Category: April

A Prayer about the Beauty and Brokenness of Sexuality 

And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.” But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Flee from sexual immorality. (1 Cor. 6:14–18)  

Holy and loving Jesus, so many thoughts are swirling through my head this morning. I’ve never been more aware of the pervasiveness of sexual brokenness— everywhere I go, everywhere I look, including in the mirror. It’s like we’re living in the Corinth of Paul’s day. So many of us bear the wounds, feel the shame, know the disconnect of our sexual brokenness and sin. And yet the gospel dares us to hope. 

Indeed, hope— that’s the greater impulse of my heart this morning. In fact, as I ponder what Paul was saying to the Corinthians, I am left speechless— overwhelmed at the beauty, Jesus, of belonging to you, being desired by you, being “known” by you in the most intimate of all ways. 

Dare I say it, Lord Jesus? Whatever the “best sex” is between a husband and wife, it’s only a hint and a whisper of the intimacy you intend for yourself and your bride. Jesus, give me a greater capacity to understand, believe, and enjoy the wonders of the relationship you’ve established with us. 

Why should I flee all forms of sexual immorality? Simply because it’s what I’m supposed to do as a Christian? Only because it’s “the rules”? That would never be enough to keep me from acting out in selfish and destructive ways. I’ll flee sexual immorality because you flee to us in the gospel. 

You’ve died for us; you’ve been raised for us; you’ve married yourself to us; you’ve united everything that we are to yourself. We’re already one with you “in spirit,” and we await your return and our resurrection. Whatever the future and fulfillment of sexuality is, it belongs to you. 

Until then, Lord Jesus, help us flee all forms of sexual immorality by fleeing to you, our great and gracious bridegroom. In our marriages, in our singleness, in our brokenness, in our need for repentance and healing, be glorified. I pray in your peerless name.

Amen. 

A Prayer about a Holy Rage for Justice  

Arise, Lord! Lift up your hand, O God. Do not forget the helpless. Why does the wicked man revile God? Why does he say to himself, “He won’t call me to account”? But you, God, see the trouble of the afflicted; you consider their grief and take it in hand. The victims commit themselves to you; you are the helper of the fatherless. (Ps. 10:12–14 NIV)  

Holy Father, there are times when it’s good to get fed up and hacked off, to get red in the face and fire in the pants, to get angry with holy rage. Looking into the eyes of helpless victims and hearing the sneer of agents of terror is just such a time. Today we take up the psalmist’s impassioned cry, “Arise, Lord! Lift up your hand, O God. Do not forget the helpless” (Ps. 10:12 NIV).

It’s inconceivable and unconscionable that there are twenty-seven million human slaves today who live (barely) in bondage to other human beings. I’ve seen it firsthand. Never let me forget the day I walked the streets of Bangkok looking for an afternoon snack, only to be offered little girls for my pleasure by street vendors, as though these priceless seven, eight, and nine year old were nothing more than an ice cream cone— a usable commodity, fodder for evil’s fantasies. 

Righteous Father, “break the arm of the wicked man; call the evildoer to account for his wickedness that would not otherwise be found out” (Ps. 10:15 NIV). I don’t ask this arrogantly but with a longing for justice to flow like a river through the streets of Bangkok and Nashville, and every city and hamlet, and for your righteousness to be the never-failing stream that cuts its life giving way throughout the earth (Amos 5:24). 

Lord Jesus, because the gospel is true, we pray with confidence, “The Lord is King for ever and ever; the nations will perish from his land. You, Lord, hear the desire of the afflicted; you encourage them, and you listen to their cry, defending the fatherless and the oppressed, so that mere earthly mortals will never again strike terror” (Ps. 10:16–18 NIV). 

Because of your cross, terror is terrified and one day will be no more; Satan knows his time is short, and demons tremble with fear. Because of your resurrection, your kingdom will come, your will will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. We pray in your name, with holy rage and humble gratitude.

Amen. 

A Prayer for Wise Choices 

O Lord, make me know my end
and what is the measure of my days;
let me know how fleeting I am! Behold,
you have made my days a few hand breadths,
and my lifetime is as nothing before you.
Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath!
Surely a man goes about as a shadow!
Surely for nothing they are in turmoil;
man heaps up wealth and does not know who will gather!
And now, O Lord, for what do I wait?
My hope is in you. (Ps. 39:4–7)

Sovereign Father, though I have no desire to know the exact day or means by which you will take me home, I’m more committed to live with that day in view. Because the gospel is true, I have no fear of dying. I really believe that to be absent from my body will mean that I am immediately present with you. The sting of my death has been removed. The grave has been robbed of its victory over me and my body. I can honestly say with Paul that it is better by far to depart and be with the Lord (Phil. 1:23). 

