"Holy Father, the Benchmark of All True Fathering" - 19 June 2022

 

Jesus told us, “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you” (John 15:16). Let us pray: Holy Father, you who are the benchmark, the high-water mark of all true fathering: we are grateful for our fathers, especially when their firm love and care reverberated harmoniously with the melody of your own fatherhood. Help us to rightly honor our fathers and their memories. For those fathers in our lives who missed the mark – or worse – grant them to find you a true Father in Jesus Christ; repair that which they scarred or marred or broke and heal the wounds. For the fathers in our fellowship, we ask you to guide us by your fatherly hand that we will be, more and more, a noble and wholesome reflection of you to our children, whether they are still at home or out on their own.

Lord God of Hosts, the whole earth is filled with your glory. For the welfare of all throughout the world we beg you to restrain the brutality and viciousness skulking around or running rampant in the nations (Sri Lanka, Ukraine, Yemen, et al.); we ask you to arm the leaders with the tools, the desire, and the ability to establish and enforce real justice and integrity that all people may enjoy tranquility, prosperity, health, and life. And, Mighty God, send all the necessary rain we need in this region. Watch over and direct our State; our leaders; our finances; our prisons and detention centers; our schools and universities; our farms and industry.

Lord God, we know you watch over your church, and so we join together beseeching you to preserve your people, specifically where their lives are threatened, and their livelihoods are in peril. Show these brothers and sisters your gracious kindness and set your angels around them as ministering spirits to the heirs of salvation (Hebrews 1:14). Watch over our General Assembly. May peace be to the brothers, and love with faith, flowing from you, O Father, in your Son Jesus. And may grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with love incorruptible (Ephesians 6:23-24). Further, we pray for this congregation, St. John Missionary Baptist Church, Serenity Baptist, Sharon, and Siloam Baptist Church. May we all be filled with the Spirit of truth who will lead us into all truth; who will build up and reinforce what is holy, good, and right; who will retrieve us from where we may have gone off the tracks; and who will ensure that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is our central focus. May we be filled with the Spirit of truth (John 16:13)!

We ask you to protect our own people who are traveling for vacation, going to camps, heading off to meetings in other places. Preserve them and bring them back safely. And we pray for those in our church fellowship, those among our friends and those in our families, who are dealing with death; experiencing pain; undergoing medical treatments; (…). We implore your consoling care for them, bringing them health, or peace, or comfort as needed, while also lifting their hearts that knowing you have never left them nor forsaken them, they may rejoice in your goodness and sing your praises. And now we pray as we have been taught, saying, Our Father…

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