A prayer based on Acts 8:26-40.

<aside> 🙏🏻 Our great God, We give You our praise that Your Son, the Lord Jesus, is risen and ascended and seated at Your right hand on high. You have given Him all authority in heaven and on earth. Authority to save. Authority to judge. We give Him, who is the King of kings and Lord of lords, the glory which is due to His Name.

We praise You that no-one and nothing can stop Him from growing His church. From seeking and saving the lost that He has died for. From adding to the church daily those who are being saved. From opening hearts so that people can respond to the good news about Him. That He is the suffering servant: who willingly was led like a lamb to the slaughter – dying like the animals that were sacrificed at the temple in Jerusalem. who was cut from the land of the living because of the transgression of His people – to pay the penalty their sins deserve. We praise You that because of Christ’s saving work in our lives, we can enjoy all the benefits and blessings His death brings.

We rejoice to know that: Our sins have been forgiven. That we are accepted by You. That our future in heaven is secure. That we have a leader who will lovingly guide us. That we are treasured by You. How we long for friends and family, those in our community and beyond, to have this joy. We thank You that it is not too late for them to put their trust in Jesus and be forgiven.

Lord, we know that only You can save people. And we are glad of this. Because we, ourselves, would be lousy saviours. We confess we are lousy speakers of the Saviour. That we miss opportunities to talk about Jesus. That we beat ourselves up because we didn’t speak when we should have. That we worry about saying the wrong words in the wrong way. That it so often doesn’t occur to us that You have opened a door to proclaim the message of His life, death, and resurrection. That we are disobedient and refuse to say anything. Forgive us we pray.

We thank You that all who are appointed for eternal life will believe. And we thank You that You continue to use us in this process of saving lives. That our poor and weak efforts can be part of the process of bringing people to repentance and faith in Jesus.

So Holy Spirit, we pray that You would help us to be aware of the opportunities before us to tell others about Him. To find ways of engaging with those who have yet to respond by trusting Him with their lives and deaths, And to be ready and able to explain why they need rescue and what Christ has done to save them.

For their good and His glory, we ask these things.

Amen.

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