A Prayer For 2019



2019 is here, people!

Out of the abundant favor of God, we are here in Nebraska as I write this, staying at a lovely AirBnB as a family, celebrating the holiday and enjoying time together. Last night, we were studying Ephesians 3 as we prepared for the New Year, and it seemed like such a fitting and beautiful prayer to ring in 2019, that I wanted to pass it along.

Here is the prayer that I am joining with the Apostle Paul almost 2000 years ago in praying for myself and others, and for you and for those you love.



Prayer for Spiritual Strength

 14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

 20 Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. (Ephesians 3:14-21)




This is such a beautiful prayer, and the Word of God is the true power here, so if you only need the above prayer to be built up and encouraged for 2019, it would be my great joy if you stopped reading here.



If you are interested in continuing to read more, I wanted to pull out 5 Points of Prayer from this passage that I am praying for our 2019.

Heavenly Father, out of the unsearchable riches of your glory and the immeasurable greatness of your power, help us in 2019 to:

Experience Your True Abundance

Father in heaven, hallowed be your name
Your Kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven in 2019 in our lives and in the world

  • God,  help us to be strengthened by your power, through your Holy Spirit in our inner being. 
  • God, you have given us a spirit of power and love and self-control, enable us to live in ways that honor you as we throw ourselves hopefully on your immeasurable strength
  • God, help us to not live in our own strength in 2019, but to seek your power for doing remarkable things in this world this year
  • God, you speak things into live and you raise people from the dead. We want to see more and more people put their hope in you, and be made new in Christ in 2019. Make it so!
  • God, help us to see that true riches come from seeking your kingdom and righteousness and not building our own little false kingdoms here in this world. Keep our eyes fixed on the things that are above and help us to not be carried away exchanging the good things in this world for the ultimate good which is you. 
  • God, do all this because of your overwhelming, overflowing love! You are generosity defined! In your grace, you have sent Jesus to reconcile us to you through his blood, and you have given us your Holy Spirit that we might be regenerated and made citizens of your heavenly kingdom. Strengthen us now with that power, with your power, for a year of doing kingdom work, seeing more and more people be brought to you through Jesus.
  • God, give us the power to live in faith, day-by-day staking our whole lives on Jesus and receiving the full abundance of every spiritual blessing that we have in Christ!

Have Christ Dwelling In Us & Forming Us

  • God, we pray that you would form the life of Christ in us! Make us like your son, according to your eternal plan of calling lowly and miserable sinners back to you through Jesus and putting your glory on display through the foolish, the weak, the lowly like me! God, you are in the resurrection business, so give us the abundant and true life of Christ in us!
  • God, give us the ability to go into our families, our friend groups, our relationships, our workplaces, our churches, our neighborhoods, our states, and our nation, and show people the beauty of the gospel - the transformed life that comes from having Christ live in us!
  • God, help us to flee from idolatry so that we might better worship you, the only True God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent - for this is eternal life!
  • God, help us to joyfully surrender our lives daily to you, taking up our cross to follow Jesus, gladly submitting and walking in obedience. We want to see the fruit and experience the life and joy that comes from walking in your ways, O God!
  • God, help us to stay ourselves on Christ's power, Christ's faithfulness, Christ's finished work, and Christ's love and acceptance of us. Place our whole identity in Christ and Christ alone. Make us Jesus people, who define ourselves by the fact that Jesus Christ loved us, and gave himself for us. Empower us to live by faith in the Son of God who loves us!
  • God, help us to do the messy kingdom work of caring for the needy, the poor, and those far from you spiritually. We want to follow in the footsteps and example of our Lord, who did not consider equality with you a thing to be grasped but rather made himself nothing, becoming like us so that we could become like him. Make us into little Christ's bringing ridiculously generous and gracious compassion, mercy, justice, and love into the world - so that we might best represent who you are!
  • God, keep us from sin, that we might resemble the sinless Son in all his glory and beauty. God, you are ethically perfect, above reproach, true and trustworthy. You are the God of all goodness and faithfulness, and we pray for your empowerment this year! Make us like You!

