Father in all of your ways You are righteous and holy and good. In Your sovereignty, you reign as the One who works all things after the counsel of Your own will and providence, for the good of Your people. In Your justice and righteousness you right all wrongs and yet Christ chose in mercy to bear the very punishment we deserve in our place. Lord we see in Scripture the unfolding beauty and glory of Your redemption plan as You work it out through time, seeing Your faithfulness throughout generations and generations. Lord in our own lives though, we are so tempted to doubt Your goodness and faithfulness to us. In trial and suffering Lord help us to set our hope fully on the grace that will be brought to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ by seeing Your faithfulness in Your Word and also how You have proved Yourself time and again in our own lives. May we not be tempted to doubt Your goodwill toward us when difficulty enters our life. And in our prosperity and material blessing Lord, may we not forget You and Your love toward us and have our faith crowded out by the things of this world. In both trial and blessing, may we not miss the hope and glory of the mercy we have received and would You impress Yourself upon our hearts by Your Spirit, giving us peace and joy.
Tag: prayer
Father God, it is out of our own weakness and frailty that You show Yourself strong and mighty, to those who wait for and call upon Your name; it is out of our own lack of internal resources or the ability to lift our hands to do anything to help ourselves where you show up and provide an abundance of greatness with all of Your benefits, lifting us up from the mire and breathing life into our souls; it is out of our poverty and wanting that You produce a wealth beyond what this world could never offer or provide, because You Jesus are our treasure; it is in suffering and experiencing the corrosion and decay and loss within this world that You show Yourself to be the only one who could ever console, heal, satisfy, and comfort us at the deepest level of our being, in our heart of hearts, creating a joy in us that transcends understanding. It is You who loved us even when we were turned away from you in disobedience, while we were yet sinners. It is You who set a plan in motion together with Your Son to bring us back to Yourself, and it is You who is with us even as we await the fullness of our salvation when Your Kingdom comes in power and glory at Your return.
Father, we’re in need of your light to shine in our darkness. Just as the people were turned away and seemingly without hope before the time of Your Son’s arrival and His revelation as Your beloved Son, so also Lord our world is in darkness and without hope apart from the gospel of Your Kingdom. We thank You that You made Him known to us in power in Your Word and by Your Spirit, such as when Simeon proclaimed that he had seen the salvation of God in the temple while holding Jesus in his arms, and at His baptism when You Father proclaimed that this is Your well beloved Son in whom You are well pleased. And not only this but He demonstrated His power in miracles, at the cross and ultimately in the resurrection, to show beyond a shadow of a doubt that He is the Christ and that He is good and merciful and just and that He is the One who rescues us from our sins, making us citizens of His Kingdom. Lord grant us to love Him with all of our affections, our hearts and minds, our wills, with our actions and the way we live, as those who have been delivered from sin, and that in this way we would honor Him as the One who reigns and the One who delivered us from evil.
Lord, You are the glorious King who is reigning right now and has conquered all by the blood of Your cross. Even though you are a King, You made Yourself nothing and suffered the penalty of our judgment in Yourself, and by Your perfect life’s work have made us not merely subjects who are forced to serve You, but rather You have made us Your own children who delight in You, who love to lift You up and make you known. Lord we praise You and rejoice in these truths, even though now at present we carry in us pain and suffering because of the outworking of sin in our own lives and in our world: the way our own sin causes havoc within ourselves and our families and relationships, the way oppression and violence seem to have no end like the Mosque bombing in Egypt this week that senselessly killed so many, natural disasters that destroy lives and upend communities, and health issues affecting us and those closest to us. We long for and look forward to the day of Your return, when you will demonstrate Your power, execute justice and usher in your eternal visible reign within a re-created, glorious heaven and Earth, where all things will be made new and we will live in Your presence forever. You are reigning and extending Your kingdom even now Lord and we pray that because of our union with You, that You would work in us to extend the grace and message of Your gospel and also the work of Your church to those who are suffering themselves within our congregation and those in our communities.
Glorious Father, It is in you that we live and move and have our being. You have captivated our hearts through the unconquerable love You have demonstrated toward us in creation and redemption. You have united us together with Your Son. His death for sin is our death to sin. His resurrected life is our resurrected life as a new creation. His justification in His perfect life lived and sacrificial death on our behalf is our justification before You, through faith alone. You have adopted us and made us Your very own children through the work of the One who laid down everything so that You could have us as Your own. You have transferred us from the domain of darkness to the Kingdom of Your beloved Son. Through your embrace of us, would you free us from the attachments and entanglements the world has on our hearts, with all of its distracting joys and delights, and replace those things we wrongly cherish more than You with an unfading joy and desire for You, surpassing the love of all things that so easily captures our hearts. Remind us throughout all our days of Your faithfulness and tender care and affection toward us, in order that we would remain faithful in this world.
And seek the peace of the city whither I have caused you to be carried away captives, and pay unto the Lord for it: for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace. (Jeremiah 29:7)
The principle involved in this text would suggest to all of us who are the Lord’s strangers and foreigners that we should be desirous to promote the peace and prosperity of the people among whom we dwell. Specially should our nation and our city be blest by our constant intercession. An earnest prayer for your country and other countries is well becoming in the mouth of every believer. Eagerly let us pray for the great boon of peace, both at home and abroad. If strife should cause bloodshed in out streets, or if foreign battle should slay our brave soldiers, we should all bewail the calamity; let us therefore pray for peace and diligently promote those principles by which the classes at home and the races abroad may be bound together in bonds of amity.
Sometimes, quotes themselves speak volumes of information. Then again, sometimes they don’t. 🙂
“Those moments of good-will go away in a heartbeat when the reality of the challenges we face sink in.” (unknown MSNBC commentator)
“It looks like a cross between Woodstock and a religious pilgrimage.” (Keith Olbermann)
Muhammed Ali possesses “telepathy?” (Olbermann)
“Bitter sweet? I think they’re going to feel more like the Romanoff’s today.” (Chris Matthews, speaking of the Cheney’s) … good one
“It almost feels like there are elements of hero-worship at points.” (Rachel Maddow) … good call
Matthew Henry on Jesus’ Prayer Life
By David Westerfield
On January 21, 2009
In Scripture, Theology
I thought this was a timely quote from Matthew Henry’s commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, since our church is going through a study on prayer in the believer’s life. I pray this encourages you to seek private communion with the Lord. In our fast-paced, entertainment-driven, constantly distracted culture, it is very easy to neglect this practice, because there is always something else you could be doing. But it is necessary for the joy of our souls to be daily absorbed in God’s presence by His Holy Spirit, made possible by the cross of Christ. This is taken from here at CCEL.org.
He went up into a mountain apart to pray (Matthew 14:23). Observe here,
1. That he was alone; he went apart into a solitary place, and was there all alone. Though he had so much work to do with others, yet he chose sometimes to be alone, to set us an example. Those are not Christ’s followers that do not care for being alone; that cannot enjoy themselves in solitude, when they have none else to converse with, none else to enjoy, but God and their own hearts.
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