A prayer based on Luke 5:1-11.

<aside> 🙏🏻 We thank You our God and Father, that we can come to You. We can come to You with our praise, with our thanks. with our confessions of sin. with our burdens and cares, and with our needs and disappointments. We thank You that we can come to You because You care for us, but also because the way is open to us because Your Son, the Lord Jesus, has died so that our sins can be forgiven, and on the basis of His righteous life, we can be accepted by You.

We praise You for Your Word, for every opportunity we have to read it and especially to hear it preached. It is a delight to hear good preaching, faithful preaching, through which Christ speaks to us. We thank You that His voice is powerful; powerful to wake up those who are dead in their sins and transgressions and bring them to new life. And that His voice has authority to lead and guide us along paths of holiness. May we continue to make most of every opportunity we have to hear Him speak to us.

Lord, we praise You for the good things that You give us to do – for the work we have before us each day. Help us to be diligent and faithful in all our tasks, seeing them as being done for You. Give energy to those whose labour is exhausting. Give concentration to those whose calling demands focus. Give patience to those who interact with different people all day. Give protection to those whose job is dangerous. Above all, may we be a blessing to those we work for and work with. Thank you for all the ways in which You provide for our needs, and we ask that You would continue each day to give us our daily bread.

We thank You that for every opportunities You give us as a church, individually and together, to make Christ known. Help us, if we are feeling weary, to carry on. Help us, if we are downcast because we are not seeing much growth from our efforts, to keep going and to keep being guided by the Word of God. Help us to leave the outcomes with You and to depend on Your goodness. We would dearly would love to see many come to Christ, but if for a time we have ‘caught nothing’, let us not lose heart, but all the more plead for You to show us Your favour. As sinful men and women, we don’t deserve anything from You. We are not worthy of Your kindnesses. But Lord Jesus, You came into the world to save sinners, so we turn again to You. May You be gracious to us and encourage us with fruit. We pray this for our good, but ultimately for Your glory and praise.

Amen.

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