But until that departure, how do you want me to invest the rest of my days? I’ve spent enough years bustling about in vanity, heaping up stuff that will only end up on the ash heap one day. Should you give me one more, ten more, twenty-five more years, how can the gospel of your kingdom and the riches of your grace claim and fill the span of those very brief years? 

What do I need to make a bigger deal about— and a lesser deal of? What things do I simply need to let go of? Who should I be spending more time with or, quite honestly, less time with? 

The two things that define the rest of history are your commitment to redeem your people through the gospel and your commitment to make all things new through Jesus. How do you want me to engage with both of those stories with my friends and church? 

Indeed, give me greater love for people who don’t know Jesus, Father. I spend way too much time just with other Christians. And help me live more intentionally as an agent of redemption and restoration in my community and neighborhood. I pray in Jesus’ magnificent name.

Amen. 

A Prayer about Consummate Longings  

And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are the true words of God.” Then I fell down at his feet to worship him, but he said to me, “You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus. Worship God.”
(Rev. 19:9–10)  

Jesus, it’s not hard to understand why John fell down to worship the angel who delivered this stunning vision. For our oldest longings, greatest cravings, and deepest yearnings are claimed by what John saw: the wedding supper of the Lamb— the fullest expression of your great love for us. 

We only foolishly think there’s some set of circumstances, some person, some relationship, some change in our world, some sensual experience that can satisfy the restlessness in our hearts. But we’re made for you, Jesus— designed to be fulfilled and completed only by you. You are the most loving and tender bridegroom who cherishes a most unlikely and ill deserving bride. 

Jesus, because we’re called and guaranteed a place at this banquet; because you’ve set your affection upon us and find great delight in us; because we will spend eternity celebrating the only love that was ever enough, the only love that would never let us go— O Lord, for these incomparable gifts, we too fall down and worship you, for you alone are God and you alone are worthy. 

Jesus, until that day when you consummate your marriage with us, help those of us who are married to love our spouses as you love us. Free us from unrealistic expectations of one another. Free us from having no expectations of one another. Free us from thinking you cannot renew broken, boring, passionless, purposeless marriages. In these temporary marriages of ours, bring childlike wonder and grace- full kindness to bear once again. We pray in your merciful and mighty name.

Amen. 

A Prayer about Focused Wanting 

I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on to- ward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. All of us, then, who are mature should take such a view of things. (Phil. 3:12–15 NIV)  

Gracious Jesus, it’s good to be free from the “paralysis of analysis”— an unhealthy, navel-gazing preoccupation with me. But it’s equally good to be free to examine my life through the lens of the gospel. 

I don’t know how old Paul was when he wrote these words— maybe in his sixties or seventies— but it’s obvious that with an increase in age came an increase in gospel astonishment. He never grew bored exploring the unsearchable riches of Jesus, and he never seemed to tire of wrestling with the kingdom implications of the gospel. 

Jesus, make me that kind of man. Give me this kind of maturity in the gospel. I’m thankful that it’s your grasp of me and not my grasp of you that defines this way of life. Sometimes I lift my hands in awe and gratitude for the way you love me. Sometimes I shake my fists at heaven like a pouting, demanding child. Sometimes I wring my hands in anxious unbelief, like a hapless orphan. But I live and I will die secure in your palms and written upon your heart. 

Jesus, I praise you that as with Paul, you’ve given me a prize to win, not a wage to earn. I never earned my way into a relationship with you, and I don’t maintain a relationship with you by my efforts either. 

What do I want for the rest of my days? I cannot say it any better than Paul, Lord: I want to know you, Lord Jesus, more intimately than ever. This is the one thing I want more than anything else. And I want to experience more of the power of your resurrection, for I have no power in myself to love others as you love me. 

I want to enter more fully into the fellowship of sharing in your sufferings, living out the birth pangs of new-creation life in this broken world, which groans for its release from the bondage to decay— a release that is sure to come (Rom. 8:18–25). Our labors in you are not in vain, Jesus (Phil. 3:10–11). 

This is what I want. Help me to be done with lesser things and be more taken up with the things that matter most to your heart. In your most glorious name I pray. 

