Category: November

A Prayer about Loving the Wrong Thing  

I have written something to the church, but Diotrephes, who likes to put himself first, does not acknowledge our authority. So if I come, I will bring up what he is doing, talking wicked nonsense against us. And not content with that, he refuses to welcome the brothers, and also stops those who want to and puts them out of the church. (3 John 9–10)  

Dear Jesus, being chronicled, by name, in the Scriptures as someone who loved being first isn’t a very attractive proposition. I have no clue what was going on in Diotrephes’s life and heart that made him so distrusting of the apostle John and so insecure and divisive, but his story certainly invites me to look at mine. Jesus, please convict me and free me from the ways I too love to be first. 

In my marriage— when my zeal to be right and win the argument is more notorious than my commitment to listen and understand my spouse; when I pout more than I pursue my spouse. 

In my friendships— when my need to be remembered and appreciated is more pronounced than my commitment to stay in touch with and serve my friends. 

In my vocation— when the people who work with me feel like I’m far more taken up with my reputation and success than I’m committed to love and serve as a member of a team. 

In the general population— when I navigate through life with little eye contact and don’t work hard to remember names. 

In the grocery store— when I push my shopping cart around like I’m driving in the Daytona 500, racing up and down the aisles, grabbing items, and speeding up to get to the shortest checkout line first. 

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner. You didn’t consider your equality with God something to be held on to selfishly. You didn’t love to be first. Rather, you emptied yourself by taking the very nature of a man— a servant man, a man who served me by fulfilling all the demands of the law for me and by exhausting God’s judgment against all my sin on the cross. Now you ever live to serve me as my advocate, intercessor, and bridegroom. 

I am convicted and humbled afresh by your lavish and selfless love. Restore my first love for you, that my love for being first will decrease and die a thousand deaths. I pray in your matchless name.

Amen. 

A Prayer about Eating Soul Food  

Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters;
and you who have no money, come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.
Why spend money on what is not bread,
and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
and you will delight in the richest of fare.
Give ear and come to me; listen, that you may live. (Isa. 55:1–3 NIV)

Most gracious Father, I praise you today for the simple pleasure of eating. Right now I’m thinking about pan-seared pompano, a well chosen white wine, a fresh mango salad, sweet potato fries, grilled asparagus, and some fresh pistachio gelato to finish off the banquet. Thank you, Father, for the utter joy of eating. But alas, like all of your good gifts, even our eating is broken, and we are such poor stewards of our thirst and hunger. 

Too much of the time, Father, I’m a hungry man demanding instant gratification. I’ll grab whatever drink I think will slake my thirst, and I’ll eat whatever bread will make me full in the moment. Like Esau, I let a bowl of steaming oatmeal in my hand hold more power than the promise of a sumptuous feast. 

Yet, Father, you’re always beckoning me to the only feast that will satisfy the insatiable hunger and thirst of my soul. You’ve spread before me the gospel feast of your Son, Jesus, and the whole bountiful banquet has already been paid for in full. You designed me for delights you alone can satisfy through your grace. 

Indeed, Lord Jesus, you are the Bread of Life and the giver of living water. You’re the richest fare the Father has promised. You so generously nourish us through the means of grace: the Scriptures, prayer, fellowship, private and corporate worship, service, the Eucharist. Yet all of these are just a foretaste of the meal from which all banqueting derives its meaning: the wedding feast of the Lamb (Rev. 19). Hasten that blessed day and eternal feast. In your gracious name we pray.

Amen. 

A Prayer about Seduce ability  

With much seductive speech she persuades him;
with her smooth talk she compels him.
All at once he follows her,
as an ox goes to the slaughter,
or as a stag is caught fast till an arrow pierces its liver;
as a bird rushes into a snare;
he does not know that it will cost him his life.
And now, O sons, listen to me,
and be attentive to the words of my mouth.
Let not your heart turn aside to her ways;
do not stray into her paths,
for many a victim has she laid low,
and all her slain are a mighty throng.
Her house is the way to Sheol,
going down to the chambers of death. (Prov. 7:21–27)

Dear Lord Jesus, we’ve been created and re-created to connect with you deeply— to enjoy an intimacy, union, and communion of which our best relationships are only a hint, a whisper, a symbol. But alas, like all good things, our longings get hijacked and sabotaged by sin and death. 

