A prayer based on Colossians 1:15-23.

<aside> 🙏🏻 We praise You our God and Father, that Your Son, Jesus Christ is supreme. Pre-eminent. No-one is like Him. No-one is better than Him. No-one is bigger than Him. And no-one rules over everything like He does.

We praise You that He is the true image of God. The One who is the exact representation of Your being. The One who has made You known by becoming flesh and dwelling on this earth.

We praise You that He is our Creator. Not just our Creator but the Creator of all things and for whom all things were made. In heaven and on earth. From the galaxies and planets to fleas and foxes and everything in between. Visible and invisible. All the spiritual beings, all the angels whether good or bad.

We praise You that He is our sustainer. The One in whom all things hold together. Stopping this universe from falling into chaos.

How we marvel that Jesus is the man who is God. Who is supreme over all. And as we recognise this, we also recognise our foolishness. Because gracious Father, so often we put our hopes, our security, our happiness in created things made by Him and for Him and held together by Him. We give our worship and adoration to these lesser things instead of to Him who is over all. Forgive us we pray. How grateful we are that salvation comes from the Lord and therefore is found in Jesus.

Thank you Jesus that though we are alienated; far from God; separated from Him by our sin. Though our thoughts and actions were evil. Though we were hostile enemies of God, and deserving of God’s punishment of hell. You have reconciled us.

That on the cross, as You died, You were treated as if You were us. As someone who was an enemy of God, whose behaviour was evil, and You took all the punishment our sin deserved in order to lift us to a place of safety outside the horror of hell. And so we might be seen by God as holy, without blemish and free from accusation, and have the hope of being welcomed into the new creation.

What love, what kindness You have shown to us. Again, it is to our shame that we lose our amazement at who You are and what You’ve done. That we go through the motions.

So, we pray now that by Your Spirit you will thrill our hearts with truth about who Jesus is. That we would continue in our faith. That we would be established and firm, not shifting from the hope held out in the gospel.

In Christ’s supreme Name we pray.

Amen.

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