Minister: Lift up your hearts!
Congregation: We lift them up to the Lord!
Gracious Father, Giver of all gifts, we thank You for the gift of Your most Holy Spirit. We thank You that in Your triune life there is no conflict between power and love.
We know that in our flesh, we feel like we have to choose between these two, and we glorify Your wisdom which has reconciled them in the death of Your Son and our Lord.
Christ has all authority, but it is the authority of the one who died, the one who sacrificed Himself to the point of death, even death on a cross. Christ is Your love, incarnate on earth, embodied among us. True authority is resurrected authority, with all grasping for carnal power far removed from it.
We thank You for including us as partakers of that death, and therefore as partakers of His resurrected life. We thank You for this opportunity to worship You as full partakers of Your triune life. On this basis, we pray that Your Spirit would empower Your Church with loving authority and authoritative love.
And so, gracious Father, we worship You now through Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end, amen.