P.R.A.Y
PAUSE
REJOICE & REFLECT
ASK
YIELD
Personal Worship
Today we are introduced to the truth that God is righteousness.
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, I approach your throne today in total confidence. I come to you confidently in prayer, not in my own merit or worth, but the only confidence I have is that Jesus, your beloved Son, suffered and died on my behalf. His blood is my access to you and it’s in his name alone that I pray.
We choose to rejoice in the power of God’s Word, with all his people because Jesus taught us to pray like this Matthew 6:10…
Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Matthew 6:10
Today we are reflecting on the words of John in 1 John 2:29 where we read:
If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him.
1 John 2:29
John will now shift his focus. This next section will begin John’s treatment of the fundamental connection between knowing God and doing righteousness. Why? Because God is righteousness. And if we are born again in him we are his children and children look like their fathers.
Righteousness seems hard to find in our current world and it was the same for the people that John was writing to in their day. So what does it mean that God is righteousness? He is sinless and always does what is right. In other words, he is what we are not. But when he calls us into his family he gives us a new life where we are born of him. We are now in his power called to practice righteousness just like he does.
Lord, I ask that you would show me your righteousness. The world and the distractions of this life cloud my vision of who you are. Show me who I am in light of you. Reveal my desire to run from righteousness and define it for myself. Show me where my desire is for the world’s tainted view of righteousness and I disregard yours.
Reflection Questions:
1) How would I define righteousness?
2) What would it look like for me to practice righteousness?
Our Father and our God, I come to you now to ask for revival in our nation. I pray that your Spirit would fall on your Church. Would you wake us from our slumber and free us from our love of this world? I ask that you would manifest yourself in a supernatural way in this season of time and draw all people to yourself. Come in such power and glory that we would know that this was of you and not the work of human hands. Hear the cry of my heart and respond oh Lord!
As I read the passage again slowly, I listen for anything that You would say to me in it. Help me see how to position my life in order to yield to your word…
If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him.
1 John 2:29
Yielding Prayer
Lord, I surrender my life to you. I yield to your definition of righteousness in my life. Give to me a desire to practice righteousness that is of you. I need you to do that in me. I lay down the world’s expectations of me and I live only to please you. Spirit fill me with your power that courageously seeks to be righteous in a world that is not. I need you to transform my sinful nature to one that longs to be righteous as you are righteous.
Yielding Promise
And now, as I move into the day ahead, the Lord who loves me reminds me in Romans 6:18…
and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.
Romans 6:18
Closing Prayer
Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks of me,
Christ in the eye that sees me,
Christ in the ear that hears me. Amen.1
1Saint Patrick