Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Lord show me your will

Lord Father, good, great, and full of grace.  Full wise to know what to do and fully able to do it.  You are perfect in holy and good character and totally effective in your competence.  You are worthy of trust and awe.  Allow me to see YOU as you are and the compassion of your heart in the LORD Jesus.  Let me see Jesus today.  Open the eyes of my heart by the HOLY SPIRIT.  Open my hears that I might hear.  Take me out of darkness and into your bright and perfect light.  

Lord what would you want me to to do in the last three months of 2015?  What are your priorities for my life and ministry?  What do you want me to do, say, and feel?  What is most important to you in my life right now?  Show me and give me the wisdom I need to see your will for my life.  

Lord what would you want me to do in 2016?  In this New Year coming what things that I am now doing would you want me to stop?  What new things would you like me to add?  How would you like me to nurture my soul that I currently don’t do?  Show me more effective ways to make disciples for you.  Lord show me the path that will lead to a sane, stable, and spiritual lifestyle  that perfectly fits this stage of my life and ministry.  


Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy.  Amen 

Monday, September 28, 2015

Father, reform, renew, and revive us! Amen

Lord Father, you are good, great, and full of grace.  All knowing and all powerful.  Full of wisdom and love.  You are LOVE.  You are LIGHT.  Father of all compassion, courage, and caring help us to see you in your greatness and commitment to have grace on us in a wild expression of passionate redemptive concern for our salvation by coming in Messiah Jesus.  LORD FATHER, have mercy on us.  

Send reformation of doctrine to all who are water baptized and believe in your revelation found in the Bible about Messiah/Christ Jesus.  Let us have sound healthy true biblical doctrine and teaching.  Allow us to teach and preach the gospel of Paul the Apostle and the other Apostles.  Allow the visible church pastors, theologians, and authorities, including Jorge Mario Bergoglio who is known as Pope Francis be called by your Holy Spirit to reform their beliefs and teachings to be in conformity to your WORD.  Save us all from unhealthy and false ideas and teach us through your WORD healthy and true doctrine.  Lord reform us!

Lord Father, help us return to having you as our first love above all other loves in our life.  Help us gain such a vision of your wonder and awe that we would be attracted as moths to a flame.  Draw us to your truth and beauty.  Win our hearts as well as our minds.  Grant us a better vision of you that we might love you much more passionately than we do.  Awaken us from spiritual slumber and help us see your glory.   Make those who worship you in Spirit, Truth, passion, and integrity.  Lord revive and renew us!


Father, all wise and all caring, help us at our weakest moments. When we feel we have no mental, emotional, or spiritual strength left.  Lift us up.  Let your strength be seen in our weakness.  LORD Messiah Jesus come to us now and let your life flow through us bearing much fruit.  Teach us to abide in you.  Let us not live in vain but produce good deeds for your glory.  Lord help us in desperation.  Help us se that our condition is desperate.  Remove from us the denial that this is our true state.  Lord help us repent of our pride and self righteousness.  Humble our hearts and minds.  Save us!  Amen

Sunday, September 27, 2015

Lord, help us to stop trusting in ourselves to be our own saviors! Amen

Eternal and unique Creator of all things, who is, who was, and who will be.  To you who have all power, all wisdom, and all goodness be honor, praise, adoration, and love.  

Help me to see more clearly who you are so that I will be brought into a state of worship and awe  

Help me to understand your greatest revelation of your heart found in the suffering and death of Messiah Jesus on the cross.  

Provide me insight and help now. Let me see your glory which is the gospel of the Messiah Jesus.   Help me and guide me now that I might better love you and follow you.  

Lord, we find it so hard to humble ourselves or to turn from our wicked ways.  To not trust in our own strength seems counter intuitive to our souls for we are most in touch with our passions and abilities.  Our opportunities we can easily imagine we have created through our cunning.  It is hard for us to see the solutions we have chosen to save us to be wicked.  

You ask us to trust that you know better than we do, what we should do and to really believe that we can do nothing worth doing without your strength.  All of this is very hard for us to believe.  

Lord, send your Holy Spirit now into our hearts and convert us to the truth so that we may believe.  Steal from us our confidence in ourselves and give to us a growing confidence in you.  

Help us see our ways as wicked.  

Help us see your ways as wise.  

Give us the ability to acknowledge the things we have done as wrong and forsake them as a way of winning. 

Give to us a hunger and thirst for doing things right out of the right heart attitude.  Work to change us from the inside out. 

