A Prayer

Father,

In Your great kindness, You have blessed us by the Gospel. You have sent Your Son as Savior and made it possible for us to hear Him and to entrust ourselves into His care for now and for eternity. And when we stop to think about this, to consider the hope that we have as we deal with life's issues, as we try to imagine what it would be like to live without You, we are find ourselves a little stunned. Why would you be so good to us?

But, Father, we are surrounded by so many who are not blessed by the Gospel. They don't know about how Jesus has come to rescue them from the emptiness of this life and Your justice in the life to come. They have not entrusted themselves into His care. They face life alone.

And we know some of these people. They are the people we see at the store, the neighbors we wave to as we drive by, family that we love. They do not have Jesus and so whatever else they have isn't worth it.

Father, we want this to change. We want more and more people to enjoy what we have in Jesus. We want the Gospel to spread. But we know that the way that it spreads is not by us sitting and watching You act. The way You conquer the lives of those who are without Jesus is through us, Your Church. We are the means by which people come to know the love of the Savior and the glories of the Gospel.

And so, Father, we ask that You would bless us. 

Bless us with lives that will powerfully display how the Gospel changes people and makes them whole. 

Bless us with the resolve that we need to deal with our sins and put them to death, sins that these others see, sins that make us look just like they do and sabotage the claim that the Gospel makes a difference. 

Bless us Father so that we would be willing to obey Your Spirit when He calls us to do something that seems crazy but something that will actually make Jesus look really good. 

Bless us Father so that the people around us will see how the Gospel makes life worth living.

Thank You, Father, that this is not an outlandish prayer. We are not asking for the impossible. The Spirit is here, and He is eager to work. And so, we look forward to what He will do as we pray this through Christ our Lord, Amen.

Isaiah 2.2,3