Prayer: What does generosity look like? (2 Cor 9:6-15)

Heavenly father,

We come together this evening to praise you and bring you glory. For you, and you alone, are God - there is no-one greater than you, no power more powerful, nowhere you cannot see, nothing you do not know. Everything else is made by you, and you have made it well, and made it good. And you are good - you rule over everything you have made with justice and righteousness. Who can question your sovereign will? You are worthy of all glory, for you achieve your every goal, and you succeed in everything you at our to do.

But not only are you just - you are both gracious and merciful. You are abundant in your blessings, and open yourself to all humanity, holding out your arms in welcome to all who would call you father. We are not perfect, like you are perfect, but instead of turning us away, you make a path for us to come to you - Jesus, the messiah, God with us.  Not only have you come to earth as a human and shared yourself with us, but you died on a cross to take away our just punishment, to make us blameless before you. And so we praise your name, because you are good to us in ways we cannot possibly earn, and you forgive us debts we cannot possibly repay.  We can call the king of the universe our dad! We can call the creator of all things our friend! We can live a new life with the spirit of God inside us, transforming us, teaching us,  changing us by your power!

And it's because you've done all this for us, father, that we want to praise you to the whole world. We want everyone to have what we have, and to hear about how great you are. We want to give you a massive like on Facebook. We want to give you five stars on TripAdvisor. We want to write a letter to the editor and tell everyone about how great you are. We want to tell our friends. We want to talk about you and what you've done for us with each other.  We want you to go viral, because you are so excellent, we can't help but share.

You're so amazing and so incredible that we want everything we do to show it - not just so that others get to see, but because you are genuinely worth the praise and the glory! And so we ask that in everything we do, in everything we say, in every dollar we spend, in every choice we make, that people might see what you're doing in us and in our circumstances, and see how great you are. And those circumstances aren't always cheerful. We pray especially for those who are suffering through trials, poverty, sickness, pain, and other difficulties. We ask that you will give them strength, and endurance, and faith in you, so that they can meet these challenges, and we pray that you will give us opportunities and skills to help them, so they don't need to do it alone. We ask that you might show yourself in good times and bad, so that in every instance you are praised and glorified.

We ask it because you deserve it, because of Jesus. Amen