[From June 28, 2004 archive]
Make steadfast our hearts, O God,
as your love is steadfast.
Bar us from finding excuses for our sin;
keep us steadfast.
When people summon us to questionable acts,
help us do only what is consistent with your will.
Forfend that we should profane with dishonesty
what you have given us as sacred.
Lectionary Readings
Ps. 57; 145; 85; 47
Numb. 22:1-21
Rom. 6:12-23
Matt. 21:12-22
Selected Verses
Ps. 57:7
My heart is steadfast, O God,
my heart is steadfast.
Numb. 22:20
That night God came to Balaam and said to him, “If the men have come to summon you, get up and go with them; but do only what I tell you to do.”
Rom. 6:15
What then? Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!
Matt. 21:
[Jesus] said to [the sellers and buyers in the temple], “It is written,
‘My house shall be called a house of prayer’;
but you are making it a den of robbers.”
Forfend 🙂
ReplyDeleteThe archive only goes back to Dec 2004. Might this be a journal?
Thank you for pointing this out, Chris. To clarify, I have always kept a Word version of my posts, and that is what I consult instead of using the archives. My Word version covers much more of 2004 than just December, so that is the source I have been using. Now that I know, I will refer to 2004 posts prior to December as from my journal. (I am guessing that you were curious to know whether I was using "forfend" back in 2004. Confession--I had used "forbid" but I changed it for your benefit. Caught in the act! Elmer
DeleteMany thanks for thinking of me. Forfend goes back to Middle English, so our ancestors have used it for a long time.
ReplyDelete