A prayer based on Psalm 4.

<aside> 🙏🏻 Maker of heaven and earth, We praise you, Lord. We trust in you. We depend upon you. For you are our shield, the lifter of our heads, the answerer of our prayers. We thank you that we can cast all our cares upon you because you care for us. You are committed to us. You are able to sustain us and give us relief from our distress. That you are our great Protector. We confess that we often forfeit peace and experience needless pain and have sleepless nights because we do not carry everything to you, who will do right by us, in prayer.

Lord, we want to be like the Lord Jesus, whose confidence was in you alone.

Even when everyone was against Him. The devil. The world. The powerful religious leaders of Israel. His family members who thought He was out of His mind.

Even when He felt the weight of what He came to earth to do. The thought of dying on the cross in the place of sinners to save them from the wrath of God that caused Him to sweat drops of blood. Then actually experiencing that forsakenness.

Thank you He never doubted you. He never stopped trusting in you. And so was delivered from death. We praise you that He has been raised from the grave and if our faith is in Him we will be too. That we can be certain that one day we will be brought safely through death to life in the new heavens and earth.

We lament that so many people in our world, in our nation, in our community, do not have this hope. We mourn over those we know who are currently rejecting you. Our hard-hearted friend. Our disinterested family member. Our ignorant work colleagues. How long will they dishonour you? How long will they keep on ignoring your Son? How long will they keep loving themselves or money or pleasure over Him? How long will they treat your Word as nothing? Why, Lord, are they so foolish in fighting against you? Don’t they see what they are doing? Don’t they know where their sin will take them if they don’t trust in Christ for salvation? We pray that they would be brought to their senses. That they would come to realise that they are fighting against you. That they would grasp how terrifying it will be to face God’s judgment and would stop what they are doing. And examine their hearts. Repent of their sin. And receive the salvation that is on offer to them by trusting in Jesus to save them. Gracious Father, we pray this for any here who have not yet turned from their sins and put their faith in the great Saviour of sinners.

Lord, let the light of your face shine on us. Bless us and keep us. Be gracious to us and pardon our sins. Give us peace in the midst of difficulties, by assuring us that you are with us and for us. Fill our hearts with a joy not based on what our circumstances are. Strengthen us when we find it hard to run the race marked out for us. Reassure us when we wonder whether continuing in the faith is worth it. Hear our prayer.

Amen.

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