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Pastoral Prayer # 16

By Ed Vasicek

 

O Lord, our Lord, how Majestic is the Name of Yahweh. We bow before You as the great “I Am,” the One Who has caused everything to exist that exists. We thank You that You look down upon us from the Your throne in heaven, while at the same time You surround and indwell us, as believers in Jesus Christ, by means of Your Holy Spirit.

 

Father, sometimes we wonder how long life’s trials are going to continue. We pray, like the Apostle John at the end of Revelation, “Even so, come Lord Jesus!” Like righteous Lot living in the midst of Sodom, we, too, find our righteous souls vexed. So many around us have forsaken decency and the Law of the Lord. So many deny Your Name, or claim to follow You but only do so with their lips. So many feel no hesitation about contradicting the clear teachings of Your Word. Sometimes sorrows and heartbreaks overwhelm us. Sometimes we are overwhelmed when those we love experience heartbreaks and sorrows.

 

Certainly the Evil One rejoices when we consider withdrawing into ourselves and no longer taking an active part in the Kingdom of God. Yet, Lord, Your Spirit cries out in our hearts, “Abba! Father!” We find ourselves reporting for duty because we know and believe that Your steadfast love endures forever and that You are a God who will keep His promises. We can draw near to You, and You will draw near to us. We can resist the devil, and he will flee.

 

Therefore we sing our praises to You and we remember how bountifully you have dealt with us – and will deal with us. But it is all in Your time and in Your way, not ours. We are grateful for that, for many things that appear to us as blessings prove to be curses, and many things that appear to us as negative result in great blessings. We are confused, but You are not. Your way is the best way.

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And we remember that You have reserved many who have not bowed the knee to modern idols. We are not alone in our quest to serve You, and it is crucial that we band together with others Who seek to please and serve You. We are far from alone.

 

Thank You for the many blessings You have given us. We admit we are oblivious to most of them. Were we to ponder them all and thank You for each one, we probably would not have enough time to live life. We thank You for our spiritual blessings – especially salvation, Your Word, and Your indwelling Holy Spirit. We thank You for whatever health we have, whatever finances we have, whatever relationships we have. We thank You for the church, the Kingdom of God on earth, in which we participate.

 

We pray for our president, governors, senators, congressional representatives, and all State and local officials. Guide them in the path of righteousness and wisdom. We pray that their actions would not interfere with our ability to freely worship, obey, and propagate our faith.

 

Father, You bid us to bring our worries, concerns, fears, request, and aspirations before You. We take a moment now to bring some of these to Your throne silently.

 

We thank You for the time we have spent in our service, honoring You and seeking to be built up in the true faith of the Bible. Bless the remainder of our time this morning. And, after our service is done, help each of us to make the effort to encourage another believer before we leave.

 

We commit ourselves to You afresh this morning, the Great God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, in Whose Name we pray, Amen.

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Pastoral Prayer # 17

By Ed Vasicek

 

O Lord our God, You sit enthroned in heaven forever. Hosts of angels serve You, jumping without hesitation at Your every Word. We pray, O Lord, that we Your children would do Your will just as quickly here on earth. We often hesitate and need to ponder whether we will obey You or not. We pray that we would hesitate less and obey without reservation.

 

Father, we thank You that you are a stronghold for us. Some of us have been abused, treated poorly, or may feel like an insignificant cog in a giant machine, and we are not even sure what the machine is doing. But, Lord, we are of great value to You. You are intimately acquainted with all our ways. We were created in Your image and redeemed by the precious blood of Your incarnate Son. We may not understand the purposes You have for us at our current stage of life – or ever. But Your Word tells us we are here to glorify You, even in our eating and drinking. Although there are many other purposes for our lives, glorifying You, loving You, and loving our neighbor is what You define as our focus.

 

Lord, Your enemies are constantly out to undermine You. Rather than glorify Your Name, they seek to disgrace it or treat You as irrelevant to real, everyday life. Some think You are nothing but a fiction, a figment of our imagination. Others accuse You of being unloving, uncaring, or uninvolved.

 

You have clearly made Yourself known to all in the complexities and marvels of creation. You have revealed Yourself in a special way through Your Word and demonstrated Your love by sending Your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, into the world to show us what You are like and to atone for our sins. Sadly, none are so blind as those who will not see. Thank You, O Lord, that we see!

 

Father, we have many particular requests to bring before You. We do so now silently:

 

We thank You, Lord, that You are a God Who is near, not far away. You see the needs of Your people, including the believers who make up our congregation. You have not forgotten us, You have not hid Your face from us.

 

Give us, O Lord, a desire to seek Your face. Give us a hunger for Your Word, a zeal to share Your gospel, and a burden for prayer. Help us allow Your Spirit to fill us. Help us shun sin and walk hand in hand with You. Remind us that our primary citizenship is in heaven, and help us to set our minds on things above. Guard our eyes and our thoughts.

 

You are King forever, and we consider serving You the greatest privilege ever. Turn our hearts toward You and keep them there, we pray, in Jesus’ Name, Amen.

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Pastoral Prayer # 18

By Ed Vasicek

 

O Lord, You are good, and we have no good apart from You. We delight to fellowship with other godly believers, and You, our God, take delight in our fellowship, for You are its foundation.

 

Many people, some near and dear to us, focus their lives upon worthless things. Others focus upon good things, but not You. You are the best, and deserve top priority in our lives.

 

Father, You have promised in Your Word that we have a beautiful inheritance coming our way. We long to appear before You and to rejoice in Who You are as we acclimate ourselves to the New Jerusalem above. We look forward to the time when we will be in Your presence, when we will be fully conformed to the image of Christ. We look forward to unbounded joy.

