A prayer based on Acts 5:12-42.

<aside> 🙏🏻 Great and awesome, glorious and holy God, we are amazed that You, who made the world and everything in it; who made us, wants to know us as Your people, and for us to know You as our God. We praise You that You offer to us: adoption into Your family; forgiveness of sins and a right relationship with You; salvation from perishing in hell; and the gift of eternal life.

That you would do this, is simply incredible, because by nature we are all so undeserving of this. We are sinners who have fallen short of Your glory, and have failed to live the lives we were made to live. We are rebels who have rejected Your right to rule over us. We really don’t deserve anything from You, except death and hell. Yet through hearing the gospel – this wonderful good news that You love us and have shown much You do, by sending Your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ into the world to save us.

We thank You that after a living a life of perfect obedience to Your law, He died for our sins. That on the cross, He not only died, but He actually stood in our place – taking upon Himself all our guilt before You; suffering the punishment, we deserve; receiving all Your wrath at our sin until it was paid in full. We thank You that He was raised from the dead so we can know that You have accepted His saving work done on our behalf, and that one day He will come again to judge the world.

Lord, until that day, knowing that all who acknowledge their sin and helplessness, and who put their faith in Christ alone for salvation, You will forgive, declare righteous, and welcome into heaven, help us not to stay silent about this good news. To speak boldly of Jesus’ death and resurrection, and the rescue He gives. May we make Christ known: on Sundays when we gather as a local church; and in our daily lives. To always be at it, because we want everyone to have a chance to respond to this offer of salvation.

Holy Spirit, help us to make the most of every opportunity we have to testify to what Jesus has done, and the hope we have. And to not be surprised when people attack this saving message – taking offense at it. Or avoiding this saving message – letting it pass by them, refusing to investigate the evidence, take time to consider Christ, or being unwilling to count the cost. Also help us to not be surprised when people accept this saving message. Give us the faith to expect this to happen more, as there is no reason to think that You won’t do this in the lives of those we come into contact with, seeing as You’ve done this for us, of which again we are so thankful.

Amen.

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