Prayer 040813 (Life in Christ Ephesians 2:1-22)

God our Father,

We come before you this evening from many different paths, and with so many different weights and pressures bearing on our lives, threatening to strip our focus away from you to all the urgencies, both little and large, that so easily run our everyday lives. We come before you to lay them all at your feet, so that we might realise again the awesome presence of God that fills each one of us. You are a wondrous God of amazing love and compassion, with a giving spirit that outshines whatever this world might seek to take away from us. We can see your provision to us in the possessions we have, in the church you have built for us, in the comfort and closeness of friends and family, and in the knowledge of Jesus Christ, whom you sent to be God amongst us, to die for us, and to save us from our sin, from ourselves, and from just punishment.  You are a God of amazing grace, and we seek to remember that this evening.

And we need that grace, Lord, for so often we can be too easily distracted from your glory, too often we can be unfaithful to your will or us in how we live, and we can even doubt your love, care and power. But you have forgiven us, and remind us that though we might be faithless, you remain ever faithful. We thank you that our salvation is assured to us, and cannot be taken away by things as simple as our doubts or worries.  Even if we stumble, even if we don't feel like worshipping you, even if we do what we want instead of what you want, you always hold out forgiveness through turning back to you, and you assure us that you have dealt with all of our sin in complete finality. We are saved, now and forever, and we thank you for that unchanging truth, Lord.

We would ask that you keep that truth near to us, help us to hold it close to our hearts and firm in our minds. Let your Holy Spirit work in us to make us more and more aware of that truth, more and more conscious of your reality, divinity, and authority over us. Help us to see even in our darkest moments that your grace is sufficient for us, even when those dark moments stretch out, even when the pain doesn't go away when we want it to. We pray for all of those close to us, and even for ourselves, who are suffering from pain, anguish, doubt or fear, as well as all those who are pushing forward to serve you sacrificially, and we take these few silent moments to hand over their burdens to you.

Father, we ask that you would fix our minds on your eternal truths, your limitless grace to us, and the inevitable coming of Christ. We thank you for doing immeasurably more than we could have ever asked, and we do so through the authority of Jesus Christ, Amen.