"We Implore You" - 17 February 2019



O Lord God, we implore you to make us a holy, joy-filled people in our homes, occupations, and our various networks of friends. May those who are married be free of strife, pettiness, and fear; may those who are single be chaste and holy, enjoying you in their God-ward singleness; may the children grow stronger in grace and wisdom, loving you all their days while obeying and honoring their fathers and mothers; may the parents raise their children in faithfulness and godliness; and may the elderly flourish in God-given strength, patience, and sound-mindedness. Also please help us to be the kind of church that is instrumental in drawing the straying back to Christ and his church and bringing unbelievers into your family by trusting in your Son Jesus Christ. Hear us as we recall before you those who are on our hearts…

O Lord God, we pray for your Church in all nations, and these churches in the OKC area: Iglesia Christiana Rey-gloria, Memorial Christian, Midwest Blvd Christian, and New Hope Christian Church. Grant your Church to live out the righteousness, peace and joy which are in the Holy Spirit; to pursue what makes for peace and mutual upbuilding (Romans 14.17, 19); and to turn neither to the right hand or the left. And where she has jumped the tracks and derailed, reorient her course, and send her in the right direction once more. We also ask you to intervene in the General Convention of the United Methodist Church this month. Govern their discussions and debates; correct misleading mindsets and support your truth. Mightily defend your own holy declarations that “that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God…neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”  But also, mightily defend your Gospel hope: “And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6.9-11).

O Lord God, please strengthen, assist, and give a renewed buoyancy to those in need…

O Lord God, please be with our nation, national leaders, and our State leaders. Graciously help us all to recognize when we do evil and injustice, to amend our ways and correct our directions. May neither peace nor prosperity blind our eyes or deafen our ears to you, or to the cries of those being unfairly treated. Grant us to sustain and support justice and liberty for all, unborn, foreign born, or freeborn.

O Lord God, please be with all world leaders. We pray for an end to all wars, to all natural or man-made famines, pestilences, droughts, and plagues. We pray for an end to abortion in our land and world over, and an end to the crimes of slave trafficking and prostituting of women and children. In this regard, and based on your words to us, we make bold to pray for MS-13, ISIS, Boko-Haram, the Lord’s Resistance Army, Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, Aryan Nations, and all other destructive alliances. Bring them to repentance and faith in Christ – individually and personally, but also as a whole. And if they will not, then Lord, we pray on behalf of those crushed under their jackbooted thuggery, and we pray with the Psalmist, “O God, break the teeth in their mouths; tear out the fangs of the young lions, O LORD! Let them vanish like water that runs away; when he aims his arrows, let them be blunted. Let them be like the snail that dissolves into slime, like the stillborn child who never sees the sun” (Psalm 58.6-8).

O Lord God, we ask all this because you are good. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.

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