To Know you, the Immeasurable God & Your Inexhaustible Riches

  • God, our souls have no rest until we find you. Let us know you this year! Reveal yourself more deeply to every person. Help us to know just who you are, how much you love people, and help us to reflect you to the world.
  • God, you have made every person alive in your image, and each person reflects aspects of you. Help us to see how you have formed people, and help us to show them how they can have Christ formed in them! Restore us to be your image bearers, your royal subjects, your kingdom of priests who proclaim the glories of you who called us out of darkness and into your light!
  • God, help us to trust in your immeasurable power to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or even think. We confess that we so often put limits on you, but God you are without limit, you are infinite, omnipotent and nothing is impossible with you! You are the Creator, giver, and sustainer of life and we praise you! 
  • God, help us to live in radically self-giving ways, following Christ. Help us to freely give of our time, talent, heart, passion, service, care, compassion, mercy, and love because you abundantly give. You are inexhaustible, and the only one whose storehouses of resources and power never run out.
  • God, help us to be people who financially worship you this year! Help us to give away your money joyously and to not hoard our resources to serve ourselves and our little kingdoms. God, you are overflowing and inexhaustible in your generous grace, and we pray to reflect in our lives that we know you! Help our finances to show that we worship the out of this world God!

Be Rooted & Grounded In Love 

  • God, help us to build our lives on the rock of your Word! Help us to dig into the Bible, to submit to asking for help, to seek resources. Make your Word simple and illuminating to our simple and feeble minds! Give us the ability to worship you daily in your Word, being refreshed and challenged. 
  • God, help us to trust you in our suffering. Help us to remember that you are sovereign and in control. Help us to remember that you are good, and that you are for us. Help us to lean into your discipline and to trust your Fatherly care. God you alone are the one who establishes and strengthens us, and help us to face down all challenges in 2019, knowing that you are with us!
  • God, help us to know and reflect your love to others. We have been forgiven so much, we have received so much mercy, you have shown such compassion, we have received out of your fullness grace upon grace. Let us be people who display your radical and excessive love. Let us lavish the love of God upon others in 2019!
  • God, help us to stand firm in the truth of the gospel and the truth of your Word, dealing with others tenderly, and giving a reason for the hope we have with gentleness and respect. We confess that but for your sheer grace, we would not know you, and we acknowledge that You alone have the power to change hearts. That said, you are the God who turns the rock into streams of water. You make living water to flow out of our hearts, by giving us your Spirit to dwell within us. We pray and beg that you would make millions or even billions of new believers in 2019, and we pray that you would give grace to those in our lives that we desire so deeply to know and experience your love and grace! Soften the hearts of the sinners around us in the ways that you have softened and are softening our sinful and wandering hearts! God show up in 2019 in power and lead so many to putting their trust in Christ!
  • God, help us to be defined by unity and love within the body of Christ in 2019. There is so much dissension, discord, and envy in the body of Christ. We see this when we look around and doctrinal disagreements, mistreatment of others, theological bullying, ungracious speech, and so much more. Take it all away in 2019! Help us to repent of our sinful thoughts, unmerciful actions, and ungracious approaches to one another in 2019. We have one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one Spirit, one God and Father of all, who is over all and in all and through all. Help us to live like it in 2019! 
  • God, by your grace and through a revival like outpouring of your Spirit, bring racial reconciliation and gender equity and so many more things to a place of greater unity and justice in 2019. Tear down and rebuild gracefully denominational dysfunction, theological misappropriation, false prophets and spiritual abusers. God, let the weak sheep of your flock receive the most care in 2019! 
  • God, make the unity and love of Jesus and neighbor the trademark characteristics of the American church in 2019, and make this an absurdly powerful witness to a nation who is wandering from God.
  • God, help all spiritual leaders and staff to be godly and connected to you, the True Vine, in 2019! God, let all people preach Christ in all churches and all ministry programs, and not the platforms and ideas of men. 
  • God, exalt Jesus this year!