Transform us into those who worship you in Spirit and Truth, with passion and integrity so that you may be seen to be the glorious one which you are.  In that worship transform us into your likeness here upon the earth that your light may fill the world.  Amen



Saturday, September 26, 2015

Take away our illusions! Amen

Eternal one who dwells in my heart.  You who are outside the universe and yet incarnate. Holy one who is filled with compassion.  The one true God creator of all things and friend of Abraham.  Help me be aware of the reality of your presence that I may pray in passion, faith, spirit, and truth.  Open me to your being.  Grant me a faith in you in this moment that is based on experience and knowledge.  Break into this moment of time and let me see that you are indeed with me, over me, under me, behind me, before me, and in me.  Let me experience that I am swimming in your being.  Soaked in your life.  Fill me now with your Spirit.  Messiah Jesus, center me in your love. 

Destroy the illusion of the secular in me.  That thought that things “under the sun” can exist without eternity.  This self dependent lie that puts me at the center of all things as if I was creator and maker of my world.  That dead yet tempting perspective that soaks every atom of the culture in which I live. Help my heart escape from this mirage and grant it a home in YOU as the ultimate reality.  The truth, that without eternity, time does not exist.  I am 100% dependent on YOU, 100% of the time.  That is the reality.  Help me be heavenly minded that I might be of some earthly good. 

Do not just destroy this illusion in me but in my family, friends, enemies, community, culture, nation, and world.  Only by escaping out of this lie can any real spiritual revival come. 

We must believe you really exist and are essential to everything.  Especially we must believe you are essential to us moment by moment and day by day.  True spirituality must destroy the secular perspective and we must see every moment as sacred.


Open our eyes to the reality of you.  Shout loudly that we might hear your voice.  Or perhaps it will be in the still small voice we will be granted hearing.  However, it is done.  This is now our one cry.  Bring us out of darkness and give us light.  Be our light.  Amen 

Friday, September 25, 2015

Revival Prayer

Lord of life and love, Help me feel your presence around me, in me, over me, under me.  Let your invisible presence be known.  Open me to you being committed to me and in reality never far from me.  

In the circle of my heart, soul, mind, spirit, and strength; grant me a clearer vision of who you are in your goodness, greatness, grace in the wonder of your sacrifice through the Messiah Jesus.  

In the circle of my family now come and increase their faith in you, their love for you, and their hope in your plan for their lives.  

In the circle of First Church West, move us to become a mature community of gospel centered and motivated people who consistently communicate faith and love to others.

In the circle of Living Water Counseling, fill us with the Holy Spirit that we may speak words of great wisdom and comfort to the hurting hearts and homes you bring to us.  Increase the spiritual quality and quantity of our outreach.  

In the circle of our community allow there to be a new hunger and thirst for your word, a new conviction of immorality, and an openness to the gospel of Messiah Jesus.  Take away self-righteousness, self reliance, and self satisfaction.  Make us spiritually poor that we might seek the true bread of heaven.  

In the circle of our nation raise up humble leaders who seek to act wisely and morally in all their decisions.  Let us as a people become less sure of our strength and pragmatic ability to solve problems without you.  Grant a spiritual awakening to take place where we as a nation see our need of you and return to a right understanding of right and wrong.  Save us from self righteous legalism and self indulgent lawlessness.  

In the circle of the Middle East bring the Holy Spirit down in such power that the church will be revived and the true gospel revealed to millions of Muslims and Jews.  Fulfill Isaiah 19:19-25 in this generation.  Show Muhammad to be a false prophet to the followers of Islam and demonstrate to the Jews that Jesus of Nazerath is their true Messiah.  Convert or destroy ISIS that they may not do anymore harm.  

Show to Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who is now called Pope Francis, a deep profound vision of salvation by grace which you showed to the Apostle Paul.  Allow him to accept and promote a clear and true gospel of salvation by grace alone, through Christ alone, thru trust alone in Jesus.  Allow him to become a missionary to the Roman Catholic Church and a witness of God’s powerful grace to all Protestant churches.  

in the circle of the entire visible and universal Church that now exists upon the earth in every nation and tribe, come to us and truly convert us at the deepest levels.  Convince us of the truth of the gospel more deeply so that we will be transformed by your saving power.  Make us people of love and righteousness.  Save us from self-righteousness and pride.   Humble us that we may be exalted.  Do now the impossible among us!  

Lord we trust that you will build your church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.  Grant us boldness to speak and live your gospel before nations.  Thank you for your promise that you who have begun a good work within us will finish it.  Lord have mercy, Messiah/Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy.  Come now King Jesus.  Amen




Thursday, September 24, 2015

Delight yourself in the LORD at the darkest moments

Psalm 37:4-5 NASB - "4 Delight yourself in the LORD; And He will give you the desires of your heart. 5 Commit your way to the LORD, Trust also in Him, and He will do it."

