This past Sunday morning, our church’s congregational prayer was led by an elder who is so saturated in God’s word that it flows out into his prayers with heartfelt fervor. Listening to this man pray has helped teach me to pray. While he expresses humility and awe throughout, his prayers also testify to a simplicity and comfort in talking with the Lord which can only be grounded in years spent in his Bible and on his knees. I am grateful for the variety of men who lead our church in prayer each week. I hope that by sharing these prayers with you, you are as encouraged as I am to bring your own petitions to the Lord, our High King of Heaven.
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Once again brothers and sisters, it’s that time in the order of our worship when we go before our Lord, our Great High Priest, and it’s our custom here if you have a particular praise, a prayer of supplication on your heart, and if you believe that we have a heavenly Father who hears the prayers of his children and he answers them according to his will, you can give evidence to that by the lifting of your right hand. Please join me in prayer.
Our Father and our God, blessed are you, O Lord, and blessed be your glorious Name, which is exalted above blessing and praise. For you alone are the Lord. You have made Heaven, the Heaven of heavens, and all their hosts. You made the earth, and everything that is on it; the seas and everything that is in them, and you preserve them all. Indeed, Father, heaven and earth are full of your glory. And yet, we miss it. The sun and the moon and the starry host proclaim your greatness in the heavens above. The earth too is full of your wonders, from the snow-covered mountains that reach high above the earth, to the boiling deserts. Tree life, plant life, beautiful flowers are everywhere on this earth. The animal kingdom is yours, from the magnificent elk, down to the little Chihuahua that sits in our laps. All these things and more are yours, Lord. And if the eye could behold them all, and the mind could comprehend them, we would but yet get a small glimpse of the greatness that is You. You are awesome in power, majestic in holiness. All your ways are righteous and just. You are a loving God. You are gracious and merciful, slow to anger, ever faithful. Father we can but tremble and stand here before you in awe. That’s all we can do Lord.
But now, we turn to you, to approach your throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of very great need. We don’t come in our own strength, for we are weak. We don’t come in our own righteousness, for we have none. But we come in the name of Jesus our Lord, our Savior, our King, our Redeemer. We ask you Father to look upon us as those that you have clothed in the righteousness of Christ. Sinners that have been forgiven by the shed blood of Jesus Christ.
So here we are, Lord. We are yours.
And we lift up now some of the needs of the saints. We think of those who are lonely and depressed, perhaps shut in due to the virus. Pray that you would comfort them, give them strength. Pray for those who are sick—some with serious sickness Lord; some who are recovering from surgery or surgery is anticipated; those in treatment for cancer. Father we pray for healing, we pray for wisdom for their doctors. We pray for our marriages. Pray Lord you would give us strong marriages. That those of us who are husbands would love our wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her. Pray that our wives would love us and respect us in return. For those marriages that are struggling we pray for divine intervention, for healing, for restoration, for repentance and forgiveness where it is necessary.
We lift up the ministries of our church as always Father. Pray that what we preach, teach, in-reach, outreach—all the ministries here within this church would be about the business of exalting Christ and glorifying you. Cause us, Lord, to be driven by the gospel, to have a great desire to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with the lost and those in such a dark and hurting world. Pray for the leadership in this church, for the session and the deaconate. Bless them with wisdom, humility, patience and gentleness, kindness, love for one another and for the church.
We pray for your church worldwide, Lord, that during such a time as this, that you would strengthen your church all over the world. That your church would be a beacon of light and have a desire to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ. As Paul said, he is not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God unto Salvation. That is what this world needs. We pray for the churches in our presbytery, and think of the church plants within our presbytery, even our sister church, Hope, here in New Braunfels. We pray that you would bless these church plants and would prosper them and that they would take a stand for the gospel—indeed they would seek to minister to the needs of those in our community. But most especially, again God, the thing that is needed most is the grace of redemption that’s found only in Jesus Christ.
We pray for Berdj and Jennie, John and Stefanie, and their children. Thank you for these pastors. We ask that you would bless them and protect them, that you would multiply their time, that you would give them an insatiable appetite for your word. That your word would control their thoughts and their actions. We pray, Father, that you would lead them away from temptation. We pray especially now for John as he’ll be preaching here. Fill him with your Holy Spirit, Father, give him—give him again—a zeal for your word. And may we sit, and may we listen. Open our eyes and our ears that we might hear the truth of the gospel as this man stands here to present it to us.
Finally, Lord, we praise your glorious name and exalt you as our High King of Heaven. And we close this time of prayer with the (prayer) that our Lord, even Jesus himself, taught us, as we pray:
Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the Kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen
Grateful 