Prayer
Our heavenly Father, we praise you and adore you for the sacrifice you have made on the cross for all our sins and granting us salvation. We seek your help and guidance to follow your footsteps always, especially in our adverse situations.
Help us look to the cross and for us to understand its value during this Lenten season. We seek your blessings on all our partners as they proclaim good news through word and deed. Let your name be glorified through the work we do.
At this moment we pray for the people suffering from ill health, poverty and those living in darkness. We seek your blessings on all our people. Touch them, heal them, and relieve them from adversity.
We take this opportunity to remember the families who support the ministry in India. Bless them abundantly.
We are praying for the people who lost their family members and friends. Please give them hope, remove their sorrow, pain, and comfort them.
We pray for an opportunity to be vaccinated and protected from COVID-19 so that we may continue to do the good work unhindered. We ask for your continued blessings on all our staff and their families who are working in different countries. Bless them and their families and grant their needs.
We are praying for the youth who lost their jobs and for educational opportunities. Give them hope and faith.
We ask all these things in the name of our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.
CP Raju.
Ideas for Engaging Practices
Jesus said, “Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over.”
Think of one person who may not have heard the Good News. Make deliberate plans to plant the seed of Jesus in them.
Worship Resources
Worship on the road through Lent with former CBM Strategic Associate Cheryl Bear’s song, “Shine Forth Like the Sun”.
John 12:20-33
The Message
A Grain of Wheat Must Die
There were some Greeks in town who had come up to worship at the Feast. They approached Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee: “Sir, we want to see Jesus. Can you help us?”
Philip went and told Andrew. Andrew and Philip together told Jesus. Jesus answered, “Time’s up. The time has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.
“Listen carefully: Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over. In the same way, anyone who holds on to life just as it is destroys that life. But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you’ll have it forever, real and eternal.
“If any of you wants to serve me, then follow me. Then you’ll be where I am, ready to serve at a moment’s notice. The Father will honor and reward anyone who serves me.
“Right now I am shaken. And what am I going to say? ‘Father, get me out of this’? No, this is why I came in the first place. I’ll say, ‘Father, put your glory on display.’”
A voice came out of the sky: “I have glorified it, and I’ll glorify it again.”
The listening crowd said, “Thunder!”
Others said, “An angel spoke to him!”
Jesus said, “The voice didn’t come for me but for you. At this moment the world is in crisis. Now Satan, the ruler of this world, will be thrown out. And I, as I am lifted up from the earth, will attract everyone to me and gather them around me.” He put it this way to show how he was going to be put to death.