Psalm 37:4-5 YLT - "4 And delight thyself on Yahweh, And He giveth to thee the petitions of thy heart. 5 Roll on Jehovah thy way, And trust upon Him, and He worketh,"


These passages hit us who have suffered loss as difficult to comprehend or make sense of in our pain.  The literal translation really seems to be saying that if we find ultimate and supreme pleasure in the LORD Himself then our prayers will be positively answered. 

How do we reconcile this with our situation where our petitions were not answered with a yes and in many cases the prayers of a multitude of believers were given a negative response to their cries.  Did none of us delight ourselves in the LORD? 

Now in a very strict sense this is true.  All have sinned and fallen short.  None but those already in the kingdom of heaven with God actually delight in the LORD, as they should.  So in this very narrow sense none of us could claim God failed to keep this commitment, because in fact we have all horribly come terribly short of delighting in the essence of God alone. 

But this answer does not help us much practically.  We have a relationship with God and HE is our Father, how could HE not hear our prayer at such a desperate time?

Perhaps the answer to this is found in Messiah Jesus.

Luke 22:41-44 NASB - "41 And He withdrew from them about a stone's throw, and He knelt down and began to pray, 42 saying, "Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done." 43 Now an angel from heaven appeared to Him, strengthening Him. 44 And being in agony He was praying very fervently; and His sweat became like drops of blood, falling down upon the ground."

The Lord Jesus does delight in the Father perfectly.  But due to this HIS ultimate petition is “not My will, but Yours be done.”  God’s will in this case is very hard and includes horrible pain.  So there is the natural desire to have God deliver us from times of great agony and loss, but for those who delight in the LORD, only if avoiding this loss will not hurt God’s redemptive kingdom.  To the degree we “delight in the LORD” we want his glory and kingdom more than our comfort or even the healing of our loved ones.  Then, if this cross is needed for some ultimate greater glory for God and HIS kingdom, with tears and with bloody sweat we pray, “give me the cross.” 

It is hard in the middle of our struggles to pray such prayers.  Most of the time we are desperate for a miracle and hoping against hope that our loved one will be restored to us in health.  But eventually, etheir during the dark night of suffering or later as we process our agony, sadness, and grief we must come to this garden of Gethsemane moment and surrender to God’s difficult redemptive will.   It will not be easy and we will emotionally, if not physically, sweat blood as we come to that moment of ultimate delight in the LORD HIMSELF. 


LORD of mercy and love.  Help me surrender to you even the broken prayers for my loved one and their deliverance from pain and death.  Desperate prayers and fervent they were and now I give them to you accepting that for your glory and kingdom they could not be fulfilled.  Help me move into the place in my heart that I can echo the heart of Messiah Jesus; “Not my will but your WILL be done.”   Lord, have mercy on me for this is a very hard thing to do.



Lord of love teach me to love!

Lord of love,  let me this day have wisdom in my words and actions.  Keep me from failing to love as you would have me love this day.  

Restore to me my strength and hope.  Lift me up out of my weakness and doubts.  Show me the potential that still is in me by your grace to bring your good and glory to others.  Let me see the words I should speak today and the deeds I should do today.  

Lord help me to not leave in fear of illusions but to see clearly reality from your perspective.  Save me from the anxiety of worry over things I have no control or are only the imaginations of my mind.  Help me give to you my true concerns and struggles.  Save me from my temptations.  Destroy the plan of the devil for my life. 


Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy.  Amen

Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Lord help me to understand

Lord help me to see and understand you will for today.  Let me enter into your graceful rest.  Let me know that you hold all things together with your loving just power.  Help me see you in the events of today as active and close.  Lord have mercy on me because of the blood of the Lamb of God, Messiah Jesus.  

Lord clarify my thinking so I understand things from your perspective.  Help me desire truth more than I desire popularity or acceptance.  Help me to think more clearly.  Take illusions from me even when they are comforting illusions.  Let me desire reality more than comfort. 

Lord comfort my family and me.  We have suffered a significant and real loss. It was Terry’s ordained time to die but it has changed our worlds.  Help me find the new normal and make the new normal sane, stable, safe, and spiritual.  Give me wisdom in forming the new normal. 

Revive my faith and the faith of my family.  We are an “East of Eden” tribe.  Broken in many ways.  But united as a tribe nevertheless.  Help us find your redemption, healing, and mending  Be greater than our brokenness. Lord have mercy. 