Amen. 

A Prayer about Depression in Its Many Forms 

Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.
(Ps. 43:5 NIV)  

Kindhearted Father, my heart goes out today and my prayers reach up on behalf of those who struggle with depression. I have friends who live all along the axis from mild melancholy to the relentless pangs of suicidal depression. Father of mercies, teach me how to love in the dark places. 

Thank you for rescuing me from simplistic views of depression. It’s not as simple a condition as I used to think. I grieve the ways I used to counsel the depressed, and it saddens me to realize how much pressure I put on them to get better and “get over it.” 

David asked the right question in a season of duress: “Why, my soul, are you downcast?” (Ps. 43:5 NIV). Indeed, Father, what are the various reasons for a downcast, disturbed soul, and what does hoping in you look like for each? 

Father, for my friends who are depressed for no other reason than living with a graceless, gospelless heart, keep them miserable until they rest in the finished work of your Son, Jesus. May they despair of their own unrighteousness and their wannabe righteousness until they are driven to the righteousness that comes from faith in Jesus. 

Father, for my friends who suffer from depression generated by anatomical anomalies, lead them to the right kind of medical care. Help us in the community of faith to be patient and understanding of the complexities involved in their care. The risk of abusing medications is always there— give us wisdom together. 

Father, for my friends who suffer from depression fueled by the demonic, I really need humility and wisdom. A part of me doesn’t even want to acknowledge that this is an issue, but how can I read your Word and dismiss the demonic so lightly? His condemning, blaming, and shaming voice is enough to generate the deepest forms of despair. Yet those things don’t exhaust his evil arsenal. How are we to care for those under the spell and sway of our defeated, fury-filled foe (Rev. 12:12)? 

I do and I will yet praise you, my Savior and my God. My hope is in you, Father— for me and for all of my brokenhearted friends. I pray in Jesus’ compassionate and victorious name.

Amen. 

A Prayer for Staying Teachable  

Now a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was an eloquent man, competent in the Scriptures. He had been instructed in the way of the Lord. And being fervent in spirit, he spoke and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, though he knew only the baptism of John. He began to speak boldly in the synagogue, but when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him and explained to him the way of God more accurately. (Acts 18:24–26)  

Patient Jesus, there are many things I love in this story. I’m so thankful that as with Apollos, so it is with us: we’re useful long before we’ve got every theological t crossed and every i dotted just right. Ultimately, it’s not how much we know but who we know that wins the day. I praise you for revealing yourself to Apollos and to me.

And, Jesus, I treasure the picture of a husband and wife offering hospitality and ministering the gospel together. The little I know of Priscilla and Aquila leads me to pray for marriages in general. Oh, that more of us would live as partners in the gospel, as cosaboteurs of the kingdom of darkness, rather than frittering our years away on less noble pursuits and passions. There are so many different story lines clamoring for our marriages— so many distractions and seductions. A marriage, just like singleness, is too precious a gift to spend on pettiness and nonintentional living. Bring more gospel sanity to our marriages, Jesus. Rescue us, resuscitate us, refresh us.

Lastly, Jesus, I’m convicted and drawn to Apollos’s teachability. Make and keep me that kind of man. I don’t want to suffer from “hardening of the categories” as I get older. Continue to explain to me “the way of God more accurately” (Acts 18:26) through whomever you choose— children, PhD’s, married couples, my wife, saints of old long since in heaven— that’s your call, Jesus. Free me from my provincialism, prejudices, and presumption. 

I’m hungry for you to expand my understanding and experience of life “in line with the truth of the gospel” (Gal. 2:14 NIV), until the day when knowing in part gives way to worshiping you in full. I pray in your all-sufficient and glorious name. 

Amen. 

A Prayer about Why God Loves Us  

The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers. . . . Know, therefore, that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to possess be- cause of your righteousness, for you are a stubborn people. (Deut. 7:6–8; 9:6)

Dear Father, I’ve been thinking about our future life in the new heaven and new earth a lot lately. The more aware I am of my brokenness and the brokenness all around me, the more I long for the amazing inheritance you’ve promised your children. 

The more I ponder images of the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21:1–22:6), the more I experience doxological overload. A life devoid of chaos and evil and a world permeated with goodness and grace has never looked so good. Forgive us when we’re still tempted to believe there’s something we can do to make you love us. Forgive us when we think there’s something we can do to fuel you to regret and make you renege on your promises. Our arrogance and unbelief have infected every cell of our being. 

