousness so that we might be ready to hear your Word and respond to your call. Place in us a deeper desire and an attentiveness to be better steward of our resources and that we hear the cry of the poor and the less fortunate.

May our self-denial of the pleasures of this world turn our  hearts to you and give us a new financial freedom so that we may be generous sower to others and into your kingdom. By faith we call our finances restored, prosperous, and full of God’s  abundance according to the Lord Jesus Christ’s plan for my life (Psalm 1), in Christ  Jesus’ Name! We  bind Satan, the ruler spirits, every principality, power,  ruler of the darkness, wicked spirit in high places, the spirits of poverty and  python and all of their underlings, all territorial spirits, all above, around  and below them, and all spirits not of the Holy Spirit manifesting against our finances. We loose ourselves and the desire to spend frivolously and unnecessarily. We shall be good stewards of the resources you have blessed us with.

We ask you fill our hearts full of  delight and with readiness for the journey ahead. We ask all of this  with confidence in the name of Jesus the Lord. Amen.