Help me be sane, stable, safe, and spiritual in every relationship and role in my life.  Help us to find a way to lead your ministry to a fruitful future.  Help the people mature in faith and find renewal as well.  Help heal the broken hearted and homes that come to Living Water Counseling.  Lord have mercy on us.  Amen 

Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Keep my mind on the unchanging

Lord, who gives every good gift by abundant grace and mercy, help me this day recognize that I have been given far more than I deserve.  Help me find thankfulness for what I have by telling myself the truth about how little I should have.  

Lord, help me not allow a focus on what I have lost, both profound and mundane, cause me to have anger, frustration, or depression.  Allow me to surrender my loss to you and trust that in some way you will make all my losses be used for good for others and myself.  

Allow me to have realistic expectations about what to expect now living East of Eden.  Help me to think and focus on the noble and great gifts of life you have provided and in that provide me peace.  

Allow me to rejoice today in those things that are eternal and unchanging which can never be lost.  Help me find my stability in these.  Ultimately in YOU.  


Lord of mercy, have compassion and long suffering towards me this day.  Amen 

Monday, September 21, 2015

Lord, bring your Kingdom to my life.

Lord who can calm the storms of the sea, come now and calm my heart.  

Lord who can multiply the bread, come not and increase your Word in my heart.  

Lord, who calls the heavy hearted and loaded down help me now believe you will lift me up when I call upon your name. 

Lord, I acknowledge and am in awe of your knowledge, wisdom, and eternal grace.  YOU are greater than what I can conceive you of being.  

In my fears bring me greater confidence in your concern for me.
 


Lord, bring  your righteous and loving will to earth in my life and in the lives of all your people.  Bring your kingdom presence to the earth through your community of faith.  Amen

Friday, September 18, 2015

Lord help me see you!

Lord, of hope, bring me confidence that I am not a hopeless situation. 

Lord of miracles, help me believe you power is greater than the problems I face. 

Lord of truth, help me not love my lies more than your reality.  Lord of love, help me want to love others as much as I desire them to love me. 

Lord, help me see you more clearly, give me a hunger to seek you with greater passion, and allow me to believe you will reward those who seek you with a better vision of your beautiful  glory.  

Lord, encounter those I love with a true and profound revelation of your reality in their lives.  

Lord, also touch those I do not love with your grace and give me a love for those who have hurt and betrayed me.  
Good Shepherd, remember that I am but dust, and so very frail, come an lead me through this dark and difficult travail.   Amen

Son of God, have mercy upon me a sinner.  Amen 

Finding humility in our sadness

1Pe 5:6-7 NASB - "6 Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, 7 casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you."

When we suffer loss, we are in a situation that calls for humility.  Humility is facing reality.  The reality is that we are not in control.  The reality is that God’s mighty hand is in control.  Suffering, calls us to choose to accept this real state of affairs or be caught in an impossible rebellion and temper tantrum against God. 

Yet, it is not easy to be humble because this particular reality of who we are and who God is, in the middle of suffering, pain, and loss, screams at us and we so desire to have some control in the uncontrollable moments.   So normally we move towards humility slowly and with hesitation.  Eventually the weight of things causes us to collapse before God.  We find ourselves, surrendering and accepting the unacceptable.

The good news is that God has promised that as we slowly move towards humility HE will at the right time and in the right way lift us up from the dust of despair and desperation into HIS peace.   What is the sign that we are finding humility?  

It is the casting, throwing, and surrendering of all our worries, fears, and stress upon HIM in a very deliberate time of prayer in which we tell HIM our whole story and all our feelings.  This is a “gut” prayer where we treat God as our best friend and pour it all out on the LORD.  

Why would we do this?  It is based on a simple but profound theological truth.  

God cares for you deeply with a devoted love.  Your pain matters to the Maker of heaven and earth and the Redeemer of believers in Jesus.  

God wants to hear about it more than anyone else.   Therefore, tell him how tired, weak, worn, disappointed, depressed, and desperate you are and the real state of your soul.  

He can handle it.  He will help you handle it. 

Prayer

Lord, it is easier to run from my weakness and sadness than admit to you or even to myself.  I never thought life would be this hard and I know that others have it even harder then me.  The whole mess is hard to accept.   Lord, hear the cry and concerns of my heart.  I am at the end of my strength and sanity.  Only you can lift me up now.  Only you can comfort me now.  So come and help me.  Without you I am done.  You are my one hope.  Thank you for caring for me and help me believe that you care for me.  Lord, I believe, help my unbelief, pride, and rebellion to end.  Lord, thank you for having mercy on me in the middle of all this struggle and pain.   Amen




Friday, September 11, 2015

Jonathan Edwards said, “There is no way that Christians in a private capacity can do so much to promote the work of God and advance the kingdom of Christ as by prayer.”

