From time to time I like to share an example of a pastoral prayer that was prayed at Grace Fellowship Church. The pastoral prayer is a time for one of the pastors or elders to pray before the congregation and to intercede on their behalf. It’s a precious element of a service. I prayed this prayer earlier this month.

Our Father in heaven, we love you. We have freely proclaimed that here this morning. Yet we also acknowledge that we only love you because you first loved us. On our own, there was nothing in us that was inclined toward you. Our hearts were all turned inward toward ourselves—our own honor, our own glory, our own praise.

But then you acted. You moved. You took the initiative. Your Spirit called us, and drew us, and transformed us so we willingly bowed the knee to you. We willingly turned to you in repentance and faith and praise and worship. And we now gladly and joyfully live for you—your honor, your glory, your praise.

And we pray that we would do that well—that we would live lives that are consecrated to your service, lives that make you look great. We ask that you would continue to transform us from the inside out. Make us so we are no longer conformed to this world but transformed by the renewal of our minds—transformed so that we can do your will—what is good and acceptable and perfect in your eyes.

If you transform our hearts, we know our desires will be transformed and so too our mouths, and our hands, and our feet. If you transform our hearts we will long for what is good, we will think thoughts that are pure, we will speak words that are sweet, we will do acts that are selfless, we will even follow in ways that are difficult or that cut hard against our natural desire for ease.

So please do that work in us. Let us be as holy as men and women can be on this side of heaven. Let our church be as pure and upright as a church can be on this side of eternity. Let our lives display as much as Christ as is possible when we are still so weak and broken and stained by sin. And all of this so you look great, so you prove to us and to all the world the great work that you can do in the lives of broken and sinful people like us.

Father, I want to pray for those in our midst who are going through a time of difficulty. Please be with those who are disappointed with the way their lives are going and who have not experienced some of the blessings they would so dearly love to have—be their sufficiency. Please be with those who are suffering loss—be their comfort. Please be with those who are enduring illnesses—be their strength. Please be with those who may be coming toward the end of their days—assure them that when they leave this place it will be only because you have called them home. And for all of those who are hurt or suffering or disquieted or downcast, let us be present with them and for them—present to help them, present to cheer them on, and present to speak your words of blessing.

Father I want to thank you for the special needs ministry and the great work they do. I pray that those who volunteer in this ministry will serve you with joy and skill. I want to thank you for the mercy and meals ministry and thank you for the many opportunities it provides to be a blessing to others. I want to thank you for the finance ministry and for your kind and generous provision for this church. I want to thank you for the opportunity to evangelize and to tell others about our great Savior Jesus Christ. I ask that in all these ministries we would be bold, we would be kind, and we would be found faithful.

And now as we continue in our worship, and as we open the Word and celebrate the Lord’s Supper, as we profess our faith and sing our praises, please use it all to continue that work of transformation within us so that we can become more and more like our precious Savior Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.

Good morning! Grace and peace to you.

(Yesterday on the blog: To Plumb Depths that Have No Bottom)
Does Romans 7 Describe a Christian?
I’m surprised it took almost 1800 episodes of Ask Pastor John to cover this one.
Freedom not to speak
Janie Cheaney recounts a well-known tale from Acts, then says “The hysteria of crowds hasn’t changed much. I’m reminded of the Ephesian dustup after every widely reported campus disruption, like the one at Yale Law School on March 10.”
My Journey with Jesus
It often does us good to read how others became Christians…
Does Evangelicalism Have a History?
Michael Reeves writes about the history of evangelicalism. And yes, it does have a history.
Is Easter Believable?
This article makes the argument that, indeed, it is.
A Call For “Enlightened Patriotism”
Kevin DeYoung looks to the past and says, “The dream was not a Christian takeover of government, but a nation founded on God-given freedom, shaped by Christian values, and filled with Christian teaching.”
Flashback: I Wish I Was Rich
Rather than spending your days dreaming about what you would do if you had more, spend your days working hard to make a living and then give with joyful generosity.

The sermon always sounds better to me on Sunday when I have had a shake of my minister’s hand during the week. —Theodore Cuyler

Of all the issues related to Christian living, few receive greater attention than knowing God’s will for our lives. Many believers, and especially younger ones, agonize over knowing what God means for them to do and how he means for them to live out their days. Many end up leaning toward a low-grade form of mysticism, longing to receive some kind of a sign from the skies or some kind of a word in their hearts. Many live with hesitation, wondering if they have missed their divine direction and are now experiencing God’s second best. Some end up doing nearly nothing for fear of doing the wrong thing.

But it’s my conviction that many people think wrongly about this matter of knowing God’s will. It’s not that God has no plan for you. It’s not that he means for you to go without any kind of confidence that you are living a life that honors and pleases him. Rather, it’s that God does not mean for you to pry back the curtain of his hidden will. Instead, God means for you to respond to the leading of his revealed will. Generally speaking, where Scripture, providence, and desire converge you can move forward confident that you are doing God’s will. If there are multiple options that exist at that point of convergence, you can confidently choose any of them and trust that God will bless you.
There is another key to knowing and doing the will of God and it’s this: your greatest focus should always be on whatever is plainly his will right now. Better than focusing on what God may have for you a year or a decade in the future is doing what God has provided for you today. For while God’s will for the future may be difficult or impossible to determine, his will for the present is usually not.
Though you may labor in prayer over whether God means for you to marry, what’s clear right now is that he means for you to take full advantage of the opportunities and responsibilities that come with singleness.
Though you may be praying earnestly to know what career God has in mind for you, what’s clear right now is that he means for you to apply yourself to your studies.
Though you may be grappling with whether you should go to seminary, what’s clear right now is that God means for you to grow in godly character and to express it within the local church.
We dishonor God when we focus on tomorrow’s faithfulness at the expense of today’s.
We can get more granular still. You’ve heard it said, I’m sure, that everybody wants to change the world but no one wants to wash the dishes. We tend to focus on the big matters to the neglect of the small. Yet life is lived in the moment and in the minutiae. God’s will is as granular as expressing love by telling your mother “Let me do the dishes tonight” or expressing humility by approaching a friend to say, “I need to apologize to you.” It’s in going the extra mile to serve a cranky customer, in approaching that person who is alone at the end of the church service, in sharing the gospel with a stranger in that moment when you absolutely know it’s the right thing to do. It’s as you learn to embrace God’s will in the small stuff that you are preparing yourself to do it in the big.
The fact is that life is a succession of days and days are a succession of moments. While you may not have utter clarity about what God means for you to do in a month, year, or decade, it’s rarely difficult to discern what God means for you to do right now. The man who is faithful to honor God in each moment cannot possibly be said to have wasted his life and the woman who seeks to do what God has made plain in a day will never be said to have lived without meaning. If you live each moment in obedience you will live each day in obedience, and if you live each day in obedience you will in time live your entire life in obedience. If you are faithful to do God’s will in each moment you’ll eventually do God’s will in a lifetime. And God will be well pleased.