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Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD;
let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.
Let us come before Him with thanksgiving
and extol Him with music and song.
For the LORD is the great God,
the great King above all gods.
~ Psalm 95:1-3

What a joy it was for many of us to be able to sing for joy to the Lord this past Sunday!
Christianity is a singing religion. We have a lot to sing about!
But this psalm is unusual — it begins with praise and worship and then ends with a warning, that we are not to harden our hearts, not to let our hearts go astray or we would end up not entering God’s rest.
We are a singing religion, but we are also a serious religion. Our singing and praise are real and always in the context of knowing our own weakness and relying on the strength of the Lord.

“A recovery of the old sense of sin is essential to Christianity.
Christ takes it for granted that men are bad.
Until we really feel this assumption of His to be true,
though we are part of the world He came to save,
we are not part of the audience to whom His words are addressed.”
~ C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

Petition: Please join with us in praying for:

1. The World — The number of confirmed cases is 127,092,284 (4,017,966 from last week — this is a 25% increase). The number of deaths of people with Covid-19 is 2,782,944 (up 69,916 — an increase of 20%). Brazil, India and much of Europe are seeing the greatest increases.

2. Australia — There have been 29,260 cases in total (up 64 compared with 79 the week before), with 3 being community transmission (+2 last week).

State	Total Cases	Weekly Change TW/LW	Total Deaths	Change in Deaths TW/LW
ACT	123	+0 (0)	3	0
NSW	5,281	+ 20 (24)	54	0
NT	108	+2 (+1)	0	0
QLD	1,446	+29 (31)	6	0
SA	650	+8 (11)	4	0
TAS	234	+ 0 (0)	13	0
VIC	20,483	+0 (0)	820	0
WA	935	+5 (+6)	9	0

The big issue today is Queensland where there are four new community cases and Greater Brisbane has been put into lockdown.

There are 75 people in hospital (+15), with 2 in ICU (+0).
There were 250,737 tests, with 0.2% positive. There are 155 active cases (+8).

3. Vaccine and Cures — There have been 541 million vaccinations (up 101 million from last week. Australia has reached 2%, the UK 50% and the US 40%. Australia has offered vaccines to PNG where they are desperately needed.

4. Church — Pray for the church in Queensland with the growing uncertainty over this Easter weekend. There are conferences such as the Darling Downes conference which may be threatened. Pray for all those involved.

5. Personal and Family — Pray for our teenagers, growing up in a confused and uncertain world. May they from their earliest days know the fear, love, grace and peace of the Lord.

A Prayer of Repentance:
Almighty God, who sees that we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves;
Keep us both outwardly in our bodies, and inwardly in our souls;
that we may be defended from all adversities which may happen to the body,
and from all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Song: This is surely the desire of all the Lord’s people…
The brilliant blues guitarist Eric Bibb singing I want Jesus to Walk with Me.

A Prayer of Thanksgiving:

Come, let us bow down in worship,
let us kneel before the LORD our Maker;
for He is our God and we are the people of His pasture,
the flock under His care.
~ Psalm 95:6-7

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Weekly devotions by David Robertson via Christians United — COVID19 Call to Prayer.[Photo by Benjamin Davies on Unsplash]