Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,[1]
Yours is the greatness, the glory, and all the riches of grace.[2] You are the source of all beauty, holiness, purity, and love. You are the simple God who simply is the great I Am.[3] You are Trinity – One God in Three Persons.[4] We can know You only because You have revealed yourself to us, and that which You have revealed to us we need the Holy Spirit to seal upon our hearts.
We confess that we are wretched sinners who are spiritually dead without Your reviving mercies.[5] Rather than having You as our chief end and ultimate delight, we have worshiped ourselves.[6] We desire our best life now. We long to satisfy our fickle emotions rather than live for Your unfading glory.[7] We want to be true to ourselves rather than to follow Christ. We have rejected Your Word because we have believed the lie that “our truth” matters most.[8] We live like this is the only life and that there is no eternal glory or gloom in the next.[9] We look within ourselves for strength and for answers rather than into Your Word. Not only do we sin, but our very nature is wrecked with the filthiness of sin.[10] Were You not to revive us, we would be hopeless objects of Your holy wrath against sin.
Father, be merciful to us. Holy Spirit, regenerate, quicken, enlighten, and convict us. As You make known to us our desperate need for salvation, comfort us with the Person and Work of Christ on our behalf. O Father, draw us to Yourself through the Son and by the Spirit. We need You to give faith to us so that we might believe. Holy Spirit, unite us to Christ, dwell within us, make us holy, and teach us the riches of all the Scriptures. Cleanse us from our sin by the blood of Christ. Lead us into the way everlasting. Assure us of the infinite and eternal love of God and the graciousness of His sovereign grace towards us. Revive us and empower us to walk in Your ways. Grant us genuine faith and repentance. Transform us into the image of Christ our Lord who is both God and Man in one Person.[11]
Preserve us and help us to persevere.[12] Protect us from our sinful nature, the world, and the devil. Confirm to our consciences – through the means of grace which You have appointed – that we are adopted children of the Father as we are united to Christ. Bring forth the fruit of the Spirit in our lives so that we might marvel at Your good and gracious work in our lives.[13] Grant to us real and lasting spiritual life that we might live in self-denial, take up our crosses, endure in the Faith, embrace the truth, reject false teaching, and grow in godliness. Keep us radically centered upon Your grace which trains us to renounce all ungodliness and to put on godliness.[14] Be patient with us as we continue to wrestle with our sins in this life.[15]
We know we live in this tension of the “already-but-not-yet.” We are confident that You have begun a good work in us. Assure us that for those who are united to Christ that there is now and always no condemnation![16] As we experience Your grace, grow us more and more into the image of Christ. Help us to gaze upon His glory so that we might be transformed into His glorious image.
While we wait for the great Beatific Vision,[17] where we will see the face of God in Christ in Heaven, we look upon Him now by faith through the means of grace in this life. Because of that, strengthen our commitment to the local church. Root us in the covenant community. Convince us of our great need to meet frequently with each other each week. Rebuke and convict us of our spiritual laziness and complacency. Forgive us for not desiring to observe the Sabbath[18] – the Day you have given us to worship, rest, and serve others.
We mourn our lack of prayer.[19] We say You are Sovereign, but we fail to ask for that which You have promised.[20] Grant to us a greater desire to meet with You in prayer. Help us not only to pray for physical needs – help us to pray for conversions, missions, evangelism, growth in grace, breaking of addictions, restored relationships, mercy ministry, growth in reading your Word, and power in hearing the Word preached. Give us a greater yearning to gather in corporate worship.[21] Prepare us for the singing, reading, praying, confessing, preaching, and feeding upon Your Word each service.
Bring us to the people we need to invite to church. Give us good memory of Your Word when we talk to others about the gospel. Bring in the lost and convert them. Regenerate the covenant children in our congregation. Grow us all in a greater knowledge of Your Word and the doctrines it teaches.[22]
Forgive us for so easily focusing on ourselves and our selfish desires more than upon You and Your glory. Forgive us for thinking we can have a part-time relationship with You that does not change the way we think, work, talk, and act.[23] Forgive us for seeking comfort and change in ways contrary to Your Word. Forgive us for thinking that Your Word needs help from other sources in order to produce change in us.[24] Father, we need to live for Your glory, for that is the only proper way to live.
We pray that You would make our church one that holds Your glory above all; and for this reason, we humbly ask that You would make our lives full of Christ. Give us spiritual eyes that long to see the glory of Christ as He is revealed in the Scriptures of both Old and New Testaments.[25] May we long to know more of His loveliness, wonder, beauty, truth, and righteousness. Stir up within us a holy and godly fear of Christ, and shape our affections for Him so much that we love nothing more than to revel in His greatness and dwell upon His beauty. May we delight in losing ourselves in adoring thoughts of Him.
Convince us that Christ deserves to be the all-consuming love of our lives – the highest joy and crown of our hearts.[26] As we grow in our love for Him, transform us into His glorious image. Make us deeply yearn for godly lives. Help us to fix our eyes upon Him when we sin and daily need His grace.[27] Do not allow us to run elsewhere, but only and immediately to Him with all of our sin to lay down at His feet. Bring us back from our backsliding from grace and embracing of sin.[28] Break our hearts of stone and give us hearts of flesh.[29] Rebuke us for our lukewarm hearts and our laziness in attending to your Word. Comfort those whose consciences are assaulted by the Evil One.[30]
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, grant us a greater capacity to know Your gracious love and salvation so that we might have a foretaste of the glories of Heaven.[31] In Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.
[1] This prayer is influenced by several works: The Glorious Christ by Kris Lundgaard, God’s Glory Alone by David VanDrunen, The Valley of Vision, Don’t Follow Your Heart by Thaddeus J. Williams, The Spiritual Life by Campegius Vitringa, and The Holy Spirit by A.W. Pink.
[2] Rom. 11:33-36
[3] Ex. 3:14
[4] Matt. 28:18-20
[5] Eph. 2:1-10
[6] Rev. 3:1-6
[7] Ps. 115:1-3
[8] Jn. 18:38
[9] Jn. 11
[10] Is. 64:6; Ezek. 36:31
[11] 2 Cor. 3:18
[12] Rom. 8:31-39
[13] Jn. 15:1-7
[14] Titus 2:11-12
[15] Rom. 7:13-25
[16] Rom. 8:1
[17] 1 Jn. 3:1-2
[18] Ex. 20:8-11
[19] 1 Thess. 5:17
[20] Ja. 4:2-3
[21] Acts 2:42-47
[22] Jn. 17:3
[23] Is. 29:13
[24] Jn. 17:17; Rom. 1:16-17; 10:13-17
[25] Ps. 27:4
[26] Eph. 3:14-21
[27] 1 Jn. 1:8-10
[28] Rev. 3:14-22
[29] Ezek. 36:26-27
[30] Eph. 6:10-20
[31] Rev. 21:1-4; 22:1-5