Samson and King David do not stand alone. There are many lonely husbands, many lonely wives, many lonely single people who are primed for a fling, targets for an affair— aching, yearning, reaching for a few minutes of pleasure to medicate months, years, even a lifetime of disconnect and emptiness. It may never become physically sexual, but sometimes just the emotional connection can bring an exhilaration bordering on intoxication, and it is an intoxication that can lead to addiction, then destruction. 

Jesus, even when we’re connecting well, even when our marriages are at a good place, or even when we’re quite content and fulfilled in our singleness, our seduce ability is ever present. Help us, Lord Jesus. How we long for our life in the new heaven and new earth— when we will never be capable of ever sinning again, or even of being tempted. 

The way of the gospel is neither paranoia nor presumption but rather wisdom, care, and freedom. So, Lord Jesus, give us— give me— more gospel sanity. We turn our hearts toward you. You are constantly wooing us in the gospel, saying, “Come away, my beloved.” Who do we have in heaven but you, Lord Jesus, and being with you, who or what could we possibly desire more on this earth? Only your love is better than life. We believe; help our unbelief. We humbly pray in your loving name. 

Amen. 

A Prayer about Church as a Gospel Garden  

If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.
The Lord will guide you always;
he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail.
Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
and will raise up the age-old foundations;
you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
Restorer of Streets with Dwellings. (Isa. 58:9–12 NIV)

Heavenly Father, you seem to have a recurring penchant for gardens. Our first home was the garden paradise of Eden, and our future home, the new heaven and new earth, sounds like it’s going to be the Garden of Eden on steroids (Rev. 21:1– 22:6). 

It shouldn’t surprise us, then, that you’d choose the image of a garden to describe our shared life as your redeemed people. The more we’re alive to the life- giving resources of the gospel, the more we’ll become like well-watered gardens— gospel gardens. You plant us in broken cities to bring your beauty and share your bounty, for a garden exists not for its own benefit but for the benefit of others. 

Lord, forgive us when we turn our churches into private orchards or gated estates. You’ve called us to love and to serve the least and the lost, to care for the poor, the oppressed, and the hungry in our communities. To love them well is to love you well. 

Jesus, you are the true seed that was sown that death itself would die. You are the first fruits of a whole new people and a whole new creation order— raised from the dead to bring forth the living waters that alone will never fail, that alone truly satisfy, and which alone will eradicate all evil and injustice one day. 

Jesus, you are the ultimate re-builder of ancient ruins, the “Repairer of Broken Walls,” and the “Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.” Continue your gospel gardening work in us and through us, until the day you return to finish making all things new and all things a garden once again. I pray in your bountiful and beautiful name.

Amen. 

A Prayer about Beloved Thornbushes  

I will block her path with thornbushes;
I will wall her in so that she cannot find her way.
She will chase after her lovers but not catch them;
she will look for them but not find them.
Then she will say,
“I will go back to my husband as at first,
for then I was better off than now.” (Hosea 2:6–7 NIV)

Dear Jesus, I’ve praised you for the fall foliage of western North Carolina; the panoramic wonder of Cape Town, South Africa; everything about Switzerland; the Eden-like echoes in But chart Gardens on Victoria Island; and the azure blue waters kissing the sugar white beaches of Destin, Florida. But today, I praise you for the gift of thorn bushes. 

Jesus, you love us so much that when we love you less, you come after us with tenacity and uncomfortable providence. You are unrelenting in your commitment to rescue our hearts from illusions, mirages, broken cisterns, idols, and wannabe lovers. I wish you didn’t have to be, but I am grateful you are so doggedly committed to us. 

O blessed and beloved thorn bushes, ever block my path when I begin chasing after lesser gods and other lovers. Hedge me in like a formidable fortress. When I set my GPS for an affair of any kind, cause me to lose my bearings and my way. Frustrate my every attempt to look for more, or settle for less, than Jesus. 

Jesus, that you are jealous for us and the affection of our hearts is the greatest compliment you could ever pay us. Who are we that the Lord of glory would make us his bride? Who am I that you would rejoice over me with the festive joy, the impassioned delight, and the desire filled gaze of a bridegroom? 

