Father God,

Today, I pray that we as Your church would not separate the human story of the Bible from the doctrinal teaching of the Bible. One of the easiest distortions to fall into for both preachers and hearers is to focus on one or the other. At the extremes of these ditches, we can probably see the problems, yet we seem to miss the early divisions which cause us to lose sight of the beauty of the Word.

Excessively focusing on the doctrinal truths or the technical debates over things like Jesus telling Mary Magdalene to not cling for He had not yet ascended to the Father, is not wrong, but unless we also gaze upon the distress of Mary who only wanted to return Jesus’ body to its rightful tomb, we can lose sight of Jesus’ humanity in His care of her.

Solely focusing on the human story of the Bible can also lose sight of the Truths that God conveyed through that story. We have truths in the Word that we will spend our entire lives delving into if we desire to know Him. Those Truths are the foundations through which we interact with our Creator, our Lord and know our God.

It is in the coming together of the divine and the human in Christ Himself which gives us hope for eternity. When we allow that union of the divine and the human to then interact with us in the human story of the Bible, we can know beyond head knowledge that He interacts with our present earthly story. We are drawn into the full reality when we gaze at both the human and divine.

Christ was a real human walking in real earthly history, and as the risen Lord, still walks in our earthly reality. Let us revel and rejoice in Christ’s deep, abiding, and comprehensive presence in our daily lives that did not end with the close of Scripture. Though we may never fully comprehend this union of the divine and the human in earthly reality, may we pursue its fullness with joy.

In Christ’s Name,

Amen.

Father God,

Today, I pray that we would both sides of the Truth in Isaiah 51 and 52 as we walk through our present struggles. We can so easily read much of the Old Testament and think how warm and fuzzy it feels to know that God foretold the coming of Christ, yet miss both the depths of what that meant in the moment of its telling as well as what it means for our present walk through life.

As Isaiah tells Israel of their redemption by God Himself as their next of kin, of God Himself being present and speaking to them in the Servant portrayed in the Servant songs of Isaiah, we should stagger under the awe of what Isaiah was telling Israel. The same God who had delivered them from Egypt and Assyria (ch. 52), would act to deliver them spiritually from an even greater danger, the danger of being under God’s judgement. Not only would God do this work, He would do in as “I am”. The very presence of God Himself would deliver them.

As we read this today, we can first feel the weight of such clearness that Christ, the Servant, as “I am” would deliver us, His people, from this spiritual judgement. Second, as we read the surrounding verses of Isaiah, we can recognize how God acts not only in the greater, but also the lesser ways. Filled with earthly reminders of God’s deliverance from earthly oppressors and oppression, we see that God’s deliverance includes the greater spiritual work and thus also the lesser and temporal earthly work. If God will deliver by the hand of Christ our eternal souls, how much will He also care for our earthly bodies during our time upon the earth.

We matter to God and in God’s plans, both in our spirits and in our bodies, with God caring for us in both areas of our being. How comforting and awe-inspiring is it to read of this promise from centuries ago and to know the work has been finished on the cross so that we will see its outworking in the midst of our lives today and all tomorrows.

Let us “know”, as Isaiah describes in 52:6, the Name of the Lord in a fuller way today and thus find joy and peace in that knowledge.

In Christ’s Name,
Amen.

Father God,

Today, I pray for a welling up of real fellowship among Your children. We live in a world where the simple ability to communicate with one another is being lost to the point that relationships are formed and lost repeatedly like passing winds blowing one way and then the next. I pray that deep wells of nourishing water would be dug by brothers and sisters in Christ instead of trying to pass from one narrow spring to the next.

I pray that we would each one allow Your Spirit to work in us to deepen our wells until they are filled with water that can quench the thirst of a multitude for community. I pray we would then each learn to reach deep into each other’s wells of fellowship to drink deeply from each other’s lives. I pray that together, we would live and walk drinking deeply from the bonds of mutual Christian loving one another.

Teach us that true bonds of fellowship go beyond a monthly fellowship meal, beyond 5 minutes of small talk after a service, beyond a casual but empty promise to pray for one another that is at best kept by a fleeting “God, please help them”. Teach us how to walk together, mourn together, to rejoice together, to pray together, to comfort one another, to edify one another, to even rebuke one another in love.

Forgive us for having lost the call to love one another in the body of Christ.

In Christ’s Name,

Amen.

Father God,

Today, I pray for the pastors of our nation who carry the burden of shepherding Your People. I pray that You would keep them true to Your Word both in the details of what they proclaim and true to proclaiming Your whole Word for All of Life. I pray that they would not only preach Truth but live out Truth in their lives. I pray that they would not only live Truth in their own lives, but would live as true shepherds, loving the sheep in body and spirit such that the sheep of their flocks would flourish.

As I pray for the true shepherds to grow in their Christ likeness, I also pray against those who stand in the roles but pervert the role as wolves. I pray against those who preach falsehoods in details. I pray against those who steal from the Truth by denying its power and extent. I pray against those who feed off the sheep rather than feed them.

I pray that You would raise up and lift up the true earthly shepherds, equipping them to bless Your People. I pray that You would reveal the false shepherds and remove their influence over Your People.

ln Christ’s Name,

Amen.

Father God,

Today, I pray Isaiah 51:9, that You would awake, awake and Your Mighty Arm would act again as of old when You struck Rahab of Egypt. Though we know that You have never for a moment slept in keeping Your promises, never forgotten Your covenant promises to Your children, still now we call upon You to act as if You just awoke to remembering Your duty to uphold those promises that You might act swiftly.

