This past Sunday we looked at Paul’s gospel-saturated prayer for the believers at Philippi from Philippians 1:9-11:
“And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.”
We made copies available of our first ever pictorial directory and our regular church directory (Every Christian’s 2nd Most Important Book) and we were encouraged to pray for one another using Paul’s prayer (you can pray the exact words or use it as a guide).
Here is one of my prayers for the people of Proclamation based on this passage:
Our Gracious Heavenly Father, help us to be amazed at your abounding love for us sinners. Help us to see our great need and your great supply. Show us the glory and grandeur of your love displayed at the cross through your Son Jesus. Father, you know everything about us, all our sin, and yet you still love us. You gave your Son to die in our place for the sins we had done, even when we were your enemies. May you give us hearts to receive this love and deepen our affections for you, that we may love you with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Give us a love for your Word and a deep desire to know you. Help us to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ that we might love and obey you more each day.
Jesus, we thank you for loving us by serving our best interests even at the greatest cost to yourself. By your Spirit may you help us to love one another in this same way, that you would be glorified and people would believe that you are the one true Savior. Help us to lay aside our personal preferences, our own comforts and pleasures, our “rights”, for the sake of loving your people and displaying your glory. Help us to love you and others more than we love ourselves.
Father, we thank you that Jesus is coming again for us! We look forward to that day and long for it to come. We want to be with you and free forever from sin. Thank you that Jesus has already dealt with our sin, so that when he comes it will not be to condemn us, but to bring to final completion the salvation that you have begun in us. As that day draws near help us to be ready. Help us to live honest, sincere, transparent lives. May we not cover up our sin or trust in our own righteousness, but may we be quick to confess our sins to one another and quick to forgive. May we run to the cross and repent as your Spirit convicts us. May you work the reality of the gospel in our lives and in the way we forgive and encourage one another.
And Father, O how we thank you for the life and resurrection of Jesus Christ! For his perfect life and righteousness that is now credited to our account as we trust in him. Help us to truly understand and live in the joy and comfort of this glorious truth. We so often look to our own performance. If we are doing “well” by our standards we become filled with pride and look down on others. If we are not measuring up we become depressed and isolate ourselves. Either way, we miss the gospel. Father we are desperate for your grace every moment! Thank you that the determining factor in our relationship with you is not what we have done or do, but what Christ has already done. May we trust in him and his work alone and may our lives bear the fruit of righteousness as you work in us for your glory.
This is your church Lord, your people, whom you obtained with your own blood. May you work in us that which is pleasing in your sight. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.