Pastoral/Congregational Prayer: 17 March 2013


{Feel free to use and employ wherever you can. And if you like it, share it. MWP}

 Lord, you are a merciful and jealous God. Convert your (and our) enemies, and draw to you those that are going astray…; but restrain the malicious persecutors of your Church and the willful corruptors of your truth. Bring their counsels to naught, and show that you are the Lord. Build your Church (here at this location, in Edmond and OKC, and in all places), and make her a city upon a hill for the salvation of many, through Jesus Christ {adapted from Reading the Psalms with Luther, p. 225}. Lord, hear our prayer.
More specifically, we call upon you, our God and Father, to strengthen your luxurious and generous mercies in the congregations of the Southern Baptist Convention, LC-MS, PCA, OPC, Ev. Free Church, ACNA; as well as Sherwood Shores Chapel in Gordonville TX. Enrich their communion with you, direct their decisions and actions in the way of faithfulness, and fill up that which they lack. Lord, hear our prayer.

Lord God, who refurbishes and restores those whose lives are a shambles, we ask you to be with those Christian groups working hard to help prisoners return to the larger society; CJAMM and Exodus House, and Mount Triumph Baptist Church. Grant the mentors, counselors, and leaders godly success with the people they work with, so that through Christ and by your Holy Spirit they may help them “to break generational cycles of prison, addiction, and parental abandonment.” Lord, hear our prayer.

We implore you to look favorably on all those who have been hit with various maladies, (…); grant them not only restoration of body and soul in Christ Jesus, but to be raised from fear and worry. Boost the hearts and perceptions of those who feel consumed by darkness and dejection, those unnerved by depression, hopelessness and mental anguish, (…); set them on solid footing, that they may gain relief and respite. And for those whose past afflicts them with suffocating feelings of foulness, shame, or abandonment, we pray (…). Replenish them with the substantial freshness and cleanness that you have already given them in Christ. Lord, hear our prayer.

For tensions in the world, esp. North Korea: bring wholesome peace. & if they will not be for peace, strip them of all war-making power. Lord, hear our prayer.

Finally, Father, we are grateful for those who are willing to spend and be spent for the sake of Christ, like Patrick did many hundreds of years ago. Be with our missionaries….that they would be strong, loyal, persistent, and that your work would succeed in their hands. Lord, hear our prayer.

All of these prayers we offer through Your Son, Jesus Christ, as we now sing:
Hear our prayer, O Lord; hear our prayer, O Lord.Incline thine ear to us, and grant us thy peace (Trinity Hymnal 728).
----
Mike

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