Lent Prayer Guide Week 5

Transcription

1 Lent Prayer Guide Week 5 Wednesday, March 14, 2018 Introduction: Lent (like Advent) is a season in the Christian Church calendar. Lent is a 6-week period before Easter, beginning on Ash Wednesday and ending on the Saturday before Easter Sunday. This season of Lent is a time for us to examine our relationship with Christ and to dedicate ourselves to moving from shallow to mature in our faith. In addition, Easter Sunday is much more meaningful if we prepare ourselves, culminating in Holy Week, Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Today we fast and pray for the next generation of followers of Jesus. For some, this will mean your children or grandchildren, nieces and nephews. For others it will mean the youth in our church and city. Opening Prayer: God makes the sun rise and set. God makes the summer and winter come and go. God helps plants grow and flowers bloom. God gives us food to eat, places to live, and people to love us. God is always with us. God keeps His promises to us.

2 Let us praise our faithful God. Amen. Prayer of adoration: I will express the memory of Your abundant goodness and joyfully sing of Your righteousness. O Lord, You are gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and great in lovingkindness. You are good to all, and your tender mercies are over all Your works. (Psalm 145:7-9) My redeemer, the Lord of hosts is Your name; You are the Holy One of Israel. (Isaiah 47:4) Pause to express your thoughts of praise and worship. Prayer of confession: Out of the depths I call to You, O Lord. O Lord, hear my voice, and let Your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications. If You should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with You; therefore You are feared. (Psalm 130:1-4) Ask the Holy Spirit to search your heart and reveal any areas of unconfessed sin. Acknowledge these to the Lord and thank Him for His forgiveness. Prayer of Assurance: God demonstrates His own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by His blood, how much more shall we be saved from God s wrath through Him! (Romans 5:8-9)

3 Prayers of Intercession (praying for others): Prayers for those who do not yet follow Jesus: Remove the veil from s eyes so that he/she can see the light of the gospel. Shine Your light in their heart to give them the light of knowledge of Your glory in the face of Christ. (2 Cor. 4:4-6) Put people in s life who will gently instruct him/her; and grant her repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth. Cause to come to her senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken him/her captive to do His will. (2 Timothy 2:25-26) Open s eyes and turn him/her from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that he/she may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in Christ. (Acts 26:18) I pray that would confess with his/her mouth that Jesus is Lord, and that he/she would believe in their heart that You have raised Christ from the dead. Cause to call on Your Name, Lord, and save them. (Romans 10:9, 13) Prayers for those who do follow Jesus: Show that Your way is perfect and Your word is flawless. Be his/her shield as he/she takes refuge in You. (2 Samuel 22:31) Show that all Scripture is God-breathed and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness. (2 Timothy 3:16)

4 Let s heart to be good soil, that he/she might hear Your word, retain it and persevere to produce a crop of godly character and effectiveness for Your kingdom. Don t let Satan snatch your word from s heart and don t let the worries, riches or pleasures of this world choke Your word and make it unfruitful in his/her life. Let his/her roots go deep, so they can stand in times of testing. (Luke 8:11-15) Let take delight in Your word, and let him/her meditate on it day and night, so that whatever he/she does will prosper. Teach to know Your commands and obey them, thereby demonstrating their love for You. Let him/her know Your promised rewards: that he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to them. (John 14:21) Do not let merely listen to the word, and so deceive himself/herself. Let them do what it says. (James 1:22) Let the word of Christ dwell in richly as he/she and his/her peers teach and admonish one another with all wisdom and as he sings psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with gratitude in his heart toward God. (Colossians 3:16) May not live on bread along, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. (Matthew 4:4) Make Your word a lamp to s feet and a light for their path. (Psalm 119:105)

5 Prayers for the future choices the next generation will make: You know the plans you have for, plans to prosper him/her and not to harm him/her, plans to give him/her a hope and a future. Cause to call upon You and come and pray to You, and then listen to him/her, O Lord. Let him/her seek You with all their heart, and find You when they does seek you. (Jeremiah 29:11-13) Fulfill every good purpose in s life and every act prompted by his/her faith, so that the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in his/her life. (2 Thess. 1:11-12) Let be careful and wise in how he/she lives, making the most of every opportunity and understanding your will for his/her life. (Eph. 5:15-17) We pray in advance for s spouse that they would be a person who loves Jesus with their entire lives. Let be a considerate husband who treats his wife with respect so that nothing will hinder his prayer. Let him love his wife in the same way that Christ loved the church, being willing to give himself up for her. (1 Peter 3:7; Eph. 5:25) Let be a wife who is worthy of respect, not a malicious talker but temperate and trustworthy in everything. Let her be willing to submit to her husband as to the Lord. (1 Tim. 3:11; Eph 5:22) Let s marriage be rooted and built up in Jesus, strengthened in the faith and overflowing with thankfulness. (Col. 2:6-7)

6 No matter what is planning in his/her heart, let Your purpose prevail in his/her life. (Proverbs 19:21) Prayer of thanksgiving: You, Lord my God, are the faithful God, who keeps Your covenant and Your lovingkindness to a thousand generations of those who love You and keep Your commands. (Dt. 7:9) I will tell of Your lovingkindness, Lord, and praise Your deeds, according to all You have done for us, and Your great goodness toward the house of Israel, which You have bestowed on them according to Your mercies, and according to the multitude of Your lovingkindness. (Is. 63:7) Pause to offer your own expressions of thanksgiving. Closing Prayer: Blessed are You, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. (2 Cor. 1:3) You are a God of hope; fill me with all joy and peace as I trust in You, so that I may overflow with hope by the power of Your Holy Spirit. (Romans 15:13)