A Prayer about Being Transformed by Love

by | Aug 29, 2025 | Daily Prayer

A Prayer about Being Transformed by Love

How do we become people marked by the love of God?

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13:13

Shaping Spirit,

Yesterday we meditated on the wondrous love of God. 

Today we ponder how that love changes us. 

We know when we read 1 Corinthians 13 

that it wasn’t originally written for a wedding; 

it was written to gently rebuke the Corinthians 

for a notable lack of love. 

Humbly we come to you, 

asking that your love would change us, 

that we might not be 

“noisy gongs” 

and “clanging cymbals” (1 Corinthians 13:1). 

Through your transforming power, 

may we not become “nothing,” 

people who seem outwardly spiritual 

but who have no love inside (1 Cor. 13:2-3). 

Instead, may we become people 

marked by the love of God:

[With each of these characteristics, name specific situations and/or specific people with whom you’d like to see the Spirit change you]:

Patient and kind 

Does not envy or boast

Is not arrogant or rude

Does not insist on its own way

Is not irritable or resentful

Does not rejoice at wrongdoing

Rejoices with the truth

Bears all things

Believes all things

Hopes all things

Endures all things (1 Corinthians 13:4-7).

Holy Spirit, because the love of God never ends, 

we know you will never stop interceding for us 

to become more loving, 

more like Christ. 

We thank you for this good news 

and pray that we will see the fruit of your love 

blossoming in our lives 

and spreading its fragrant aroma. 

In Jesus’ perfectly loving name. Amen.

Read 1 Corinthians 13. 

A Prayer about Pondering the Depth of God’s Love

by | Aug 28, 2025 | Daily Prayer

A Prayer about Pondering the Depth of God’s Love

Have you thought about how deep God’s love is lately?

Your love, God, is my song, and I will sing it!

I’m forever telling everyone how faithful you are.

I’ll never quit telling the story of your love. Psalm 89:1

Loving Father,

Slow us down in the busy scrolling and scrambling of the day 

to consider, to ponder, to meditate on—

the wonders of your love.

Your love stretches far beyond the limits of the ocean, 

the very ocean you crafted in love (Ephesians 3:18-19).

Your love lasts forever and doesn’t waver daily 

based on our performance (Romans 5:8).

Your love secures us in our salvation 

and is eternally secure for those who trust in you (Romans 8:35-39).

Your love searches us out in our wandering 

and brings us home to your embrace (Luke 15:11-32). 

Your love befriends us in our loneliness 

and comforts us in our sorrow (John 15:15).

Most of all, your love changes us, 

transforming us from self-loving sinners 

who only like to talk about ourselves 

to God-loving saints 

who “never quit telling the story of your love” (Psalm 89:1). 

Loving Father, may we begin today 

swimming in the depths of your love, 

knowing we will never find the bottom.

In Jesus’ loving name. Amen.

Read Psalm 89. 

A Prayer about the Fear that Changes All of Our Fears

by | Aug 27, 2025 | Daily Prayer

A Prayer about the Fear that Changes All of Our Fears

Do you fear the Lord, or are you afraid of the Lord?

Oh fear the Lord, you his saints, for those who fear him have no lack. Psalm 34:9

Holy Father,

We confess, especially in our culture, 

which loves to focus on your 

“nearness to the brokenhearted” (Ps. 34:18), 

we often forget to focus on growing 

in the “fear of the Lord.” 

Some of us also have experienced upbringings 

or ministry leaders 

who darkly threatened us with the Lord’s wrath 

in messages filled with shame and condemnation 

but utterly lacking in the equally true reality 

of your mercy and forgiveness for our sins. 

Help us to settle into a place 

of an appropriate fear of the Lord 

that settles all of our fears.* 

To fear you as our Father, 

the one who has loved and adopted us 

is to desire to please you, 

to honor you, 

to recognize that you are greater 

than all of our fears. 

Because you are the Sovereign, the King, 

who rules over all, 

our souls tremble appropriately 

as we approach you 

even as we claim a hope 

based in the death and resurrection of your Son 

that you will admit us into your presence. 

Holy Father, grow in us a “holy fear.” 

Such fear “delivers us from all our fear” 

and reminds us that you provide all we need (Ps. 34:4, 9). 

Amen.

Read Psalm 34; Matthew 10:28; Proverbs 1:7; Rev. 15:4.

*For a brilliant and readable book on this topic, I highly recommend A Holy Fear: Trading Lesser Fears for the Fear of the Lord by Christina Fox. 

A Prayer about Endurance in Suffering

by | Aug 26, 2025 | Daily Prayer

A Prayer about Endurance in Suffering

Do you need endurance for trials?

I, John, your brother and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. Revelation 1:9

Precious Jesus,

In your Word, and by your Spirit, 

you have given us everything we need 

to persevere in every seemingly new tribulation. 

Even today as we consider Christians 

suffering for their faith throughout the world, 

we are reminded that the apostle John, 

at eighty-four-years-old, 

was sent by the Romans to rot and die 

on the island of Patmos 

because of his “testimony of Jesus” (Revelation 1:9). 

He speaks to your disciples who suffer today

 as a “partner in the tribulation 

and the kingdom 

and the patient endurance that are in Jesus.” 

As one Bible scholar puts it, 

“John does not urge his fellow-Christians 

to seek a means of escape from this tribulation, 

for he understood only too well 

that discipleship means suffering.”* 

Jesus, in light of the suffering of the martyrs 

throughout the ages, 

we pray that you would make us bold 

to partner with those in deep suffering, 

to persevere with the patient endurance 

that is our legacy as your sisters and brothers.

In your enduring name we pray. Amen. 

Read Revelation 1.

*See Graeme Goldsworthy, The Gospel in Revelation, 181. 

A Prayer about Longing for Healing

by | Aug 25, 2025 | Daily Prayer

A Prayer about Longing for Healing

Do you or does someone you know struggle with chronic illness? This prayer is for you or your friend.

“He put mud on my eyes,” the man replied, “and I washed, and now I see.” John 9:14

Healing Lord, 

You know my sweet husband often jokes 

that if either one of us ever woke up and our bodies weren’t in pain, 

we’d know we had died and gone to be with you. 

Today I pray for all who have chronic illness and ailments, 

for those who have visited doctor after doctor, 

sought help from numerous resources, 

hoping for a diagnosis, hoping for a cure.

We confess, we don’t understand why some people 

are healed and others aren’t. 

And yet, we trust that you are merciful and kind, 

that you are working in the midst of affliction, 

just as you worked in the midst of Paul’s thorn in the flesh (2 Corinthians 12:7-10).

Today, give us the courage to pray 

that even if we are not yet healed, 

your grace would be sufficient 

and our suffering would reveal your glory. 

Today, give us the courage to pray for healing 

and to trust that if healing doesn’t come in our bodies or minds, 

it will come in our hearts 

in the form of greater endurance, 

greater faith, 

greater hope (Romans 5:3-5). 

In your redeeming name. Amen. 

Read John 9:1-41; 2 Corinthians 12:7-10.