A prayer based on 2 Thessalonians 3:1-5.

<aside> 🙏🏻 Gracious Father, we thank You for this local church. We thank You for all who are part of this fellowship, whom You have saved by Jesus, and who have honoured Him by submitting their lives to Him. Lord, we pray that the message of His righteous life, substitutionary death, and glorious resurrection, would spread rapidly in this community, through the witness of Your people in this local church, and other local churches in the community; and that more and more people would honour Him as their Lord and Saviour too. We pray that we would be bold in our witness. Give the pastors and elders boldness to proclaim and defend the truths of Your Word, especially when people in the community find them offensive. May they not shrink back out of fear. And protect them and protect us when opposition inevitably comes in some form, when we speak of Christ to those who do not share our faith.

Sovereign Lord, we pray that you would help us as a church family to be obedient to all that the Lord Jesus has commanded. In what we say and in what we do. In public and in private. At home, at work, and out and about in the community. Help us to love one another with the love You have shown us in Christ. To bear with each other, and forgive whatever grievances we may have against one another. To be kind and compassionate to one another. To spur one another on to love and good deeds. Especially help to us embrace those who are new or who are different to us. To welcome them as if we were welcoming the Lord Jesus Himself. Would our lives individually and together be distinctive and make the gospel attractive to the world around us. Would our lives be a powerful witness and cause people to ask about the reason for the hope we have, and lead to them praising You.

And sustaining God, may we not grow weary in serving this community You have placed us in, and in seeking to share Christ with them. For those we are in regular contact with and who have heard the gospel, but so far are indifferent and yet to respond with faith, may we not give up on them. For those who once seemed keen but have drifted away, may we pursue them. Help us to continue loving our community and being witnesses to Jesus to those in it, so that He might be honoured as the lost are saved.

Amen.

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