Pastoral Prayers 31-35

Pastoral Prayer #31

By Ed Vasicek

Based loosely on 2 Timothy 3

Lord God, the One Who was, is, and shall be, we praise You and bless your name. We bow the knees of our hearts before You in worship and submission.

Thank You, God, that You understand all. We thank You for revealing Yourself in Your Word and in the Person of Jesus Christ. One thing You have revealed to us is that we must live in difficult times. We have to deal with people who are all about themselves, crave money, glory in their pride, and evil in a host of ways. Help us, O Lord, to be different and to love You more than we love social notoriety, control, and the pleasures of life. Help us enjoy the wholesome pleasures, but to put You above even the good things of life.

Ultimately, Lord, our souls return to You, our Maker. We know it is appointed for people to die once, and after that comes judgment. Thank You that our destiny in Christ is secure, and heaven is the home of all those who have repented of their sins and accepted Jesus Christ. But even we will have our works evaluated for purposes of accountability and reward.

Living a godly life, however, can bring us hardship and even persecution. As we approach the end of the age, many are falling away from You and adopting false teachings that run contrary to Your Word. We choose to camp on Your Word, making it our final authority. Through the Word, we have learned about salvation in the world to come and salvation from the ways of this world now. You have breathed our Your Word for us, and in it we find a complete template for spiritual maturity.

Yahweh, we pray for our nation, our president, senators, congressional leaders, judges, governors, state and local bodies. Give them wisdom, we pray. Lead this to accomplish Your will, whether to bless our land or to bring judgment for our sins. We know that both can glorify You, and that Your Sovereign will should be done. Still, we prefer Your continued grace and pardon, and ask You to lead us to repentance, beginning with Your children, O Lord.

Father, at this time we want to bring up requests for our church family, including:

We now take a moment to silently bring up our personal requests before You.

We look forward, O Lord, to the return of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and His coming Kingdom. We look forward to justice on earth, peace, and the exaltation of Your Name. We await the blessed hope, when our Savior returns to the clouds to whisk His bride away. The dead will be raised, and any of us who are alive at the time will be transformed as we meet the Lord in the air. In the mean time, help us to serve You faithful in the midst of the Kingdom of Darkness. Bind the evil one, help us resists the temptations of the flesh and the lure of the world. We pray in Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Pastoral Prayer #32

By Ed Vasicek

(Loosely based on Hebrews 1-2)

Dear God,

We are so grateful to be Your people. Thank You that both Jew and gentile who repent and believe in Jesus Christ are brought into one spiritual family called the church.

Thank You for communicating with us. We know that you have spoken through Your prophets and apostles and have relayed Your Word to us in a variety of ways. We especially appreciate You speaking to us, Father, through Your Son, Who is the Word. He was with You from all eternity and an equal Member of the Godhead. When He became incarnate in the Person of Jesus Christ.

We thank You that the Son is the exact radiance of Your glory. He holds the entire universe together by His word. After He became incarnate, He died to atone for our sins and make us pure in Your sight. He rose, ascended, and is now seated at Your right hand.

He is above all angels and above all thrones. He reigns in righteousness and despises wickedness. We thank You that, through repentance toward You and faith in Your Son, we have become His companions. In another sense, He has also become our brother.

Through His propitiation, Jesus has defeated Satan and the power of sin and death has been broken. Through His incarnation and exaltation, He has experienced temptation and is able to help us when we are tempted.

Lord, this good news is truly good. We do not want to allow ourselves to become cold to these important spiritual realities. We do not want to drift away from You as the center of our lives. We do not want to neglect the great salvation You will demand an account from us as to how we neglected or nurtured our salvation.

Father, we pray for our nation’s churches. We pray that those churches that have drifted away from the truth of Scripture would recalibrate their beliefs and practices based upon Scripture. We pray that all Your children would accept that Your Word is the final word, and not put the traditions of men or the rulings of leaders above the clear teaching of Your Word. Help us to seek to understand the original intent of Scripture; keeps us from twisting it and molding it to fit pre-existing agendas.

Lord we pray for our nation especially those suffering from COVID; our president, senators, representatives, judges, state and local officials. We do not know what You have in store for our nation, so we ask You to lead them in a way that glorifies You.

Almighty King, we bring a few requests before You for our church family:

Father, we now bring before You our personal requests:

We bless Your Name. You are the God Who provides.

In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Pastoral Prayer #33

By Ed Vasicek

(Loosely based upon Jude 1)

Lord Yahweh, King of the Universe and Creator of all, we are awestruck at Who You are. What a joy it is to learn about You and experience Your grace in our daily lives. We are checking in today as Your servants. Yet we are not just servants: we are called Your own beloved. We are the bride of Christ. Still, we are servants, and we want to receive and implement the Your orders for our lives; we want to faithfully do Your will. You give us the grace and strength to carry out those orders, so we do not have to obey in our own strength. Thank You for calling us to Yourself and being involved with even the details of our lives.

