To Remain in Him–a Prayer for Your Heart
A Prayer to Abide
“Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine and you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” John 15:4-5
The Thin Place
We walk this in this thin place of living in this world while knowing our home is in the next. It’s a thin place because it’s far too easy to slide into living and doing according to the world’s philosophies or to lean so far the other way that we cannot relate to those around us.
The key to living in the thin place is abiding. I know this world knocks us around and we wrestle between flesh and spirit. Will we trust God in the midst of trouble or will we accuse him of abandoning us? And if we choose to accuse then we miss an opportunity to grow in our faith. We must remain in him.
Remain in Him
Abiding in Christ is to remain in him when life sparkles and when life darkens. It’s what enables us to walk by faith when we cannot see and to believe when we don’t understand. It’s remaining when leaving tempts us.
In order to remain in him, we must choose endurance, dependence, and obedience.
Endurance:
To choose grit over quit. Endurance isn’t glamorous, but it leads to some pretty spectacular results.
Dependance:
Wait on God for the outcome. Dependence looks a lot like waiting on God for his outcome.
Obedience:
To obey is to trust God at his word. If he says to love, then love and trust him to supply. If he says to forgive, then forgive and trust him to enable.
Let’s pray:
Holy God,
You are mighty and most worthy of praise. I adore you, Lord, and thank-you for who you are. You are grace and kindness and mercy. Goodness and beauty. Lord, I want to abide in you and remain in you because that is the secret to living this life well for you. This life surprises me with its beauty and its ferociousness, but you are the constant through it all.
Help me to choose you in the face of deep disappointment and to recognize you in the light of great achievement. You are my everything and I worship you. God, I choose grit, dependence, and obedience. Give me the strength to endure. Help me find my strength in dependence on you, and guide me in obedience.
You are God, my rock and my refuge, and I am forever enamored by you. May your face shine upon me and your glory overwhelm me. Let me be caught by your goodness and mercy and may I forever depend on you.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
A Prayer for Cups to Overflow in Your Life
Cups overflow or empty?
Our identity in Christ covers three basic needs: significance, security, and acceptance. It’s out of these three things that our ability to minister to others without experiencing twisting and turning based on their approval or disapproval flows. But so often, we forget who we are in Christ. We begin to think that the answers to this world’s difficulties rests on our ability to provide answers and service.
But the picture in Psalm 23 of the good shepherd, leading me by still waters, through death’s valley, and near pain’s shadow that I realize that it’s not up to me to carry all the burdens. I am weak and weary. Exhausted from the battle. It’s here, in the presence of my enemies, that I realize that God’s abundance in the midst of mess is for me and for you.
Our Cups Overflow
Further into Psalm 23 we read that He anoints our heads with oil and makes our cups overflow. In ancient Eastern culture, hosts anointed their guests with perfume as a sign of honor. The host would give their guest a cup and then were careful to fill it till it overflowed. This implied that while in the host’s presence the guest would have all the abundance the host could offer.
This is a beautiful picture of what it looks like when we abide in Christ. Our cups overflow as we hold our cup upright to receive from him. But so often, when we see the urgent in our life, we run around, holding our cups in a pouring position. Then, when cups run dry, we dash back to the Father for more filling. But what if we changed the position of our cups? What if we held them always in the upright position? This would allow the overflow of what God is doing in our lives to flow to those around us.
Our agendas would change. No longer would we treat our quiet time as a fill-up station, only pulling up for refuel when we’re empty. No longer would we feel the burden of the world’s cares on our shoulders and be overwhelmed by the great needs around us. Our position would be one of upturned cups, being continually filled and overflowing into the lives around us throughout our day.
Hold Your Cups Upright
This position, of holding our cups upright and realizing the overflow that comes from being together with Christ in every moment, releases us from the burden that service sometimes brings. Instead, we find ourselves able to do more than we ever imagined because our cups are always full.
Carrying our cup upright allows it to overflow into other’s emptier vessels. We discover that our confidence has nothing to do with our strengths. At the same time we learn that our insecurities don’t have to bind us to inaction.
Hold your cup upright and receive this blessing:
“For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that our of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3:14-19 NIV
Other Prayers
A Prayer to Find Joy When Joy is Hard to Find
We help one another find joy because of our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Let’s keep walking in faith as we live in our present. Sometimes our “nows” fill us with excitement, and other times they fill us with trepidation. But God, in his infinite wisdom, gives us each other, the body of Christ, to strengthen and encourage and love one another.
Is your summer filled with joy? Or do you find yourself shaking your head in disbelief as you race to keep up with the days? God holds time in his hands as well as our hearts so we can trust him with these days.
Find Joy Scripture
In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” 1 Peter 1:6-9 ESV
Joy and grief rest side by side. Trials and faith work hand in hand. Fire and praise pull a response from our lips. We don’t see yet we do. This is the mystery of knowing God. It is the infinite wonder of a life surrendered to him. That we might know the fullness of the love of God and the ability to rejoice even when life takes our breath away.
How do we explain this joy? In these verses, Peter writes that it’s the type of joy that is inexpressible. It’s a joy that must be experienced to be understood. And to understand it, we must live our lives fully aware to our circumstances.
So in the days of busy and crazy, remember to breathe. Let’s inhale and exhale. See the sunrise and sunset. And always remember God is with us in the good and the hard. Joy shines when we remember your goodness to us.
Prayer to find Joy
Holy God,
We say, Holy, Holy, Holy are you, Lord. Your ways are higher than ours and yet, your thoughts are tender towards us. God, we ask that you would pour inexpressible joy on us as we believe you for peace, goodness, and your timing in our circumstances. How you love us and so we love you back.
Lord, we grieve. We grieve over our losses and disappointments, our wounds and our pains. We hold our brokenness up to you and surrender the pieces of shattered dreams to your healing touch. Touch us with your love that we might rejoice and bring you glory and honor as you reveal yourself to us.
Lord, we adore you. We surrender because you are love and even when we cannot see you, we trust you. Fill us with your joy as we walk in faith.
In Jesus’ name,
Amen
From the Joy Series: