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.

My thanks goes to The Good Book Company for sponsoring the blog this week. I am so grateful for each and every one of the sponsors who help keep this site going.

Logos has a sale on my recommended bundle of commentaries. Also, be sure to keep voting in March Matchups.
Today’s Kindle deals include a good selection of titles.
(Yesterday on the blog: Now What?)
How the Side B Project Failed
Bethel McGrew writes about the Side B project. “The speed of this decline naturally prompts a question: Was there ever anything to salvage? In its current incarnation, are we witnessing a radical moral turn? Or are we witnessing the inevitable end of an inherently flawed project?”
Lessons in Waiting for Water
“It stands to reason that we who live with the comforts of a first-world society should be the spiritual giants of our time. Think of all of the ways God has blessed us with safety and freedom and opportunity. Imagine how much of our lives could be spent falling on our knees in gratefulness, devouring the Word with expectation for what He will do next. Consider how much time we have to study, to worship, to pray, to reflect on the goodness of God when we don’t have to struggle to survive.” But…
The Story Isn’t Finished
Sarah writes very openly here. “Most of my fifteen years of motherhood have been spent sitting outside or inside my precious child’s room, trying to protect him by keeping him (and I) safe as his illness turned him into someone he couldn’t control. Fifteen years of traumatic memories and experiences I must carry mostly alone due to its nature.”
What does it mean to rejoice always, even with all the evil in the world?
Sinclair Ferguson: “To rejoice always doesn’t mean that we rejoice in the evil. It doesn’t mean that we like suffering, although we rejoice even in suffering. The basic explanation is that we rejoice in all circumstances because we have a reason to rejoice—and that reason is our Lord Jesus Christ.”
The Fears and Hopes We Sing in Lullabies
Nadya Williams writes about lullabies from her childhood. “So goes one of the melancholy lullabies I remember from my Russian childhood, and which I have been singing to my own children over the years out of habit, out of love, and out of the sense that at the end of the day, as they fall asleep, songs in a language they do not know still somehow speak more powerfully than spoken words in a language familiar to them.”
Love Letters of Scripture
This article considers the evident love in Scripture”s letters. “I want to have that kind of joy in my life. I want to rejoice in all that the Lord has given me with a humble spirit and a grateful heart. Paul’s letters are loving reminders of the gift of our salvation through belief in Jesus Christ.”
Flashback: It Takes a Church To Raise Your Child
The proverb demands more than allowing others to troubleshoot my children’s poor behaviour. It invites others to provide input into the development of their character.

Humility is the only soil in which true unity can grow. Only when Christ is more precious to us than our own reputations will we give up our petty rivalries and personal agendas. Only when his glory eclipses all else will we live for his cause and no other. —Michael Reeves

Blessings to you today!

There is yet another batch of Kindle deals for you this morning.
(Yesterday on the blog: Shaken to Bear Fruit)
Who Was David Brainerd?
Dustin Benge has written a nice little introduction to David Brainerd. “On a spring day in 1747, mounted on his horse, a frail twenty-nine year old David Brainerd (1718–1747) rode into the yard of the Northampton parsonage of New England pastor Jonathan Edwards. Before this day, Brainerd and Edwards were relative strangers to one another. However, the summer of 1747 nurtured a growing friendship between the two men culminating in one of the most influential missionary biographies in the history of American evangelicalism.”
Love Without Limits
This is sweet. “I learned that the heart is infinitely expandable—limitless, even—with no bottom or edges or measuring devices attached. I learned that I could add and add and add people to my circle of family or friends and I would never run out of love to give. I learned that I could love many people equally, and loving one person intensely due to some temporary circumstance never had to mean that another would suffer from any lack of love from me. I learned that even when I thought I couldn’t love any harder, or more expansively, or deeper … I could.”
We Love to Give Gold Stars
Ryan Higginbottom: “When we obsess about the ethics of every action of a character in a Bible passage, we are likely to miss the main point. We should investigate why the author wrote this passage in this way; if they were not concerned with parsing the moral grade of a character’s actions, we should not be either.”
What South Asian Christians Do During Diwali
“It’s Diwali,” Aileen told me early yesterday morning when fireworks woke us up just after midnight. This article from CT tells what Christians in South Asia do during the holiday. And the article makes me think of what I’ve taken for granted: that the holidays in Canada are all just fine for Christians to celebrate. Not so everywhere in the world!
How Tall Was Goliath? A Textual Dilemma
How tall was Goliath? The answer isn’t quite as straightforward as we may think.
Greek Grammar and Trinitarian Worship
This is a good article from Adriel Sanchez.
Flashback: Why I Owe Everything To Don Lewis
If we trace the Christian faith of all these people—perhaps 40 or 50 of us now—they all eventually converge on Don Lewis. They all converge on a young man who simply and faithfully shared the gospel.

Persecution has never hurt the church…only prosperity. —Paul Washer