Thank You that all of us who have truly accepted Jesus Christ as Savior share a common faith. Sadly, some people who name the Name of Christ are not genuine, and they seek to promote false teachings rather than the ancient faith of the first century, which has been delivered once for all and is documented in Your Word. This has not taken You by surprise: You warn us repeatedly of this in Your Word. As a matter of fact, Your Word contains many examples of false teachers troubling, deceiving, and misleading Your people. No wonder You repeat this warning so often.

As we draw nearer to the end times, we know that all sorts of spiritual and moral challenges await us. It is more difficult to live the Christian life and embrace Christian values in country than it was even a few years ago. Thank You for giving us Your Word and Your Spirit, that we might remain steadfast and faithful. With Your help, we will prevail.

Help us to be filled with Your Spirit; keep us eagerly searching and studying Your Word. Help us reject the notion that deep Bible study is for pastors or scholars, but, rather, is the domain of every child of God. We eagerly await the Blessed Hope, the return of the Lord Jesus to the clouds.

Today, Lord, we want to bring several church-related needs before Your throne:

We also have some personal requests we want to bring before You silently:

Father, we thank You for the joys of life; we thank You for how life’s challenges deepen us, although the process is often painful. We know You are in the process of conforming us into the image of Your dear Son. May others see Christ in us, and may we be a bit more Christ-like because we have participated in the service today. We ask in Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Pastoral Prayer #34

By Ed Vasicek

Our Great God, the Maker of all things, You have blessed us with Your Son Who became incarnate in the Person of Jesus Christ. He was completely faithful.

Lord, we do not want to be like the children of Israel in the wilderness. We do not want to harden our hearts toward You. We want to trust You and believe Your promises, not shrink back from You in unbelief. The genuineness of our conversion is demonstrated by our perseverance to the end.

We have entered into Your rest by abandoning any hope of gaining Your acceptance through our merits. Instead, we cast our lot with Jesus Christ and the effectiveness of His atoning work on the cross. We have heard Your call to faith in Christ and responded by turning from our sin and resting in the Lord Jesus Christ, our righteousness.

We also thank You for Your Word, which is sharper than any two-edged sword. It has a way of piercing through the nonsense and exposing our motives. Sometimes we may find ourselves egotistical or arrogant as the Scriptures cut to the quick. For You, O God, see all and know all.

Lord, not only did You create all, but Your Son died for all. Not only did He die for all, but He has given us Your Word. Not only have You given us Your Word, but You promise an unending life, an unending love, and unending concern for even the details of our lives.

Your Son serves as High Priest. Because He took upon Himself a human nature, He understands from Personal experience what it means to be tempted, though He never once surrendered to that temptation. But, because He understands the lure of temptation and the struggles of temptation, He can especially sympathize with us. We praise You, O Lord our God.

Because You do care and because You invite us to cast our cares upon You, we bring some of our requests for our church family before Your throne:

We also take time to silently bring a few personal requests before Your throne:

Now, O Lord, we ask You to minister to our spirits during the rest of our service, and we pray that our attempts to honor, worship, and serve You are pleasing in Your sight.

We pray in Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Pastoral Prayer #35

By Ed Vasicek

(loosely based on Deuteronomy 30)

O God, we are Your children; You have adopted us into Your family. Sometimes, Lord, we are spoiled children and do not appreciate the countless blessings You bring into our lives every day. Sometimes we resist You, and You have to discipline us for our own good. We thank You, O God, that no matter where we are in life and no matter how we have failed You, when we are broken and repentant before You, You respond by welcoming us back into fellowship with You.

Lord, help our hearts be soft and tender toward You. Make us spiritually prosperous and successful in the things You value, which, in the world’s eyes, may seem meaningless. Help us to obey and serve You without reservation.

We thank You, Lord, for Your revealed Word. It is at our fingertips. In some nations, the Scripture are hard or even impossible to come by. Some people groups have yet to even have a copy of Your Word in their own language. But Lord, we have the Word of God. At the same time, we confess we sometimes take it for granted, as though we are entitled to have it. It is a privilege to have a copy of Your Word. Help us to genuinely appreciate that privilege by reading it, studying it, and, with Your Spirit’s help, obeying it. Help us hide Your Word in our hearts.

We face many choices in life. Help us make them with You, seeking Your counsel. Remind us that we are not autonomous, we do not belong to ourselves, but to You. It is so difficult for us to live as Your servants, for everything about us tells us to put ourselves first. The world, the flesh, and the devil do their best to lure us away from You. And when we listen to their words and submit to their direction, it damages our souls and our walks with You. Help us arrange our lives so that we avoid situations that tempt us the most and help us develop habits that encourage godliness.

Father, we pray for our nation, our president, senators, representatives, judges, governors, state legislators, and local officials. We pray that You would work in them to accomplish Your will, whether for judgment or blessing. Help us to develop a submissive attitude toward authority except in those rare instances when Your Word demands otherwise.

Father, we have many personal needs within our own spheres. We commit a few of them to You now silently:

Now, Lord, as we prepared to hear the Word, may Your Spirit melt away the barriers we have constructed so that Your Word might do its job as a double-edged sword, exposing what we need to see and encouraging us in the way of godliness. We pray in Jesus’ Name, Amen.