We call upon You to act with urgency and with the power that is wholly within Your being. We call upon You to strike down the Rahabs of today, the dragons of the day, anything that comes against Your people in heaven or on earth. Give us victory over the enemy which seeks our overthrow, which seeks our taking our eyes off You, which seeks to deceive.

Awake, awake and be our God who has promised our daily bread, our Rock, our Strong Tower, our Hope, our Lord, our Savior, our All-in-all. Grant that we may see Your Power at work in our deliverance.

In Christ’s Name,

Amen.

Father God,

Today, I pray for the weary, for those who press into each morning, still bearing the brunt of the prior days, still looking upon the future as filled with unresolved storms and trials. I pray for the spirit who longs for a small spring in the midst of their long desert. I pray for the one climbing the mountain who longs for a breather in the midst of the ascent that comes with a ledge on which to rest.

I therefore pray for all those who see such a dark shadow behind them and dark shadows expected ahead that they may not even know where to go next from exhaustion and loss of direction. Remind each of them in the deepest parts of their souls that their Lord has promised to provide through all their storms and is faithful to finish their desert journeys and their dark storms.

Remind us all, Oh Lord, in the midst of the weary darkness that the storm is only fleeting in Your eternal plan. Your goodness and steadfastness will overtake and outlast the suffering of the present. Give each of us the strength to persevere under the burden of our storms.

In Christ’s Name,

Amen.

Father God,

Today, I pray against the fingers of the enemy which press into the lives of Your children through the fallenness of creation, through the physical dysfunction that pervades our world until Christ’s return. We so look forward to the time when there are no more tears of suffering for there will be no more suffering. There will be no more infection, no more toxicity, no more lacking of anything our new bodies need.

Until then, we walk in bodies that are far from impervious to such threats, but instead have both a strength and a fragility. In the order of Your having created us, our bodies are designed to resist, to endure, to overcome. In the aftermath of the Fall, these same bodies are subject to the effects of the enemy’s work in physical as well as spiritual suffering. We walk in an ever ongoing battle between the properly created strength and the Fall-imposed fragility.

Between those two out-workings, we walk in faith that our Redeemer lives to ultimately deliver our souls, but to also provide for our bodies as the Great Physician. We read time and time again of the Lord’s meeting physical needs and the Arm of the Lord providing physical needs and the Servant providing physical needs. Let us hope in those promises as well as in the spiritual deliverances.

As we put our highest hope in the salvation promised and fulfilled in Christ, let us also remember to hope in He who promised to care for our bodies during this earthly walk of life. Let Your Hand meet us in our physical needs today and deliver us from the enemy’s multitude of fingers pressing upon our fragility.

In Christ’s Name,

Amen.

Father God,

Today, I pray that we would be good stewards of our received gifts from Your Hand. Both from a natural creation and from a supernatural salvation standpoint, we have been blessed with so much from You.

I pray that we would take what You have given us in terms of earthly talents, knowledge, and skills and use it for Your glory, for Your work, and for the blessing of others. I pray that we would take the gift of salvation and press into the sanctification of our souls such that we would be refined and become more and more in the image of God in man.

I pray that as the days pass, our likeness to Christ in obedience and fruitfulness would increase. I pray that living waters of salvation would fill us and overflow outward in blessings to all those around us. In this, I pray that we would diminish such that You would receive all the glory of the fruits.

In Christ’s Name,

Amen.

Father God,

Today, I pray that we would remember Isaiah 51:1-3 as we walk in Your Ways through paths of darkness. As we walk through our own waste places, wildernesses, and deserts of today, it is easy to despair, especially if we forget verse 3, or the following verses. Remind us of 51:12 that our salvation is secured by “I am”, the “I am” who comforts us.

Remind us that our waste places, our wildernesses, our deserts do not determine our final resting and are not the end of the story. They are but participation with the experience of the Servant of the chapters leading up to 51, that our faith might be manifest and proven. They are not the end, but the means to the comfort of “I am”, to the Eden that is promised, to the garden of the Lord out of the desert of our life. They will finish in the joy and gladness of the Lord with thanksgiving and song.

For those who walk in darkness today, may each and every one of You know that you are not alone in the darkness if You belong to the “I am”. May you also know that the darkness is not your end. Your Lord will finish your story according to His steadfast faithfulness.

In Christ’s Name,

Amen.

(for past prayers you can visit www.wholepersonwholelife.com )

Father God,

Today, I pray that we would heed the call of Isaiah 50:10 to trust in the Name of the LORD, even when we walk in darkness. Just before this verse we read of the faithfulness of both the Servant and the Lord. The Servant submits to the suffering of His appointed task, yet waits with confidence in the Lord’s promises to vindicate Him, to sustain Him, and to complete the work through Him.

In verse 11, we read of those who rely on their own strength and how they will lie down in torment. This torment comes both in the present when fear engulfs every moment for those who believe it all depends on their efforts and in the time when one faces the final outcome that self-sufficiency was doomed to failure in eternity.

In verse 10, between these bookends, darkness and absence of one’s own guiding light is not a reason to despair, but a reason to look to the One who holds all things in His Hands and on whom we can rely. Just as the Servant submits to the Lord in restful assurance of the Lord’s final work, we are to rest in the faithfulness of the Lord rather than our own strength.

Let us respond in faith to these words today.

In Christ’s Name,

Amen.