Kopp Disclosure
(John 3:19-21)
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Being an Official Prayer
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“Pray constantly!”
Paul
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I’ve been an official prayer
a lot over the last 45 years.
It hasn’t always been easy because I’m
not especially good at it and some people don’t like people like me praying in
public.
When I was asked to open some
artsy-fartsy thing in the Clark, New Jersey’s town hall about 37 years ago, a
Junior Leaguer came up to me after the “Amen!” and
bantered and moaned about me mentioning Jesus.
A lot younger and bolder in a Segerian
kinda way, I said with a smile not snapped like her with a snarl, “Well, I
guess, then, you can go to hell.”
Some people don’t get my sense of
humor.
Fortunately, she did not send the
letter that she sent to our elders to presbytery because the religious guys (back
then) would have probably rebuked me for being insensitive and rude to people
who don’t know or like Jesus and just wanted me to punctuate their
festivity with something to someone somewhere (even back then).
In short, they wanted your typical
public prayer: “Blah, blah, blah…”
Our session, which is Presbyterian for
a meeting of elders, passed around the letter and nobody said anything about
it.
Some churches (more back then) like
Jesus more than people who don’t know or like Jesus.
For reasons still escaping moi, that
set off something and I’ve been an official prayer a lot since
that Junior Leaguer tried to get me into trouble for mentioning
Jesus in a public prayer.
Maybe it has something to do with
those inviting me knowing and liking Jesus in a Matthew 5:13-16 kinda way.
Don’t know and haven’t given much
thought to it or lost sleep over it for as long as I can remember.
Actually, I’d rather pray than
speak/preach in public for several reasons: (1) I don’t have that ego need; (2)
I like to feed others who do have that ego need and like to listen to others
who think they have something to say on His behalf; (3) Church members who use
public events to market their pastors to steal some sheep have never gained my
esteem; (4) Well, O.K., I’ll do it on rare occasions if God writes the
invitation/command in the sky; (5) People who wanna hear what He may have to
say through moi have been able to come to church 2-5 times a week if so
inclined/moved for over four decades; (6) I’m not into religion like that
Junior Leaguer (still around); and (7) I’d rather talk to/with
God than people because He pays more attention.
Anyway, some folks have been asking me
to provide copies of two recent prayers; which is hard because of what I wrote
about in “Prayer Helps” on 4/19/17 for www.koppdisclosure.com
(go to the Blog Archive to the right and click it on), www.churchandworld.com and, maybe, The
Belvidere Daily Republican.
Here are the summaries…
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Opening Prayer
Belvidere High School
50th Anniversary Memorial of
the Belvidere Tornado
April 21, 2017
Fifty years
ago to the hour today, O God, our community experienced unspeakably
inexplicable pain in death, injury, destruction, devastation, and
disillusionment; echoing the complaint of the prophet Habakkuk: “Why do You
allow people who are trying to love You to be hurt so much?”
You never explained why but
only offered how: “The righteous will live by faith.”
You admit the rain and winds of
pejorative change fall on everyone; and not even those trying to be faithful –
with the embedded memories so close to the surface in this moment recalling
that terrifying time of half a century ago – are immune to horrors.
Yet You say to trust You and there
will be a fresh perspective, an eternal one, that will cause us to repeat with
that same prophet with sober confession laced with steady confidence, “Though
the fig tree not blossom or fruit be on the vine and though I must see and
recall and still linger in the pain of life in this world, yet I will rejoice
in the God of my salvation – the One who says, sooner or later and definitely
in the end, we will join all the saints to say with the apostle, ‘Neither death
nor life, things present or things to come or anything else within time and
space can separate us from holy and eternal communion with You, Yours, and our
everlasting family.’”
We do not think it is coincidental –
Nah, it is providential! – that this day is so close to the day that changed
all fears into the assurance of eternal life and eternal reunion: Your
resurrection day when death was finished and no longer feared and love overcame
and cannot be beaten and light exposes and extinguishes darkness; so that we
can say with the apostle, as was said on April 21, 1967 and is repeated today
on April 21, 2017, “Neither death nor life, things present or things to come or
anything else within time and space can separate us from holy and eternal
communion with You, Yours, and our everlasting family.”
And so, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
keep fresh the memories of those who went home to You 50 years ago and who have
been so sorrowfully missed in time yet, greater still, increase our confidence
in a reunion that makes our time but a speck of sand on the beachfront of
eternity as we will be reunited forever and ever and ever world without end in
paradise by grace through faith in Jesus in whose name we pray.
Amen.
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Prayer for Local Law Enforcement
on the
21st Annual National Day of
Prayer Breakfast
Belvidere Community Building Complex
May 4, 2017
We thank and praise You, O God, for
Your Word in Jesus as fully explained in Holy Scripture by the enlightenment of
Your Holy Spirit.
Your Word promotes the best for us and
proscribes inhibitions to the only behaviors enabling holy communion with You
in the common quest for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all
with the Ten Commandments and red letters of the New Testament providing the
backbone of our national faith, morality, and law.
We agree with Your undershepherd
David: “Your Word is a lamp to my feet and light to my path.”
Your grace has called, gifted, and
compelled women and men as law enforcement officers who appeal to You in
aspiration for all people to guide into righteousness and protect from the
meanness, madness, misery, and miscreance being fueled by the evil one and its
accomplices.
As we join the remnant in America
supported by our global sisters and brothers in/through/for Jesus in thanks and
praise for all officers, we also, here and now in Belvidere, Illinois on this
National Day of Prayer, 4 May 2017, ask blessings of health, strength, safety
with Your shield of faith as most prominent, wisdom refining knowledge, courage
to engage the sword as inevitably necessary, and constant consciousness of the
affirmation and affection of all who are being served as serving You for the
Belvidere Police Department and Boone County Sheriff’s Department.
And as we thank and praise You for
family in uniform, we thank and praise You and pray the same for their support
team led by our Mayor and Council, Chief of Police, Sheriff, Fire Chief,
State’s Attorney, Judges, public servants, saints who planned this prayer
meeting and breakfast, and citizenry undeterred, undaunted, unafraid, and
uncompromising in allegiance to You and the highest values of America rooted in
Holy Scripture as enlightened by the Holy Spirit in the great and unparalleled
name of Jesus.
Amen.
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Blessings and Love!
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Shatter the sound of silence!
Wake up! Look up! Stand up! Speak
up! Act up for Jesus!
Salt! Shine! Leavenate!
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