A prayer based on Acts 21:1-16.
Our Great and Good Shepherd,
We praise You that You laid down Your life for us so that we can be saved from our sins.
We praise You that You protect us and keep us.
We praise You that You guide us and provide for us.
And we praise You that You feed us with Your words.
Words that are perfect and trustworthy and right and radiant and pure and reliable.
Words that are more desirable than gold and sweeter than honey.
Words that renew, that make us wise, that thrill our hearts, and that are full of precious promises.
Words that lead us along paths of righteousness and equip us for living a godly life.
Lord, how we need You and how we need Your Word if we are going to stand firm in the faith
and fight the good fight against the world, the flesh, and the devil.
We need the Word of Your grace to build us up and strengthen our belief in You.
So, we pray that You would give us an eagerness to be encouraged by Your Word.
To regularly read Your Word personally and privately,
and more importantly with Your people.
To be eager to be encouraged by hearing the Word sung and prayed and read and preached every Sunday.
Increase our appetite to gather with Your people.
Give us a determination to make use of every opportunity we have to receive food for our souls and light to direct our paths.
But our God, we don’t just want to be encouraged by Your Word,
we want to encourage others too.
So, they can be established in the faith,
strengthened in their beliefs,
have their questions answered,
find solutions to their problems,
trained to serve,
and be instructed to live the narrow way by You.
We thank You for our pastors and elders who take the lead, and who have the greater opportunities to do this.
And we pray that we would also play our part.
Help us to remind people of the gospel and the way of the gospel.
That the Son of God loved them and gave Himself up for them by dying in their place on the cross to rescue them from the wrath to come because of their sin, so they should trust Him.
That He is with them to the very end of the age, so they don’t have to be afraid.
That they can confess their sins to God, because He is faithful.
That in Christ they are new creations, so they should be holy.
That He has begun a good work in them and will complete it, so they are secure and will make it to the end.
Help us to do this we pray, for their good and our joy, as we see them persevere in the faith.
But supremely for Your glory.
Amen.
(Photo: Freely)