Sunday Praise and a Prayer for a Spirit-Filled Life
Posts by Dorci
Sunday Praise and a Father’s Day Prayer
Oh Heavenly Father, we praise you today for your great love, that you have drawn us, adopted us, and made us co-heirs with your beloved Son. What an amazing gift! Thank you for showing us more and more the height and depth and breadth of what that means not just for eternity, but for here, right now, in our joys, in our pains, in our weaknesses. Thank you for your faithfulness to bring us through every trial, and to discipline us when we need to grow more. Help us trust you as our dear and precious Father as you grow our faith to maturity, and often use ways we don’t understand. We praise you for your goodness and that your way is perfect. That you are always with us, no matter what, and that your love never runs out. Thank you, Father, for your grace and kindness toward us, for your gentleness and your constant provision. Thank you for sending your Son, for providing a way to forgiveness and life, both now and eternal. Help us take ahold of your hand and never let go. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.
Sunday Praise and a Prayer for Peace
“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.” Philippians 4:8-9
Heavenly Father, you are praiseworthy. You are true and noble and right and pure and lovely and admirable, and we choose to think about you and all the ways you’ve shown us your goodness. You’ve rescued us time and time again. You forgive all our sins and have removed them as far as the east is from the west, and remember them no more. Your grace is always upon your children, and your mercy, too.
You have promised to prepare a place for us with you and to come again for us and take us with you where you are, where there is no more crying or pain or suffering. Your love sustains us, teaches us, and matures us until the day when your wisdom says it’s time to come home. Lord, in all these constant ponderings throughout the day and night, you give us peace, and we praise you. You know the trouble we face in this world, but we know you’ve already overcome it. Help us cling to you, both in the times when things are going well, and in times when things are hard.
Give us the strength to turn to you when the enemy is whispering in our ears that you don’t care. That you can’t possibly love us after what we’ve done. Give us the strength to call those what they are: lies from the pit of hell. Help us cling to the truth, and where our beliefs are false, we ask that you would change them. Where we believe wrong things about you, please show us the truth. And where we believe wrong things about ourselves, please break down those strongholds of falsehood, knowing they keep us from living purely in the victory you would have us. We give you our minds and our hearts to mold as you will. We receive your peace, and we give you all the glory. In the mighty name of Jesus, amen.
Soon and Very Soon…
“So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”
Psalm 90:12
I accepted the Lord the first day, the first moment, I walked into a small church over 28 years ago, and I fellowshipped with, served with, prayed with, cried with, laughed with, and loved the people at that church for 23 years. Many of those dearly loved people, all of them much younger than expected, have since gone home to be with the Lord. A few of them just recently.
It’s so easy to fall into day to day living. Waking, working, eating, cleaning, phoning, watching, doing, sleeping… And all those things are fine. But somewhere in all the minutiae of life we can sometimes forget that life is very temporary. And very short. None of us knows when our time will come, or when the time will come for someone we love. We take for granted that we’ll all live to a ripe old age, but we might not. And having lost my dad and then my mother, I know that any age for someone you love is too soon.
But God knows when, and He reminds us through this Psalm written by Moses, a man who lived to be 120 years old, that life is fleeting, and that we should take great care in the way we spend each day. In every word we say, and don’t, in everything we choose to do, and don’t, we have the opportunity to honor and glorify the Lord.
And the people who have gone to heaven ahead of us remind us to live our lives for Christ to the fullest. We have been called for a very special purpose: to shout the Name of the Lord, with our voices, with our lives, with our love, to the whole world, and those nearest to us.
To praise and glorify His Name by living soberly, that is, always being aware of who we are in Christ, of our supreme privilege of giving our lives to Him daily so He can love others through us, draw others through us, comfort others through us, minister to others through us.
One of those people who has gone ahead just recently was there that morning I walked into church over 28 years ago. She sat a couple rows in front of me. I had felt the presence of the Holy Spirit the moment I walked into the room, and tears were already falling down my cheeks. The worship band started playing beautiful love songs to Jesus. The woman a couple of rows in front of me raised her hand to Him in loving praise and worship, and I knew I was surrounded by people who loved the Lord, and I knew I could love Him, too, and that He loved me. For me, after the life I’d had, that was no small thing.
I never told her that. But I bet Jesus is still telling her all the ways she blessed people without even knowing it. By just loving Him, she helped others love Him, too.
We may have one more day, or thousands. Is there any better way to spend each and every one of them than by loving Christ in all we say and do?
And for those who have gone ahead of us, yes it is painful, yes we grieve, but we remember this: “brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in Him. According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words.” 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
What a glorious day that will be.
