Father, you do not treat us as our sins deserve. You are full of love, compassion, grace, and mercy. You know that we are weak and unable to follow your commands without help from you. In your great love a compassion for us, you rescued us from sin and rebellion through what Jesus did on the cross. And, being satisfied with his sacrifice for our sin, you raised him from the dead on the third day. Through this you provided eternal life for us, that we may now know you and Jesus Christ whom you sent to us. And so, we do. We have eternal life with you that starts right now. We do not have to wait until heaven to experience this eternal life. For you made us alive in Jesus, new creations, empowered by your Spirit whom you place within us. He is forever with us, inside of us, guiding us, comforting us, empowering us to live lives of love and compassion, just like Jesus. Through his power we can love like you do. When people do us wrong, we are able to forgive and return their wrong with love and compassion. We can now give like you do. We can be generous “to a fault.” We can give without expecting anything in return. We can give, not only out of our abundance, but out of our need. For you supply everything we need. We need not hoard anything. For through you, we have what we need, and more. So, you can give through us to all whom our lives touch. You give and give and give. You are the Great Giver. We, too, can be great givers. We can give of our time and money, energy, and possessions. We can give without a thought of our own need, for you provide all we need. We can give every day, without reservation. When we see a need that we can meet, we can give without hesitation. When others are down and depressed, we can give words of encouragement – even if we are in a “bad” place ourselves. This is because all comes from you. You can give us words to say even when we don’t know what to say. When others are sick, we can take care of them and pray and ask for your healing – even if we ourselves are sick. When others are in grief over the loss of a loved one, we can grieve with them, even if we ourselves are experiencing grief of some loss of our own. This is because you empower us to give good things to all people for their sakes. Your goodness knows no bounds. Through the power of your Spirit, we can give good things to all whom our lives touch. May our lives be lives of generosity, empowered by your Spirit, always giving, even as you give to us. May our lives be full of goodness, sharing with all whom our lives touch everything that you give us. May we give like you give, over and over again, without measure and without end. This is our prayer. Amen.
