P.R.A.Y

PAUSE

REJOICE & REFLECT

ASK

YIELD

Personal Worship

Today we remember that through Jesus we are no longer outsiders; we have been welcomed as members of God’s household.

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.

Pause

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

Jesus, let me behold your beauty today. By the power of your Holy Spirit let me experience the grace and love that can only come from a relationship with you.

Rejoice and Reflect

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.

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

Ephesians 2:19-22

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?”

Ephesians 2:19-22

Paul tells believers that they are no longer strangers and aliens but fellow citizens and members of God’s household. Christianity offers more than forgiveness as isolated individuals; it brings us into a people. God joins very different lives together like stones in one building, with Jesus himself as the cornerstone. We cannot fully embrace Jesus while remaining detached from the people Jesus calls his own. The gospel gives us both a new relationship with God and a new family to whom we belong.

Ask

Lord, by the power of the Holy Spirit build me together with all believers to be your dwelling place.

Do I think about salvation mostly individually, or do I recognize that Christ has joined me to his people?
Where am I tempted to remain disconnected from Christian community?
What would it look like for me to live as a committed member of God’s household?
Who could I invite more deeply into my life?

Lord, revive your church by turning strangers into brothers and sisters and spectators into committed members of your household.

Yield

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?

Ephesians 2:19-22

Yielding Prayer

Father, plant me deeply among your people. Give me the humility to be known, the courage to belong, and the willingness to serve.

Yielding Promise

And now, as I move into the day ahead, the Lord who loves me reminds me in 1 Peter 2…

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

1 Peter 2:9-10

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