Lord God, You have created us in Your image, to reflect You in the world and ultimately bring about Your glory and praise and worth. And yet because of our sin, we have marred and distorted that image so greatly, we fall short of Your glory daily and are subject to Your wise justice and resulting judgment for how we have turned from You and treat our fellow humans. For all the ways we’ve fallen short, have mercy upon us, as we know You are ready and willing to do. Thank You Jesus for Your perfect law keeping in our behalf, Your sacrifice on the cross in our place and Your glorious resurrection for us, that we would behold Your face in glory forever and be satisfied for all eternity.
Tag: Prayers
A prayer based on themes from this article at the Gospel Coalition.
Father for all the ways we fall short of Your glory, we pray for forgiveness and know that You are always ready and willing to accept us when we turn. But we pray even further Lord for our hearts that we would be a people who are truly repentant and ready to turn from our sin. And we pray not just that we would merely turn from it, but that we would embrace Christ in the place of it because apart from You we can do nothing and will merely fall back into our sin.
After having undiagnosed depression and some level of anxiety for years (I knew I had at least a mild depression, but didn’t know the depth until later in life), and having that culminate this past February to the point of seeking counseling (and being formally diagnosed with depression and anxiety), I’ve been on the look out for prayers related to all of this in particular and came across these. I hope and pray they are beneficial to those struggling in this area.
As an aside, if you’re struggling in this area, get counseling. It was a game changer. Don’t go it alone like I did for years just “managing”.
Heavenly Father, if I should suffer need, and go unclothed, and be in poverty, make my heart prize Thy love, know it, be constrained by it, though I be denied all blessings. It is Thy mercy to afflict and try me with wants, for by these trials I see my sins, and desire severance from them. Let me willingly accept misery, sorrows, temptations, if I can thereby feel sin as the greatest evil, and be delivered from it with gratitude to Thee, acknowledging this as the highest testimony of Thy love.
When thy Son, Jesus, came into my soul instead of sin He became more dear to me than sin had formerly been; His kindly rule replaced sin’s tyranny. Teach me to believe that if ever I would have any sin subdued I must not only labour to overcome it, but must invite Christ to abide in the place of it, and He must become to me more than vile lust had been; that His sweetness, power, life may be there. Thus I must seek a grace from Him contrary to sin, but must not claim it apart from Himself.
When I am afraid of evils to come, comfort me by showing me that in myself I am a dying, condemned wretch, but in Christ I am reconciled and live; that in myself I find insufficiency and no rest, but in Christ there is satisfaction and peace; that in myself I am feeble and unable to do good, but in Christ I have ability to do all things. Though now I have His graces in part, I shall shortly have them perfectly in that state where Thou wilt show Thyself fully reconciled, and alone sufficient, efficient, loving me completely, with sin abolished. O Lord, hasten that day.