One of my early pastors closed every worship service with the same benediction. It was the one chosen by Paul as he closed his writings to the church at Corinth, \u201cThe grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all\u201d (2 Corinthians 13:14). What is a benediction anyway? One source defines it as \u201ca memorable prayer, commending ourselves to God\u2019s care, and announcing His blessings upon the people.\u201d From the earliest church, Christians adopted ceremonial benedictions into their worship, particularly at the end of a service. Such benedictions have been regularly practiced ever since. Not all benedictions are corporate, nor are all so serious. Comedian George Carlin offered this benediction: \u201cMay the forces of evil become confused on the way to your house\u201d and musician Bob Dylan offered, \u201cMay your heart always be joyful. May your song always be sung.\u201d You may not be called upon to offer a benediction in a worship service this week, but how about a personal benediction for friends or family? May you be blessed in so doing.<\/p>\n
Join me this week in interceding for the following global concerns:
\n\u2022 Randy and Joan planted a church in Maribor, Slovenia 13 years ago. Pray for them as they leave Slovenia for stateside assignment.
\n\u2022 Pray for more than 200,000 people who fled with nothing more than their belongings, as ISIS fighters overran their cities of Mosul, Tikrit and Tel Afar, and for those who now minister to them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One of my early pastors closed every worship service with the same benediction. It was the one chosen by Paul as he closed his writings to the church at Corinth, \u201cThe grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all\u201d (2 Corinthians…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-monday-morning-manna"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1445\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}