Luke 1: 72-73: To show mercy to our ancestors and to remember his holy covenant, the oath he swore to our father Abraham.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, you keep what you promise. You promised Abraham in Genesis 12: 3: “All peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” This promise is fulfilled in Jesus, a descendant of Abraham.

Paul writes in Ephesians 1:3: “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.”

Thank you for keeping your word. So we can lives on your promises. You promised: Whoever invites Jesus into his life and lets himself be changed by the Holy Spirit, you will complete his life, as Paul says in Philippians 1: 6: “Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

Thank you for your mercy on our lives. We live on your mercy and we thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

Luke 1:71: He saved us from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, sometimes it seems like you are not saving us from the hands of the enemy. I think of all the persecuted Christians. Or the people who died as martyrs. At the same time, however, Jesus also says in Matthew 10:28: “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”

The real enemy are those who destroy our soul, our personality. And suddenly we notice that this can happen to us too, even if we are not being persecuted outwardly. The real enemy is where our trust in God is destroyed.

For this there is again the promise of Jesus in John 10:29: ” My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand”.

Lord, you save us from all the people who hate us and want to destroy us. And if we get in the position that people harass and persecute us, then you are there and help us when we trust in you. That is how the martyrs experienced it. This is what countless Christians who are persecuted today experience. In such situations you always give the strength to love people who are driven by hate, so that we can forgive them because they do not know what they are doing.

We want to ask you for this strength from you so that we can say: “He saved us from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us.”