How I long for the day when I will never again have to say, “I will go back to my husband as at first.” Until that day, Lord Jesus, that consummate wedding day, keep me sane, centered, and settled through the gospel. I pray in your holy and loving name.

Amen. 

A Prayer about Being Oblivious 

Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came up to him [Jesus] with her sons, and kneeling before him she asked him for something. And he said to her, “What do you want?” She said to him, “Say that these two sons of mine are to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your kingdom.” Jesus answered, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am to drink?” They said to him, “We are able.” (Matt. 20:20–22)  

Lord Jesus, every time I read this story about two of your apostles and their mother asking for a position of privilege and power in your kingdom, I find my incredulity meter going berserk. How in the world could James and John possibly think this request would ever be appropriate, especially given the three years of mentoring and modeling to which you exposed them? Everything you taught and how you lived life absolutely contradicted their request. How dare they, how could they be so oblivious to the obvious? 

But just as I climb onto my hobbyhorse of disgust and judgmentalism, the gospel dismounts me. I have to ask these questions of myself: How am I just like James and John? How do my words, attitudes, and choices contradict the very gospel that I love and defend? Whose incredulity meter am I forcing into overdrive? 

Is it those who live with me or those who work with me? Those who taste my impatience when I’m behind a steering wheel? Those who overhear my idle chatter and self indulgent banter in any of a number of settings? Those most exposed to my unbelief, my fears, my rudeness, my drivenness, my insincerity, my irritability? 

Jesus, I praise you for your patience and forbearance with me. Sit on your right or left? I’m just grateful to be in your kingdom, covered in your righteousness, secure in your heart. I could never drink the cup you alone drank for us on the cross.

The cup I now drink and the bread I now eat remind me of your death, unite me to your life, and call me to your likeness. Jesus, I don’t want to be incredulous over anyone’s sin but my own. Through the gospel, please make me less and less oblivious to my patently obvious need for your transforming grace. I pray in your patient and forbearing name.

Amen. 

A Prayer about Hope Setting  

Therefore, prepare your minds for action, and being sober-minded; set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. (1 Pet. 1:13)  

Heavenly Father, you won’t let us get away from thinking about your grace for even one minute, will you? And let me hasten to say thank you, thank you, thank you. 

I praise you for the day you finally convinced the legalist and leper in me that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone. I praise you for the ongoing schooling in the sufficiency of your grace for all the broken things in my life: broken relationships, broken health, broken promises, broken church . . . broken me. 

And now I praise you for commanding me to set my hope on yet to be received grace— the unleashed fullness, the unfettered wonder, the undiminished glory of your contra-conditional love for us in Jesus. There is no God like you. There is no God so immeasurably generous with such ill-deserving people like me.

Help me to remember that this hope-setting command is just as much a command to be obeyed as “Do not lie, do not steal, and do not covet.” You are serious about where we set our hope. 

Father, you are so wise, for you know if we don’t intentionally and fully set our hope on your present and future grace, we’ll set it somewhere else: on saviors that cannot save, on people who are not God, on gospels that are not gospels, and on idols that will ultimately fail us. 

Lord Jesus, I’ve never so looked forward to the day when you will be fully revealed— when the first fruits of grace will give way to the full harvest of grace, your gathered bride and renewed world. Until that day, keep us engaged in your story of redemption and restoration. Where do we work for justice? Where do we show your mercy? How shall we walk humbly with our God? We ask and pray in your trustworthy name.

Amen. 

A Prayer about the Triumph of Mercy  

So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment. (James 2:12–13)  

Jesus, my heart is stunned today with a fresh awareness of your mercy. You are, indeed, a most wonderful, merciful Savior. Because of what you’ve done for us, I’m no longer afraid to die; I don’t have fears about the life to come. And I’m not afraid to live, for I’m not at all uncertain about what God thinks about me, for by your life and death, you did everything necessary not just to reconcile me to God but also to place me in his eternal favor and delight. Mercy trumped judgment, on my behalf!

Now, all day long, every minute of every day, Jesus, you constantly show me mercy. You do not give me what I deserve, but instead you give me more grace. In the gospel you are incessantly speaking words of encouragement, hope, and kindness to me. Even when you have to correct me, which is quite often, you give me life giving rebukes, not shame-inducing stares or guilt-inflicting words. Mercy continually trumps judgment on my behalf. 

