Father,
Our love can be fickle and hypocritical. Please enable our love of you and others to be genuine.
We can easily overlook the sin in our hearts and be deceived into thinking that what is truly sin, isn’t. Please enable us to recognize and abhor what is evil, in all its forms. Please cause us to hold fast to what is good; without your power our grip is weak.
We are prone to avoid or dismiss those who are different than us. Please produce in us a brotherly affection for each other that is independent of personalities.
We can quickly belittle others and jump to conclusions about them. Please enable us to show honor to others, knowing that all have everlasting souls and are made by you, in your image.
Our energies and passions ebb and flow, our spirits can be apathetic, and we are prone to self-service. Please enable us to combat the sloth of our zeal, to be fervent in spirit, and to serve you above all else.
We live in a world so complex, intricate and broken that we cannot begin to fathom how it can all be redeemed. Please cause us to understand what we can about you, your creation and your plan of redemption, so that we can rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, and be constant in prayer.
We are prone to self-indulgence and comfort. Please give us the heart for your saints and for the world so that we can freely help others with our resources and live hospitably.
We can despise those who criticize or persecute us. Please enable us to desire their good and to refrain from cursing them, knowing that they are made from the same material we are.
You give and you take away. Please propel us to rejoice with those who rejoice, and to weep with those who weep.
Differences in opinion, desires, personality and values easily become dividing lines between people. Please enable us to live in harmony with one another, humbly recognizing that we don’t know and understand as much as we sometimes think we do—whether about the world or about people—and that the same is true of others. Please enable us to be patient and understanding.
We naturally gravitate to people who we believe build us up. Please give us a heart for the lowly, who may have nothing to give us, as far as we can perceive.
An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth is our natural modus operandi. Please give us the depth of your Spirit and a trust in you that enables us to withhold returning evil for evil done to us. Please enable us to disagree with others and combat evil done to us in others in such a way that shows honor and respect.
Discord in relationship and escalation in conflict are easy. Please cause us to do our part to foster peace and reconciliation in broken relationships.
We desire justice and retribution for wrongs done. And the wrongs in this world are strong, pervasive and deeply-rooted. Please enable us to pursue and effect justice in this world, and to do so in such a way that leaves vengeance to you, not ourselves.
Jesus told us love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us; this is entirely foreign and unnatural to us. Please help us to understand that loving our enemies doesn’t mean agreeing with their behavior, and that praying for them is possible when we recognize that it is from such beliefs, actions and brokenness as theirs from which we have been saved.
The evil in this world feels overpowering. Please remind us that it does not overpower you, and that the world is not outside of your ability to redeem. Please enable us to overcome evil with good.
We thank you for Jesus, who graciously saves us, who makes all these things possible, and who taught us to pray:
Our Father, who art in heaven,
Hallowed be Thy name.
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
And forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever.Amen.