The Raising of Lazarus by Duccio di Bunda via Wikimedia Commons
Our Father in heaven, I thank you that you have led me into the light.
I thank you for sending the Savior to call me from death to life.
I confess that I was dead in sin before I heard his call,
but when I heard him, like Lazarus, I arose.
But, O my Father, the old grave cloths bind me still.
Old habits that I cannot throw off,
old customs that are so much part of my life
that I am helpless to live the new life that Christ calls me to live.
Give me strength, O Father, to break the bonds;
give me courage to live a new life in you;
give me faith to believe that with your help I cannot fail.
And this I ask in the name of the Savior
who has taught me to come to you.
prayer from Taiwan
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Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. “Take away the stone,” he said.
“But, Lord,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, “by this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.” Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?”
So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.”
When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”
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