Last year I was ordained to the ministry at Grace Fellowship Church. Since then I went on-staff as a part-time pastor and, more recently, as a full-time associate pastor. Needless to say, this has given me great opportunity to closely examine the calling and task of the minister. At its heart, this task is very…
Have you ever asked the Lord that he would teach you to grow in faith and love and grace? Have you ever asked the Lord that you might know more of him, or that he might give you the desire to more earnestly seek his face? John Newton asked this of the Lord and later…
As I mentioned a couple of days ago, I have the privilege of preaching at Grace Fellowship Church this morning. I awoke feeling tired and worn, believing that fatigue is God’s means of rebuking me, of calling me to depend on him instead of myself. So I turned to the Valley of Vision, looking for…
I recently received an email from a long-time reader of this blog who asked if I could write about a week of prayer. Your blog is the third time in the last month that I’ve heard of churches having a week of prayer once a year. You state that you pray 2 hours a day…
The Lord has been forcing me to learn about prayer. And it’s a good thing since I’m finding myself in one of those times in life when prayer is coming only with difficulty. It was a blessing to attend a local pastors’ fellowship on Monday where I enjoyed a panel discussion about prayer and the…
Do you ever find that you just don’t know how to pray? You know that you need to pray for someone, but you don’t know how? That is a great time to turn to the Bible and to pray to God the words of God. Mary Kassian once wrote a brief overview of praying Scripture…
Here’s another good prayer from Scotty Smith. This is one for a day we’ve all experienced; it’s a prayer for days when you don’t feel like praying. Scotty and I aren’t the only one who have these days, are we?–those days when you’re just so glad that God’s delight in you isn’t contingent on your…
Happy new year! Here is a prayer I found in Heart Cries to Heaven by David Campbell. It seemed very appropriate for the start of a new year. Our great and Gracious God, As we come to the close of another year, we would indeed make it the prayer of our hearts that you would…
This is an interesting prayer I came across this week–a prayer obviously timed for the Christmas season. It was prayed in a service at All Souls Church, Langham Place (which is in London, England). We come together humbly to the Lord of Glory and the Prince of Peace.Lord Jesus Christ, Creator, Author, and Redeemer, we…
I receive a lot of books in the mail. If I were to go through them and categorize them, I suspect I’d find that one topic stands apart from the rest–prayer. I’d be surprised if any topic receives as much attention as this one. I suppose this shows that we Christians struggle with prayer–that we…
Moms in Touch is a ministry I’m very, very excited about. And I want you to be excited about it too. In fact, I want to encourage you to read to the end of this post and then to take action. I first encountered Moms in Touch at the 2008 True Woman conference. I did…
Today I have two unrelated quotes for you. Each of these caught my eye this week. The first is a prayer from Augustine of Hippo (a.k.a. St. Augustine). O my God,let me, with thanksgiving,remember, and confess unto youyour mercies on me. Let my bones be soaked with your love,and let them say unto you,Who is…
A prayer to pray after you finish praying–it’s a bit odd, I admit, and yet it makes some sense. At least it makes sense when you read it and pray it on your own. Who hasn’t felt like this when they pray?: “O God of grace, I bewail my cold, listless, heartless prayers; their poverty…
Last week I shared a prayer by Matthew Henry–one that was drawn from A Method for Prayer. This week I want to share another, this time one that is a paraphrase of the Lord’s Prayer. Do you find that you pray the Lord’s Prayer by rote, without thinking about the familiar words? Then try praying…
This week I came upon a prayer written by the Puritan Matthew Henry. This prayer comes from his book A Method for Prayer and is meant to be used “At the entrance upon the public worship on the Lord’s day, by the master of the assemblies.” What is most notable to me is how the…
Here is a prayer for the sick or for the spiritually-distressed. It is drawn from the Canadian and American Reformed Church web site. This is a prayer that comes from the perspective of the one so-afflicted and I don’t think it is necessarily meant as a pastoral prayer. It is worth changing the first person…
Last Sunday I posted a great Evening Prayer. This week I want to post an accompanying Morning Prayer. As with last week’s, this one comes from the Canadian and American Reformed Churches web site. I suppose at some point I should write about the value in praying written prayers. But for now, consider making this…
As you know, I enjoy looking for written prayers to pray as my own. I found this one at the web site for the Canadian and American Reformed Churches. It is a prayer meant to be prayed in the evening before retiring to bed. And it’s a good one, I think. It thanks God for…
It is the Lord’s delight to grant us what we ask of him in prayer. Like David, we all ought to pray, “O God, hear my prayer; give ear to the words of my mouth” (Psalm 54:2). If Christians did not believe in the effectiveness of prayer, there would be no reason for us to…
My friend Tim Kerr, pastor of Sovereign Grace Church in Toronto has given me permission to post the manual for prayer he has titled Take Words With You. It is a small book that contains 1600+ scripture promises & prayers to help God’s people pray more effectively. The promises are arranged around the cross–it’s purposes…