Zion Lutheran Church (LCMS)

A Guide for Daily Prayer and Meditation

                                                                           March 19-26, 2023

Pray and confess out loud as much as you are able or based on your family size and ages. You may follow the “Morning” or the “Close of the Day” according to time of day. (Alternative orders are in the LSB hymnal pp. 295-298)

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The sign of the cross + may be made by all in remembrance of their baptism.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit; as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen.

Hymn of the Month for March: LSB 425 When I Survey the Wondrous Cross

One or more verses from the hymn of the month are sung, or another hymn may be chosen.

Verse of the Week: Psalm 36:9

With you is the fountain of life; in your light do we see light.

Daily Lectionary

The Lord’s Prayer: The Introduction

      Our Father who art in heaven.

What does this mean?

With these words God tenderly invites us to believe that He is our true Father and that we are His true children, so that with all boldness and confidence we may ask Him as dear children ask their dear father.

The Apostles’ Creed is confessed

Lord’s Prayer

Prayers for Others and Ourselves

Collect for the Fourth Sunday in Lent

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, Your mercies are new every morning; and though we deserve only punishment, You receive us as Your children and provide for all our needs of body and soul. Grant that we may heartily acknowledge Your merciful goodness, give thanks for all Your benefits, and serve You in willing obedience; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

Prayer based on Introduction to the Lord’s Prayer

It is Your will that we should not individually name You Father. But we should call You “our Father” together and pray for all with one accord. So give us a united and brotherly love that we may know and consider all Christians as brothers and sisters. Together may we pray to You, our beloved Father, for each and for all, just as one child speaks for another to its father. Amen. (Martin Luther, 1483-1546)

Let us bless the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Excerpts from the Large Catechism on the Lord’s Prayer

• We are in a situation where no person can perfectly keep the Ten Commandments, even though he has begun to believe. The devil with all his power, together with the world and our own flesh, resists our efforts. Therefore, nothing is more necessary than that we should continually turn towards God’s ear, call upon Him, and pray to Him. We must pray that He would give, preserve, and increase faith in us and the fulfillment of the Ten Commandments. We pray that He would remove everything that is in our way and that opposes us in these matters. (408:1-2)
• The human heart is by nature so hopeless that it always flees from God and imagines that He does not wish or desire our prayer, because we are sinners and have earned nothing but wrath. (409:10)
• From the fact that prayer is so solemnly commanded, you are to conclude and think that no one should in any way despise his prayer. Instead, he should count on prayer. He should always turn to an illustration from the other commandments. A child should in no way despise his obedience to father and mother, but should always think, “This work is a work of obedience. What I do I do for no other reason than that I may walk in the obedience and commandment of God. On this obedience I can settle and stand firm, and I can value it as a great thing, not because of my worthiness, but because of the commandment.” So here also, we should think about the words we pray and the things we pray for as things demanded by God and done in obedience to Him. We should think, “On my account this prayer would amount to nothing. But it shall succeed, because God has commanded it.” (409-410:12-13)

Bible verses for meditation on the Introduction to the Lord’s Prayer

• “See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.” 1 John 3:1-2
• “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.” Matthew 7:7-8
• “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”          1 Thessalonians 5:16-18