P.R.A.Y
PAUSE
REJOICE & REFLECT
ASK
YIELD
Personal Worship
We begin a two-week series on heaven and see how our future shapes and defines our lives.
Together we will pray (P.R.A.Y.) each day – ‘P’: Pausing to be still as we come into the presence of the Lord. ‘R’: Rejoicing as we remember who our God is and what He has done, and Reflecting on His word. ‘A’: Asking God to help us and others. And ‘Y’: yielding to His will in accordance with His word.
As I come before you to pray, I still my thoughts and quiet my mind. I seek to make you the center of my focus.
Prayer of Approach
Lord, lift my eyes to heaven this week. Let me experience who you are and who I am in the midst of your Word and prayer. Teach me and correct me. Fill me with your Holy Spirit.
I choose to rejoice, with all God’s people, in the powerful promise that God gives us in Psalm 84…
How lovely is your dwelling place,
O Lord of hosts!
My soul longs, yes, faints
for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and flesh sing for joy
to the living God.
Psalm 84:1-2
As you read the passages below, ask the Lord to cause a word or phrase to stand out to you.
“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way to where I am going.” Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”
John 14:1-7
As I reread the passage, I reflect on the questions, “How is my life touched by this word?” and “How does this passage connect with my life?”
“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way to where I am going.” Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”
John 14:1-7
As Jesus knew his time on this earth was coming to an end, he gave the disciples this incredible promise. That he, the eternal Son of God, is going to prepare a place for them. Heaven is real, and Jesus is getting it ready. In all of the uncertainty of this life, this is what we can hold onto. Our future is secure because it is in his hands.
Lord, let not my heart be troubled. Give me a belief in who you are. That you are the God who loves me and desires eternity with me.
Lord, revive your people again. In the midst of the affairs of this world, would you pour out your Holy Spirit? Light the fire and the flam,e and let all come under the name of your glory.
As I read the passage for the final time, I listen to how the Lord is inviting me to respond to him. Where in my life do I need to yield in obedience to what he has for me?
“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way to where I am going.” Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”
John 14:1-7
Yielding Prayer
Lord, I thank you that you go to prepare a place for me. In obedience I long for that home. Let me live differently today because I know what my future holds.
Yielding Promise
And now, as I move into the day ahead, the Lord who loves me reminds me in John 14…
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.
John 14:15-17
Closing Prayer
Lord, enable me, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to love you today with all of my heart, soul, mind, and strength; and to serve you today, by loving and caring for others as I do my own self; and, to exalt you today, by telling the people in my world about the abundant and eternal life found only through faith in Jesus