Pastoral Prayer by Paul Meeks

Our gracious and loving Heavenly Father, we come to You this morning in the name of Jesus, our Lord and Savior.  We come, not as strangers or foreigners, but  we're Your children and You're our Father.  We were not part of the family at one time, but we've been born again and made part of Your family, and because of that we have the wonderful prospect of living with You through all eternity in heaven.  What a bright future we have.

We thank You today for Your faithfulness and Your mercy and grace.  You're always there when we need You.  You've never turned us away and You've never failed us.  You've never failed to fulfill Your promises to us and to Your world.  In our troubles and trials and when the road seemed long, You've been right there with us and You've helped us through, and we give You thanks and praise today.  Thank You, Lord, for all You've done for us, but most of all we thank You for Who and What You are.

We want to tell You that we earnestly want to do Your will and fulfill Your plans and purposes for us.  We're available because we've surrendered our lives to You and You can do with us whatever You choose.  We're all busy with the business of living in the here and now.  We have jobs, we have families, we have responsibilities, we get involved in all kinds of things, some of vital importance and some of them are only trivial.  So help us, Lord, to put first things first.  Help us to keep our priorities straight.  Help us to seek first Your Kingdom and righteousness and let the other things fall into their rightful places.  Help us to make the right choices that will count for eternity.

We pray for the needs of our people today.  We've all come with individual and very personal needs.  Maybe nobody on earth knows about the struggles and burdens they're facing, but You know and You invite us to bring everything to You in prayer.  So, we each reach out to You and we know that You're already reaching out to us.  We ask You to meet our needs this morning and give us the assurance that You're answering our prayers.  We pray for many different kinds of physical needs, financial needs, there are those with emotional needs.  Some need healing of relationships.  Whatever they are, Lord, we bring them to You, because You can do something about them.

We pray for our community and those that are all around us.  We pray for our government officials and those in rulership over us.  We pray for divine wisdom and the ability to lead justly and wisely.  We pray for our president and those in our national government.  We pray for a revival of godliness and righteousness and holiness in our country and for the forces of evil to be defeated.

We pray for Your Word as it preached around the world this very day and for those of our brothers and sisters particularly in countries that don't enjoy the freedom that we have.  We pray for the team that have gone to Guyana and are ministering probably even during this very time as we're meeting here in our services today.  Prosper the cause of their endeavors and make them effective.

We pray for our pastor as he preaches in the services this morning.  We ask for your divine anointing on him and the words he speaks and may we all have open and obedient hearts.

We pray in the name of Jesus.  Amen.