 

While we await our wonderful destiny in Christ, we thank You that all Your blessings are not future. When we walk with You, O Lord, we experience a taste of the joys of eternal life even now. Indeed, You guide us and counsel us through Your Word and through Your Spirit. Help us to keep You first and foremost in our lives, that we would be firm in our faith and develop unshakable confidence in You.

 

Help us avoid the sins and pitfalls that allure us. Keep us from violence, from deceit, from slander, from corruption, and from evil in general. Help us to shun arrogance, haughtiness, and pride. Help us not excuse our arrogance as some genetic flaw we cannot help. Both pride and humility are choices. You exalt the humble and bring down the proud. Instead, help us to live saintly lives, to walk humbly and blamelessly with You, to do what is right, to speak truthfully to ourselves, as well as what we say with our lips. Help us honor You.

 

We have many burdens and request to bring before your throne today, including:

 

 

Lord, as we continue in this service, help us focus on You. We thank You for sending Your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, into this world to atone for our sin and arise the victor. Thank You for sharing that victory with us, and we pray for our lost family and friends who have yet received Jesus Christ by faith. May Your Spirit work in their lives and grant them the repentance that leads to life.

 

Bless the remainer of our time together, and speak to us from Your Word, we pray.

In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

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Pastoral Prayer # 19

By Ed Vasicek

 

O Lord our God, we take refuge in You; the Biblical figure of speech tells us that Your children find shelter under the security of Your wings. You are the Rock of Ages.  We thank You that Your Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ, was cleft for us – His body was broken, and blood shed that we might be cleanses from our sins.

 

So we find You as a shelter for life’s storms, on the one hand, and the remedy for sin, death, and hell on the other hand.

 

You search us, O Lord, seeing and knowing everything about us.  You know that thoughts buried deep in our minds and the motives of our hearts.  You hear the words we whisper, the complaints we murmur, as well as the praises we sing. We certainly are a mixture of virtue and sin, selfless love and self-centeredness, good intentions with various levels of follow-through.

 

We pray, O Lord, that You would keep us walking in the path of your commandments. As we skid to the side, do what You must to nudge us back toward Your will for our lives.

 

Your steadfast, faithful love is what keeps us securely in Your hand. We pray that You would open our eyes to see that love in the daily routines of life as well as in those exceptional situations we occasionally experience.

 

The evil one, Satan, and his minions roam to and fro, seeking to devour us a lion would his prey. We thank You that Jesus Christ has defeated this foe, and one day he will be crushed under our feet.  But for now, O Lord, we pray that You would deliver us from the evil one.

 

We have many requests to bring to You, O Lord, and right now we take a few moments to bring several of them before Your throne silently:

 

We ask Your special blessing on our nation, our leaders, our community.  We pray that we, Your children, would have limitless freedom to share and practice that which Your Word demands.  We pray Your wisdom for all our leaders, and Your correction for those who are off track.

 

O Lord, we look forward to the time when we shall see Your face and appear before You. We long for a quality of life we simply cannot experience here on earth, no matter what our lot.  We long for You, O Lord. In the meantime, we pray, O Lord, that you would find us faithful servants, Your children who are serious about building a relationship with You.

 

So, bless our time this morning. Help us to connect our thoughts to Your ways, help us connect to one another, and build us up in the faith of the Gospel, we pray, in Jesus’ Name, Amen.

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Pastoral Prayer # 20

By Ed Vasicek

 

O Lord, how majestic is Your Name. You are the Great I Am, the One Who Is, the One Who Causes All to Be. We cannot even pretend to understand Your might and power. When we hear about the vastness of outer space, the countless number of stars, or the power in just one atom, we are overwhelmed. And to think You created all that by merely speaking the Word -=- how awesome You must be!

 

As You well know, O Lord, this world is filled with problems. Many of our lives are troubled by problems, challenges, and difficult situations as well. We thank You for providing us with the ultimate solution, our Lord Jesus Christ. Through His atoning death on the cross, victorious resurrection, and ascension into heaven, He has proven Himself to be Lord, Savior, and the Lover of our souls. Through Him we have redemption when we believe in His Name.

 

For some of us, it won’t be long until we appear before You in heaven’s glory. For many of us, however, heaven is a way off. In either case, we care about those coming after us, and it distresses us to see moral and spiritual decline all around us. We pray, O God, that You would grant Your children the nimbleness to adjust to the many challenges that arise. Your people have often spent their lives in environments hostile toward the Gospel, although we have previously escaped much of that hostility in our land. But that is changing. So help us to do what Christians have long done best: to thrive as a minority and to stay true to the teachings of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

 

We pray, O God, that You would bind Satan and his hoards. Keep the powers of darkness from harming our church; keep the evil one from drawing individuals away from Jesus Christ and the Word of God. Bind the evil one: we claim the blood and victory of our lord Jesus Christ over him.

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Help us, O Lord to be filled with the Holy Spirit as we saturate our minds with the Word of God. May the Spirit manifest His fruit in our lives. Help us mature in faith, in hope, and in love, and may the ministry of our church take us in that direction.

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We pray for the many missionaries who are true to the Gospel; bless them, use them, provide for them. Grant them great fruit for Your Kingdom. We also remember the millions of believers who live in fear because of government sanctioned persecution, or who are persecuted by mobs or local authorities. Grant them wisdom, help them, and may their persecutors be won to the faith they are trying to destroy.

 

Dear Lord, we need You in our lives. We thank You that You care about us. You don’t care about us just because of what we do for You, but Your love is beyond estimation, a love proven at the cross. Because You care, we commit our burdens to You silently:

 

Lord, thank You for calling me out of the world and into fellowship with others who have been called out of the world as Your special people, the church. Bless the rest of our time here this morning, we pray, in Jesus’ Name, Amen.

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