We’re your treasured people because you chose to make us your treasure. We didn’t choose you. Apart from the gospel we’d still be hating you, rebelling against you and trying our best to ignore you. But you set your love upon us in eternity and revealed this great affection when you sent Jesus to be our Redeemer. And we wouldn’t love Jesus unless you’d given us a new heart by the Spirit and the faith we need to receive eternal life. 

The only reason we’ll enjoy life in the ultimate land— the new heaven and new earth— is because of the righteousness of Jesus. Apart from Jesus’ righteousness, we have none. We’re still a stubborn people, in desperate need of more and more grace. Our stubbornness is seen most clearly in our refusal to believe the gospel; in the ways we still give our hearts to other gods and saviors; and in our multiplied failures to love each other as Jesus loves us. 

Father, change us. By the same grace you justified us, sanctify us— make us like Jesus. By the same Spirit who brought new life to our hearts, extend new life through us into the world. We pray in Jesus’ beautiful name.

Amen. 

A Prayer about the Gospel and Loving God’s Law  

The law of the Lord is perfect,
reviving the soul;
the testimony of the Lord is sure,
making wise the simple;
the precepts of the Lord are right,
rejoicing the heart;
the commandment of the Lord is pure,
enlightening the eyes;
the fear of the Lord is clean,
enduring forever;
the rules of the Lord are true,
and righteous altogether.
More to be desired are they than gold,
even much fine gold;
sweeter also than honey
and drippings of the honeycomb. (Ps. 19:7–10)

Holy and gracious Father, apart from the gospel, there’s no way I would be able to join King David in singing this robust praise song about your law. For apart from the gospel, the law didn’t revive me; it condemned me. Apart from the gospel, it didn’t give joy to my heart; it brought terror to my soul. Apart from the gospel, the law wasn’t like the sunshine lighting my way; it was like a searchlight exposing my sin. 

The law didn’t lead me to fear you with an affectionate reverence but to be afraid of you with a guilty conscience. Apart from the gospel, I didn’t value the law like precious gold; I avoided it like a deadly plague. It wasn’t sweeter than honey from the comb but more bitter than zest from a lemon. 

But Father, when the law drove me to Jesus— when you gave me faith to trust Jesus as my forgiveness and my righteousness— everything began to change. I’m now learning to love your law as fatherly instruction to your beloved children, as a revelation of the good, the true, and the beautiful, not as a formula for merit, acceptance, and favor. What a life-giving, liberty fueling difference! 

May the gospel continue to free me from “cheap grace” that ignores your law and from graceless legalism that ignores your Son. I long for the day when Jesus, who has perfectly fulfilled the law for me, perfectly fulfills the law in me. I pray in his holy and loving name.

Amen. 

A Prayer about the Promise of Perfect Peace  

You keep him in perfect peace
whose mind is stayed on you,
because he trusts in you.
Trust in the Lord forever,
for the Lord God is an everlasting rock. (Isa. 26:3–4)

Most kind and trustworthy Father, you haven’t promised me a stormless, hassle- free, disappointment-empty life. You offer me no formulas for decreasing the probability of sad things happening around me or disillusioning things happening to me. But you have promised something that transcends the chaos and fear of uncertainty. 

You’ve promised to keep me in perfect peace, in the midst of whatever happens. Given the circumstances of the past week, I treasure the promise of being kept by you. I’ve been convinced afresh that I cannot keep myself. I’m out of bootstraps to pull up; there’s no magic happy pill to take, no fix it button to push. Thank you for being a Father who will never forget or abandon your children— who will never forget or abandon me. 

But you’ve promised even more: you’ve promised to keep me in perfect peace. All I have to do is mine the riches of the gospel and keep in mind the wonders of your love. For you are the Lord— the eternal Rock that is higher than me, the Rock of refuge, the Rock of ages. 

Because the gospel is true, because Jesus is the precious “living Stone” (1 Pet. 2:4–8), I will not despair when I am weak in concentration and focus. Indeed, Father, you’re not calling me to trust in my ability to trust, but to trust in you— in your trustworthiness, not in mine. For you’ve even promised your children a peace that passes, surpasses, and at times even bypasses all understanding. Hallelujah! 

What a God you are! There is none like you, Father; no, not one! How great are your mercies, how profound your kindnesses, how more than sufficient your grace! I pray in the name of Jesus, the Prince of Peace, the basis and bounty of all my peace.

Amen.