January Prayer Theme

We're starting a new prayer ministry at church this month.  Each month will have a focus for prayer for the month.  I'm writing them out (with input from the other members of the team), and I decided to add them here to the Listen For The Whisper devotional page.  I hope it helps you when you pray.

The New Year:  A time for new beginnings.  It is a time to pray for reconciliation, forgiveness and renewal.

Holy God, as we start this new year dedicated to You, we pray that You will help us to offer each other the same forgiveness and reconciliation that You have offered to us.

Our identity is found in Jesus Christ who has given us the ministry of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:18-19), and called us to selflessly love others (John 13:13-14).

We realize that we cannot be fully holy in Your presence to stand before You if we hold grudges (Matthew 5:23), and that You have called us to love one another and to forgive the shortcomings of others (Eph. 4:2-3)

The first obligation in our faith, our first ministry outreach is to our families (2 Chronicles 20:13), and that our calling to love and forgive begins there (Proverbs 15:20).  Like the lesson of reconciliation Joseph witnessed as his father and uncle met again (Genesis 33:1-4) was reborn in the reconciliation of brothers in Egypt (Genesis 45), we are teaching and witnessing to our children as we forgive the ones who have wronged us.

If God the Creator is able to forget the sins I’ve committed against Him and remember them no more, then I need to be able to forget what others have done to me (Hebrews 8:12).  The phrase “forgive and forget” does not appear in the Bible, but true forgiveness is found only when the wrong is not the first memory we have of someone.

Help us, God, to understand that our neighbors are not just those who live beside us (Luke 10:29-37).  All of humanity are God’s children and worthy of His love and forgiveness (Jonah 3:10-4:3, 4:11).  Being a follower of Christ means that we must love our enemies just as we love those who love us (Matt 5:43-48), whether our enemies are people from high school or rulers of foreign lands who hate us for our beliefs.

Our Salvation came at a price.  The price paid was the sacrifice of Jesus Christ dying on a cross.  As Stephen was being stoned, his last words were a prayer of forgiveness (Acts 7:60).  As my sins held Jesus on that cross, some of His last words were prayers of forgiveness (Acts 23:34).    As He forgave us, so we must forgive others (Colossians 3:12-13).  Forgiveness of others is not a suggestion or recommendation, it’s a requirement. (Matt 6:14-15)

Lastly, Loving Father, we pray that as the calendar turns from 2013 to 2014, that we will turn a page as well.  We pray that our change will be as dramatic as when You created light in the darkness.  We ask that you forgive our stubbornness and selfishness, and we pray that You help us start over.  May our Christian headstones clearly be marked with 2013 as the year we died to ourselves, and 2014 when were raised to live in Christ (Romans 6:11-14).

And we ask this and all else in Jesus’ name,

Amen