Paulus, Byron; Elliff, Bill (2014-03-01). OneCry: A Nationwide Call for Spiritual Awakening (Kindle Locations 1277-1278). Moody Publishers. Kindle Edition. 

Lord, I come

LORD, I come to you this day seeing problems as bigger than your promises.  Open my eyes to see the power and potential of your promises as greater than the problems I am facing.  LORD, today I am feeling the pain of being abandoned and rejected by many people.  Open my heart to see the many you have sent to be my faithful companions in they journey of faith.   LORD, I come seeing my failures and falling short of your desires for my life.  Open my spirit to seeing how you have used me in my weakness for bringing good to many.  LORD, this day give me the courage to live by faith in your plan and purpose for my life   Amen

Thursday, September 10, 2015

Lord into your hands I give this day.

LORD into your hands I give this day.  LORD of love give your love to me.  LORD of wisdom allow me to see the right path to take today.  LORD of holiness separate me from lies and a lifestyle that reflects rebellion instead of faith.  LORD of light allow me to see light in your light.  Lord of mercy allow me to show mercy to others.  LORD of truth let me have integrity today.  LORD, open the eyes of my heart and let me see you in your glory.  In that vision heal my soul. Amen

Tuesday, September 8, 2015

LORD, let others see YOU in us today!

LORD of redemption and love.  May your graceful character be seen by all nations.  Let the wonder and awe of your love be known to all.  

Lord fill me with the Holy Spirit today according to the promises of the gospel of Messiah Jesus and allow me opportunity to witness in power in life and word.  Lord have mercy.

LORD, give us strength to handle things that are greater than our abilities to handle.  Help us find a stable place in this unstable world.  Give us courage when we are scared out of our minds.


LORD, let us see you more clearly!  Amen 

Monday, September 7, 2015

Let us see Jesus! Amen

Lord of love, compassion, mercy, grace, and long suffering. Help me abide in your presence this day and know your inner peace. 

Lord Jesus I need a better vision of you.  To see your character and your competence.  I need to see your beauty and magnificence.  need a larger and more focused insight into you so that in seeing you as you really are in your brilliance, compassion, and integrity, my heart will come to love, value, and be awe struck more and more by your glory.  Help me to love you more than I do.  I owe you a greater and grander love.  Holy Spirit come and show me my Lord Jesus.  


Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy.  Amen 

Friday, September 4, 2015

Lord of love, life, and logic - Hear me!

Lord, of love, life, and logic.  Help me sense the reality of your presence with me.  Lord have mercy now.  

Lord today I am empty so fill me. 

Lord today I am blind so let me see.

Lord today I am deaf so help me hear.

Lord today I am, at my end so be my new beginning. 

Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy.   


Amen 

Thursday, September 3, 2015

Lord, of hope come now to me. 

When I look within I see such need of healing and change.  So many scars and struggles.  So much need of knowledge and compassion.  Within myself I know I don’t have the resources I need to do what needs to be done or even the wisdom to understand what needs to be done. 

So come now and be my hope.  Be the one who can bring change and healing.  Be my wisdom and bring to me your love.  Be the one resource that enables me to be and do what I need to be and do.  By your sacrifice on the cross make my soul and spirit whole. Lord have mercy on this sinner. 

When I look at all the relationships in my life.  They need your restored and revived.  There are some empty chairs in my heart which will never be filled and so I sense deep loneliness.  There are some chairs empty because people I desire to be in them stay on the outside of my heart.  I don’t know how to reach out.  Don’t know how to effectively love.  

So come now and show me how to relate to people.  Open doors of communication.  Help me listen and respond in a way that reflects your love to others.  Fill the chairs in my heart with people who will be blessed my being in my inner circle and who will be a source of help of your help to me.  Restore my relationships to be holy and whole.  Lord have mercy.  


Lord of hope come to me now.  Amen 

Wednesday, September 2, 2015

Open our eyes that we may worship you!

Lord, help us to see your great competence and good character clearly so that we may worship you in sincerity, integrity, Spirit, and Truth.  Help us to proclaim you as good, great, full of grace, present with us in times of grief, and using all of our grief for gain in Christ Jesus.  This day use our struggles for kingdom success.  Provide us fruitfulness this day and help us avoid frutility in words and deeds.  

Lord send revival, renewal, reformation, and restoration to us.  Lord help us this day to see you working in ways beyond what we could believe.  Help us to be used to accomplish your will on the earth.


Help us in our fears to have courage, in our confusion to have trust in your plans, in our temptation the wisdom to not trust in sin, in our loneliness to sense your presence, and in our pain to experience your comfort.  Lord have mercy upon us now.  Amen