Thursday 10 February 2022

A Prayer For You

 Scripture:  Ephesians 3 v 14 - 17: "For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,

 15  Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named,
 16  That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man;
 17  That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,"

Heavenly Father,
I come before Your Throne to worship and praise You for all that You do for us.  Thank You that we are welcome to come into Your presence and make our needs known to You.

You already know what we have need of but by asking You and receiving from You we acknowledge Your ability to provide for, protect and love Your children.

Our first and greatest need is to know that we are forgiven for our rebellious and selfish behaviour, and that there is no condemnation towards us, for Jesus said that He did not come to condemn us but to save us from a terrible fate, because You love us.

Father, our only way of showing our gratitude is to love You as You love us, by sharing Your love with those around us, or using any means to reach out and touch their lives in small or large ways.
Father, some of us need healing, and because we are a New Creation, healing is part of Your covenant between us.  We were dead in our sins, lifeless and without hope, until You breathed life into us and caused our spirits to be resurrected when Jesus was resurrected.

He took our spirits to be seated in Him in heavenly places, and gave us His righteous spirit to live here as He would live.  Father, its our choice to live as He lived or compromise with the world.  

Show us, O Lord, what is good and acceptable to You.  Help us to walk in Your ways and hear You say when our time here is up, "Well done, good and faithful servant.  Enter into your rest."

Although our spirits are already with You, our bodies and souls need to overcome our carnal nature, which sometimes causes us to become ill, even seriously diseased, often causing untimely death.  You say, "My people perish for lack of knowledge."

Father, what do we lack in our understanding?  You say, "My ways and thoughts are higher than your ways and thoughts."

In order to understand You we need to know You and know Your Word.  Lord we need to spend quality time with You, as we do with our Earthly parents.  You are love, goodness, mercy, and You also get angry and discipline us.  

When we get too far away from You that's when we suffer and in that suffering we cry out to You in prayer, hoping You are still listening.  We need immediate response but sometimes it's delayed as You assess what needs changing to bring us closer to You.  
We can be stubborn, forgetful, and wayward.  We have so many other important issues to deal with.  We neglect to bring all our burdens to You to fix because we can manage, until it all falls apart.  O Lord, forgive us for not knowing how it hurts You when we do things our own way and fall into traps.

Father, from today, I promise to be a pleasing child and not to resist the changes You need to make to improve and upgrade me.
Father, I love You, and I love Jesus.  Thank You for sending Him to rescue us, thank You for sending the Holy Spirit to teach and empower us.

In Jesus' name.
Amen.