Jesus, you’ve completely reoriented my relationship to the Scriptures as well. The law that used to condemn me now consoles me; that which used to be a source of fear in me has become a source of freedom for me. Because the gospel is true, I can now honestly say, “the law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul”— my soul. 

Jesus, in view of so much mercy, your mercy for me, I have no excuses. I cannot justify allowing my judgmental attitude to trump your mercy in any of the difficult relationships and situations I now find myself. Help me to speak and act today as someone for whom the triumph of mercy over judgment is complete. Help me to speak and act as someone the Son of God has set free, free indeed. 

I need wisdom, gospel wisdom, to live and love this radical way. I fear being exploited, but my greater fear is being cold hearted. Have mercy on me, Jesus; continue to have mercy on me. I pray in your loving and strong name.

Amen. 

A Prayer about the Stewardship of Hatred  

We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. (1 John 3:14–15)  

Merciful Father, there are a lot of things I rather casually express hatred for. I hate stringy canned asparagus. I hate bumper to bumper traffic going in my direction. I hate high humidity days when I want to jog. I hate pulling out a nearly empty milk carton from the refrigerator when I’m primed for a big bowl of cereal. I hate loud talking in a quiet restaurant when I’m already peopled out. I hate having to engage in deep conversation after 9:00 p.m. 

But this portion of your Word puts all of my hating into perspective. I’m sobered by the warning concerning the hatred of people— especially hating my brothers and sisters in Christ. Holy Spirit, I ask you to examine my heart and quicken my memory. Who are the people toward whom I have feelings of hatred? Though I may have never spoken the violent words “I hate you!” to their face, nevertheless I’ve committed murder in my heart. I’ve relished their reversals, dreamed of their demise, and longed for their languishing. 

Big disappointments and painful betrayals are common in life, even by the hands of those with whom we share life in Christ. Some of us have been egregiously violated and seriously abused, too often by those we were trained to trust. But when our real hurt grows to retaliatory anger and our anger morphs into spiteful hatred, arrest our hearts, Lord. Let me see the ways I become the very thing I hate. Bring us back to gospel sanity, sooner rather than later. 

Vengeance belongs to you, not us, Father. Even as you are a God of mercy, you are also a God of justice. We can trust you for both. You do all things well, in your timing, for your glory and for our good. 

Receive our praise, O God, for bringing us from death to life in Jesus. Receive our praise, Lord Jesus, for becoming the hater and the hated on the cross for us, for me. May the gospel compel me to hate evil and to hate my sin more than I hate anything or anyone else in the world. Receive our praise, Holy Spirit, for constantly gossiping the gospel to our hearts. I pray in the holy and compassionate name of our Triune God.

Amen. 

A Prayer about Grace for Grumpiness  

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. (2 Cor. 12:9)  

Heavenly Father, I’m waking up humbled and repentant. I need some of your manifold sufficient grace today— just like every day. Not only do I need your grace for owning and boasting in my weaknesses, but I need your grace so that I will stop despising weaknesses in others. I’ve had the attitude of a grumpy toddler, indulged my impatience, and been a serial killer in my heart. I need the gospel today. 

Though I’d love to justify myself, there is no such justification. I’m a selfish man who would love for everything and everyone to make my life tolerable, predictable, and manageable. I assume the right to green lights at every intersection. I assume there will be an open cash register when I’m ready to check out. I assume the fish will be biting. 

What is worse, there are times when I don’t want people to fear the stuff they should fear, struggle with the same things I struggle with, or simply be the normal sinners that we all are. God, have mercy on me, the sinner . . . 

Abba, Father, I’m so thankful that your love for me is steadfast and that I can count on new mercies every morning, including this morning, and all day long. I not only grieve my attitude, I do repent and abandon myself to the resources of the gospel. 

Lord Jesus, I want and I need your power to rest on me and to settle my restless heart. I’ll not pray about next week or even tomorrow. Just give me the manna of gospel kindness for this one day. Help me to respond gently and not react rigidly to the weaknesses of others. Help me to roll up my sleeves and not roll my eyes when I meet brokenness in others. Help me to love as you love me, for that is the bottom line and the top priority. I pray in your powerful name.

Amen.