To Bring You Glory & Give You Glory 

  • Lastly, to You be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever. May these prayers be aligned perfectly with your will and grant overwhelming and abundant response. May you receive all these prayers and work powerfully through your Spirit to renew and redeem sinners and systemic sin. 
  • God, gain so much glory for your name in our lives and in our world in 2019! You alone are worthy of all praise, and we ask for you to do all this and so much more than we can ask or think in Jesus' name!

Romans 11:36
For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Walking in Wisdom

Image
Augustine of Hippo is famously quoted as saying to God, "You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they can find rest in you." We have to consider this: If God really is our Creator, and the Bible really is His inspired word, God's words and instructions for us are life. He is our Maker and he knows how we are made. Therefore, when we are reading the Bible, we are looking into the truth about ourselves. We are grasping onto the truth of how we are wired to operate, which means we can be learning true wisdom. Let's think about wisdom in a few contexts from the Scriptures, and we can weigh for ourselves the authority we think they deserve. A Pure Heart: Wisdom in Conduct From the New Testament James 3:13–18 Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is ...
Read more

32 For 32

Image
Each year around my birthday (for the past three years), I like to share my thoughts from the previous year. These are keen and not so keen observations, musings, and the like. Feel free to read and disagree, silently judge, or even criticize these -- I'll probably never know that you did that! Those little nose pimples that you get on the inside of your nostril from time to time are the worst.  Life is really, really hard. We aren't meant to go it alone. We need community. I've lived most of my life thinking the opposite, but I'm realizing I need people more and more as I get older.  Social media lives are not reality. Who are you trying to impress? Who am  I  trying to impress? Fear is perhaps our strongest motivator. Beware of any person who tries to influence you based on your fears. Has craft beer jumped the shark? I will neither confirm, nor deny. But you know what will never jump the shark. A nice cold domestic. Also, I recently learned that Bud Ligh...
Read more

Go On Up To The Mountain Every Day (Part 2)

Image
Always wear Packers gear when you know you'll be standing on top of a mountain.  In part 1 of this 2 part blogstravaganza we looked at the depth of our need for a Savior. We saw that because of our sin, we find ourselves separated from the holy God and we are helpless to save ourselves by works of the law. The greatness of the gospel of God's grace to sinners is that while we are sinners, He redeems us and reconciles us to Himself through the blood of Jesus.  This post will look at 2 more reasons why we should preach ourselves the gospel every day.  2) The gospel magnifies God's grace in provision by bringing us in awe to the foot of the cross. We have rebelled and ruined our relationship with God on account of our sin. We cannot obey the law or any other religious practices to purify ourselves in order that we may draw near to the holy God. It doesn't work! But that isn't the end of our story! God takes us from hopeless sinners to hopeful sons! Fo...
Read more

The Boy Who Walked Away Alive

Image
Have you heard about the boy who died? There is a scene in Acts chapter 20 where Luke records something miraculous that occurs in the ministry of the Apostle Paul. Late one night in a well lit upper room, Paul is sharing the good news of the Kingdom of God with a group of disciples in Troas. As night wears on, a young listener named Eutychus is overwhelmed by sleepiness and tragically falls out of a window to his death. Paul descends the stairs of the building and hovers over the boy. In the same way that Jesus assured the ruler whose young daughter had died, so Paul issues forth comfort in his speech, saying, “Do not be alarmed, for his life is in him” (Acts 20:10 ESV). This calls to mind life-giving resurrections told of in the ministries of Elijah and Elisha as well. The miraculous happens again, and they took away the boy alive. How can this be? How can the dead be made alive? Who invests this resurrection power to defeat this solemn and universal enemy? Truly this is t...
Read more