With much love and gratefulness,
Sunday Praise – Exodus 15:2
Dear Heavenly Father, we praise your Most Holy Name. We thank you for giving us strength when we are weak, and filling our hearts with songs of adoration. We thank you for rescuing us over and over and never tiring of it. Your joy is in knowing and loving us in all ways. As a good father thoughtfully cares for and provides for his children, as a mother sacrifices herself to love her precious ones, as a shepherd lovingly and tenderly cares for his sheep, and a gardener cares for his garden and makes it thrive and grow until it is beautiful, so you love us and care for our every need, big and small, and we praise you.
You rescue us when we need rescuing, and indeed you have rescued our very souls. You have saved us from the fiery pit and planted our feet on the rock of our salvation – our Lord Jesus Christ. We honor and glorify you above all. You are our salvation and we praise you and will sing of your love forever. May our lives and our very breath glorify you without ceasing. May our lives exude praise and glory and confidence in our Precious LORD. Help us cling to you in the coming week, never hesitating to bring to you our cares, trusting you to love us, to care for us, to rescue us, over and over. In the sovereign name of Jesus we pray, amen.
Sunday Praise – Hebrews 13:15
Heavenly Father, thank you for pouring your glory into our lives at all times, in all circumstances. Help us, in pain and sorrow, in gladness and joy, to always proclaim your goodness and praise your Holy Name. May that be the sacrifice of our lips this week and always. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Saturday Song – Our God’s Alive
Our God is alive, and in Him, we too, are the light of the world…
Your Day is Coming
“So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded.
You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God,
you will receive what He has promised. For,
‘In just a little while,
He who is coming will come
and will not delay.’
And,
‘But my righteous one will live by faith.
And I take no pleasure
in the one who shrinks back.’
But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed,
but to those who have faith and are saved.”
Hebrews 10:35-39
Maybe there are things in this life you’ve missed out on. All around you there are constant reminders of those things others enjoy and you don’t, and maybe in this life you most likely won’t.
Relationships are gone or never were.
That opportunity passed by.
You wonder what it would be like to live a day without pain or some other sickness.
You see the world normalizing behaviors you’re tempted to, but you choose not to indulge in.
Oh, you could run after them. You could leave the footsteps of Christ and fill your life with all kinds of things.
But you don’t. You don’t because as much as you desire those things, you desire Christ more.
Still, it’s hard.
I want to tell you what the Lord told me, because as His followers we’re all one in Christ: “Your day is coming.”
He sees the ache in our hearts, the longing for certain blessings, and though in this life we may never see them, our Father will more than make up for it. He sees our faithfulness and our love for Him and on that day we see Him face to face, He will flood us with a reward so powerful, so eternal, so full of Himself that we will instantly forget that we ever missed anything.
All we’ll know is completeness of love and joy. We will never want for anything again, and we will forever know a freedom the world never will.
For now, we remember that if God has chosen not to give us certain blessings now, it is out of an abundance of wisdom and righteousness. So we keep our eyes on Christ, our Redeemer and the Rewarder of our souls. And we walk by faith.
“He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!'”
Revelation 21:5
“Look, I am coming soon! My reward is with me,
and I will give to each person according to what they have done.”
Revelation 22:12
Sunday Praise – Psalm 150:6
May the Lord lead you this week and give you strength and courage and wisdom in all things.
National Day of Prayer
Today in the United States we observe the National Day of Prayer. It’s a time to remember our nation and lift it up before the Lord in humility and solemnity.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see the headlines and know our country needs prayer. We need it bad. I hope we will take this opportunity to first confess our own sins, and repent, that is, turn around and go in the direction of Christ in every area of our lives.
To follow Him, to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind” and then to show we do as we “love your neighbor as yourself.” Luke 10:27
Will anything change until we do?
If our country is to be illuminated with Christ’s love and truth, if we desire to live in peace and dignity, we must pray for it, and then live it.
Heavenly Father, praise your Holy Name. Please forgive me for my sin of pride and letting fear sometimes dictate my way. Fill me anew with your Spirit and a fresh vision and passion to follow you, to consume your Word as my spiritual food, and allow your purposes to be accomplished in and through me. I pray for revival throughout our country including those in our leadership at every level. May your Spirit sweep over our land once again, opening the eyes of those who have been blinded, gifting untold numbers with faith to believe in you, to receive you, and to be transformed by your Holy Spirit. May we be overcome with your love and goodness that leads us to repentance. Thank you in advance for what you’re going to do. You are the faithful One, the Good Shepherd, the One full of grace and mercy. May you be glorified and magnified. In the Name of Jesus, the Christ, our Messiah and Redeemer, amen.
God bless you,