Father God,

Today, I pray for the wisdom promised by James as we walk through this world with so many choices and decisions pressed upon us day by day. I pray that as we look not to ourselves, but look to Your provision of light and insight, You would enable us to choose wisely and righteously.

May Your Spirit manifest to us the breadth and depth of Scripture in how we are to walk in it each day. As You reveal that way to us more clearly, grant us the courage to walk in it that we might not transgress against You nor stumble.

In Christ’s Name,

Amen.

Father God,

Today, I pray that Your children would know the depths of the assurance we are to enjoy in the declaration of the Most High God that everything rests on His work and not ours as we are taught in Isaiah 44:6-8.

We do not serve an idol or other man-made imagination that Isaiah was speaking against in the surrounding verses and chapters. We serve the first and the last, the one who proclaims what is to come to pass and then brings it about. Nothing stands in Your way of carrying out Your will for Your children.

Let us take to the depths of our hearts to “Fear not, nor be afraid” (ESV). Cause our assurance to find no other rock on which to stand besides You, o Lord. In that, let us enjoy the peace that transcends all understanding.

In Christ’s Name,

Amen.

Father God,

Today, I pray for the broken bodied whose spirits are heavy. In our day of ease and comfort, of convenience and luxury, much is taken for granted until brokenness reminds us of our frailty. Once we travel down the cliffs of suffering, there is a loneliness as we see others walking smooth paths of ease.

Those on the smooth paths often don’t even look down to see the broken, but go about life flittering from one comfort to the next convenience. Even when they look down, they wonder why the broken are moving so slow through life. Sometimes, they do try to offer guidance or help, but it is only superficial and thin as they don’t fully understand the depths of the broken’s experience.

I pray that You would catch the tears of the broken in a bottle (Ps. 56:8) and be their rock. Though the comfortable of this world may never understand, You, our Father, our Creator, our Sustainer understand and care for us tenderly. Work through Your Spirit to comfort and work through the hands of those around the broken to lift them up.

In Christ’s Name,

Amen.

Father God,

    Today, I pray the church would awaken from its slumber, would open its eyes and see where it is guilty of Israel’s sin in Isaiah 43:22-24, and then repent.  We look down upon Israel and ask how they could so forget the holiness and the commands of their God who had delivered them, yet we so easily slip into habits and patterns of religious activity devoid of real worship. 

     We believe that the God of creation, the Sustainer of all things, the Sovereign is satisfied with our rituals and repetitions when You want our hearts, our desires, our lives.  You have purchased us by the blood of Christ as foretold in Isaiah 43:25 where You blot out transgressions.  Why do we think that our bloodless offerings of today would satisfy any more than the blood sacrifices did in that day?

      Purify our hearts so that our worship may be pleasing in Your sight.  Turn us from the polite sins, the worldly compromises, the comfortable sins of our culture.  Create in us a clean heart, O Lord. 

In Christ’s Name,

Amen

Father God,

    Today, I pray for pastors who are leading Your people to know two things today, You and Your People.  If they do not know You through Your Word and Spirit, they will lead in directions destructive and deceitful.  If they do not know Your people as those made in Your image, as individuals and families, they will not be able to lead gently and tenderly, wisely and firmly, patiently and longsufferingly. 

    I pray that Your pastors would be good shepherds, knowing their own Shepherd and knowing their sheep.  Without knowing the Shepherd, they can’t feed the sheep correctly.  Without knowing the sheep, thy will not understand how to feed them.

    Grant that those You call to pastor, would see the need for both of these aspects of pastoring and commit themselves to both. Grant that they could fulfill Christ’s command to Peter to feed my sheep.

    In Christ’s Name,

    Amen.

Father God,

    Today, I pray that You would heal the deafness and the blindness of the Church today.  Like Israel in Isaiah chapter 43, we are called as witnesses intended to understand and to proclaim Your works, yet the church spends more time deceiving itself with its self-justifications and fancy excuses. 

     The church has forgotten its first and second loves, that of God and that of neighbor. We spend more time thinking of how we might serve You, instead of heeding the simple words that we love You by obeying You.  We spend more time on our rituals than on obeying You by loving one another.

     While I do pray that we would come to know You more and more by our understanding of Your Word, I pray just as fervently that we would come to know You through obedience to Your commands and through loving one another in the body of Christ. I pray that our knowing would be manifest in our daily walk for the watching world to see so that we would not be the deaf and blind of Isaiah 43 who cannot bear witness to Your works.

In Christ’s Name,

Amen.

Father God,

   Today, I pray for the promises of Isaiah 43 to preserve Your people even in the midst of the chastisement You bring upon us for our disobedience.  We are dependent on Your mercy for everything, yet we go about our days little different from the rest of the world. 

   We go through our days worried about things not of eternal significance.  We go through our days patting ourselves on our back for accomplishments when it was Your hand that provided. 

   We puff out our chests and we wring our hands simultaneously.

   Impress upon us the reality that the Holy One of Israel has chosen us as Your possession, precious in Your sight, honored, and loved by the Lord of all creation.  Remind us that we should fear not because You are with us. 

   In Christ’s Name,

  Amen

Father God,

Today, I pray that You would press the truth of Isaiah 42:23-24 into the hearts and minds of today’s church. In that day, Isaiah asked “who?” would heed the call to recognize the Lord as the one behind all things that come upon us and our response to Him is what matters.

The Israelites needed to learn that it was not their cleverness in manipulating situations, in political cunning, or in the secondary causes they could see. Isaiah pressed heavily upon them the reality that the Lord was the primary cause of all things they faced.

Today, we in the church can fall into trusting our cleverness in bypassing God’s commands, in trusting our own strength to stand against the world, or in thinking that we are solely at the mercy of this world’s fate. Make the church see that our past, present, and future lie in the hands of a merciful God who calls us to repentance and obedience.

Forgive us, oh Lord.

In Christ’s Name,

Amen.

Father God,

Today, I pray that You remove the blindness of Your people. Today, in so many ways the church travels the same paths as the people of Israel who would have claimed that they were following the right worship in the temple. We look down upon those Israelites who were profaning the temple by going through the right motions, yet their hearts were far from God.

Yet, the church today will focus so much on “right worship” while ignoring the heart of worship, loving God and loving one’s neighbor. The church will chastise for deviations from their prescribed patterns, yet have lost sight of loving one another made in the image of God. While it is right for the church to choose wisely what it is singing in the pews, it should also teach the stronger and weaker brothers to love one another.

Teach us once again to love one another according to Your Law, not a permissive love that ignores sin, not a manipulative love that guilts Your children, nor a superficial love that does not lift a finger to show that love. Teach us to love the image of God in other men which works out in word and deed, mutually edifies, and builds bonds of fellowship which can withstand the storms of this fallen world. Then let us come before You and worship rightly.

In Christ’s Name,

Amen.