Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Seeking God's Voice

This is our prayer, O God: That you might speak to us and proclaim to us your name. You have said that if we ask anything in the name of Jesus, we will receive it. You have commanded us to ask, seek and knock. And you promised that we when we ask, we shall receive. When we seek we shall find. When we knock the door will be opened.

So we come to you with simple the faith that you will honor your own word. And we pray that your voice might be heard among us today. What we want is that our hearts would hear that still small voice.

Dear Father, give us light from heaven. Pour out wisdom and knowledge. Endow us with the fear of you and fill us with the spirit of prophecy.

To that end, cause all that may distract us to be quieted. And may our hearts settle upon you. May all the things that clutter our minds be at rest and may we have undivided hearts in this time.

Speak Lord, and we will listen. Glorify yourself among us and let there be praise.

Despising God's Word

Gracious God,

We too are among that sorry number. We recognize that your anger may be kindled against us. For we too have despised your word.

Do we not show it by the way we treat it? We may listen to it from week to week. But how often do we really hear it? And how even more rare is the occasion that we heed it! Lord, we show our low esteem for it in that we do not cherish it for the rich treasure that it is. If it were to us the vast mine of wealth that it is, we would not let one nugget slip away. We would lock every utterance in the chambers of our hearts. Every jot of Scripture would be bound upon our heads and hands and hearts. But this has not been so.

God we are sorry for the times we have not listened your word or given it the reverence that it deserves. And we pray that you would pardon us for having treated it with such contempt. And we pray that the Spirit of Truth would not be taken from us. But instead we pray that he would come to us all the more powerfully and give us that high opinion of your law. And may he not just help us to admire it and attend upon it with the utmost diligence, but may he help us to walk in it and to obey it wholeheartedly.

We know that our offenses are great in this matter. But we know that your grace is great too. And this is why we come to you, for we know that the blood of Jesus is able to cover all our sins.