It is hard to endure, to be resilient, to be unmovable and steadfast.
Many pressures weigh on us and entice us to despondency and even to give up on faith in God — to go the way of Demas and leave the faith. And too often in those struggles we are prone to forget the priority and power of prayer. James reminds us that at times we do not have because we do not ask (Js. 4:2b). Our Father in Heaven is poised to provide, but we fail to go to Him in humble dependence, so we don’t receive His provision.
When in the trials of physical weakness, temptation to sin, and spiritual exhaustion we need to remember to pray. And when we pray, we should pray the Lord’s way. Examples of prayer abound in Scripture; last Sunday we considered one example of prayer from Paul’s letter to the Colossians and found six exhortations for how to pray. We then concluded our worship with a prayer that followed Paul’s example. What follows is the text of what we prayed that morning.
Our Father, we bow before you in humility and dependence. We need you to save us; we need you to transform us and guide us if we will be of any service to you. We affirm our agreement with Paul and You about the priorities of what we should pray and do from this passage. As we think about the calling of Christ, the provision of salvation, and the pressures of our lives, we ask for these things:
Would You make us persistent in prayer? In prayer we acknowledge our inability and our dependence on You. So our sometime prayerlessness is an act of unbelief. Would you forgive us of our lack of faith and would you compel us to pray and give us a delight in prayer? Might our hearts be inclined every day, throughout the day, to talk to you about the joys and needs of the day? And might we especially be consumed with a desire, like Paul, to pray for the needs of others as much as and more than our own?
Will You fill us with Your wisdom and Your Spirit? Will you use your Spirit in our lives to give us a knowledge of Your will? We want to know what is required of us and available to us, so will you use the Spirit to guide us as we read and study Your Word so that we can know it and obey it. In our personal difficulties and in the troubles of our day would you give us courage to implement what we learn from the Spirit’s Word? Might we not be fools who hear the Word but walk away from the revelation of Christ and ourselves and don’t obey.
Will You compel us to live lives that are worthy of You and our Savior, Jesus? We want to be transformed so that our lives conform to our Savior’s life. We desire to live in concert with Christ. We want to look like Christ. Would you sanctify us increasingly so that we live Christ-honorable lives? As we ask for worthy lives, we also affirm our commitment, by the Spirit, to live worthy of You — and might our pursuit of pleasing Him overflow into actions that benefit and are a blessing to others?
Will You produce spiritual fruit in us? Would you give us fruit as evangelists, disciplers, worshippers, and as discipliners? Would you help us to deal with sin in our own lives and then grace to love and help those who are weak with sin in their lives so they can be freed from Satan’s deception? And would you make us fruitful in our suffering — like Noah and Isaiah and Peter and Paul and the Philippians and millions of other faithful people might our hardships not keep us from fruitful living for you.
Will You give us a deepening knowledge of You? We want to know about You and we want to know You. We want to be consumed with You, feasting on You, satisfied with You, guardians of the truth and protected from falsehood and error. We know that blessings can tempt us to forget You and hardships can entice us to run from You; in all things (both good and bad) would you make us steadfast to pursue and know You?
Will You give us strength to endure? The world is enticing us to leave You for many reasons. Would you embolden us and strengthen us and keep us? Would you keep us from failing and making a mockery of our lives and leading others go mock Christ? As we ask for strength, we also affirm our commitment, by the Spirit, to live worthy of You by appropriating the strength You have given us.
Will You give us hearts of gratitude? We are tempted to be discontent with what we don’t have on earth; make us content with the riches of what we have in Heaven. Help us to see the grace and goodness of Christ and help us be thankful for all things in all circumstances. As we ask for gratitude, we also affirm our commitment, by the Spirit, to cultivate thankfulness and flee from ingratitude and self-absorption.
We pray these things because we are infinitely inadequate and You are infinitely sufficient. We need You. So we come and ask and trust that You will give us what we need to be steadfast and remain with You in all things. In the name of Christ we pray, Amen.
“Autumn sunrise on still waters” by Terry Kearney is marked with CC0 1.0.
Words of Grace 