Heavenly Father I praise You for being the creator. I praise You for breathing the word and it became so. I praise You for creating me in Your image and making me with a purpose in mind. I praise You that You are a God who desires to have a relationship with me and that You know my heart. I praise You for sending Your son to reestablish the relationship between You and people. I praise You for the Holy Spirit that guides us and walks with us daily.
In Acts Luke writes a profound thought that You inspired him to write which says, “For in You I live and move and have my being.” [Acts 17:28] All that I do while I am breathing on this earth, all that I think, all that desire, love and accept is because of You. I am now through the gift of salvation and the watering example of baptism, and the deepening growth of sanctification a living sacrifice for You daily so that I can learn Your good and perfect will that Paul talks about in his letter to the Romans in chapter 12. Help me to continue to put on my armor and draw my shield to stay in the fight until I breathe my last here on the earth. Help to get back to going to church where I can be fed, sharpen my sword, buff up my armor and be encouraged by fellow spiritual soldiers in arms. I understand that at times people in the church will fail me or fail You, they may hurt me or my family and will definitely make mistakes. Give me the grace, and the compassion to forgive, and move on past them. Don’t let this be my excuse to avoid being in church where all our gifts are needed to make the body of Christ strong. Help me to focus like an athlete does to listening to his coach and his team ignoring the fans, the nay sayers, the cheerleaders or any other sound that would cause him to deviate from his responsibility in the game. Help me to listen to Your voice, follow Your lead, breathe in Your Spirit, eat from Your word, learn from Your wisdom, and act as much like You as I humanly can. Help me to desire what You desire, love what You love, help those who You help and demonstrate compassion, forgiveness and mercy as You have to me. Help me to stand strong when needed and to defend those who need to be defended.
And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God. [Philippians 1:9-11] Amen, Amen.