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 of the People Page 1 of 2
Father, some of us come here from a place of real joy and closeness with You. Many if not most of us are a mixed bag of closeness to You as well as internal and external struggles that weigh and press in on us. And some of us are merely struggling to hang on. Lord for all of us though, there are real points of struggle to believe what You’ve promised, to believe that You’re good to us. Wherever we are Lord, we pray that You would kindle our hearts with the fire of faith by Your Spirit to fight against our tendency to unbelief. Would we not neglect our pursuit of You, knowing that as we patiently pursue You, You promise to reward those who seek after You. As 1 John 3:2 says, “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.” Father, knowing that’s true in the end, would you at a very fundamental level simply show us Jesus in Your Word in greater ways now? Would we be captivated by what we see of Jesus, His glorious power and justice, as well as His tenderness and kindness and mercy, and would this melt our cold hearts that ebb and flow in struggle to believe what you’ve promised? You know our frame and remember that we are dust. We’re desperate for Your sustaining grace in this and pray to this end.
Almighty God, you have built your Church upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone: Grant us so to be joined together in unity of spirit by their teaching, that we may be made a holy temple acceptable to you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (BCP)
Father, apart from Jesus and the work of Your Holy Spirit in our salvation, we can do nothing. In our natural, sinful state apart from Your intervention, we can’t lift a finger to perform some work or make a step toward You in righteousness. In fact we are opposed to You. We are unholy, depraved, and sinful beyond what we can even understand as Romans 3 makes clear, to the point that even our wills need Your life-giving touch.
You are the God who gives food to the hungry and in Jesus you miraculously fed the five thousand from very little. You LORD set the prisoners free and in Jesus You freed the man from the legion of Demons and the self-destruction inflicted; You LORD open the eyes of the blind, and in Jesus you said the word to many who were blind and immediately they received their sight. You LORD lift up those who are bowed down and in Jesus You greatly blessed and upheld a prostitute who washed Your feet with her tears and hair in remorse and repentance and love For Christ; You LORD love the righteous. You LORD watch over the sojourners and those without a home; You uphold the widow and the fatherless, the abused, the broken, the chastised, all those who suffer deeply, but the way of the wicked You bring to ruin. The prideful, haughty, evil, and self-sufficient You oppose.
Lord Jesus, just as You healed the daughter of Jairus right after healing a woman with an incurable medical condition, you Lord are demonstrated to be the God of healing not just physical conditions, but the God of healing souls. Lord our state apart from the touch of Your healing grace in our souls is incurable. We’re terminal. Apart from a correction of grace, we don’t want You, we don’t seek You, we’re indifferent to You and Your calls to come to You, we’re comfortable in our soul diseases and sins that eat away at us. We’re comfortable in the distractions of the flesh that all too easily please us that are all around us and pressing in and keep us from enjoying the only One who could deeply satisfy all of our desires and longings.
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.
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.
Your kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom, one that has already been inaugurated by Your entrance into the world and Your ascension into heaven after suffering death, throwing the old order into disarray as Your Kingdom is shown to be that which will reign forever and ever, unlike all kingdoms before it and those that exist today. As believers whose eyes are set on His eternal reign, we see You not as a theoretical king or merely a future King but a present King, whose eternal political agenda confronts and upends all of our agendas at different levels. You humble all rulers, you humble all peoples and in the end You will appear in blazing glory to consummate Your reign with Your people, bring judgment, and establish the final order in the new heavens and new earth, where you are the great, forever and final political authority in the heavens and the earth. At present He rules in heaven, in the end He will rule visibly. Lord may we not lose sight of that.
We give thanks to you, O God; we give thanks, for your name is near. (Psalm 75:1)
Father as one of your churches that makes up the larger body of Your people, we come and simply lay at Your feet in thankfulness, for how You have given us life, support us in times of trial, provide for us in times of turbulence like we find ourselves in now, and how you’ve provided an incomparable salvation that we never could have sought after or achieved on our apart from the work of Your Spirit by Grace Alone. We thank You that Your name is near, that You have been made known to us through Jesus and all he’s accomplished to make us Your children. We thank You that You, the great I AM of the universe, would condescend to our level in order to be near us.
Father, after many years of waiting for Your promises to be fulfilled, You brought Christ into the world and made His coming known to the Gentiles, and specifically during this time of Epiphany, you revealed Him to the Magi who had come to see this King who had been born. In fulfillment of so many Old Testament passages such as Moses who says, “Rejoice O Gentiles with His people,” and Isaiah who says, “The Gentiles will hope in Him,” You brought about a great fulfillment to bring salvation not just to ethnic Israel but to include the Gentiles around the world with Your chosen people Israel and so all Israel will be saved together. We rejoice together that we are seeing the promise spoken to Abraham that he would be the father of many nations fulfilled in our very midst. Father in Your great kindness, across history and even to this very day, you are continuing this fulfillment in effecting your work of the covenant of grace in Christ our Lord and bringing in Your called people from every tribe, tongue, language and nation. You are building Your church and the gates of hell cannot prevail against it. Though we see so much persecution around the world against believers and even in our midst feel it with our family and friends at times who don’t know You, You are working a glorious end in which You will be lifted up and highly exalted and we will be caught up together and share in Your glory. Lord fill us with the hope and wonder and mystery of these truths that we would seek and find our treasure first and foremost in Christ, seeking the things that are above where He is instead of fleeting things here on Earth, and find rest for our weary souls.
Father in heaven, who at the baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan didst proclaim him thy beloved Son and anoint him with the Holy Spirit: Grant that all who are baptized into his Name may keep the covenant they have made, and boldly confess him as Lord and Savior; who with thee and the same Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen. (BCP)