P.R.A.Y
PAUSE
REJOICE & REFLECT
ASK
YIELD
Personal Worship
We enter into our final week in the Book of 1 John. This week we will look at the truth that God is love.
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
Creator God, you created me from the dust, and to dust, I shall return. As I enter into your presence would you breathe your life into me and reanimate me through your Spirit?
We choose to rejoice in the power of God’s Word, with all his people in Psalm 145:1-3…
I will extol you, my God and King,
and bless your name forever and ever.
Every day I will bless you
and praise your name forever and ever.
Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised,
and his greatness is unsearchable.
Psalm 145:1-3
Today we are reflecting on the words of John in 1 John 4:7-12, where we read:
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
1 John 4:7-12
John leads us out of the truth that God is righteousness and points to the truth that God is love. John’s thoughts about these truths are so seamless that it seems formulaic in his mind. He points us to the idea that God is love so we should love because love is from God. And the Christian’s love does not come from their own might but love flows out of the fact that we have been born of God and know God. He reminds us of the beauty of his love for us that Christ came to die in our stead. That he is the propitiation for our sins. He himself became the sacrifice that will atone for our sins and appease the justice and wrath of God on our behalf. That is the mark of what love is and that is the love we are called to as his people.
Jesus, I ask that I would see the love you have for me today. Would you allow me to refocus my gaze on the fact that the eternal Son of God loves me enough to die for me? Let me experience that love today.
Reflection Questions:
1) What does it mean that God is love?
2) What would it look like for me today to love as Jesus has loved me?
God, awake in your Church a love that can only be from you. Open our eyes to the love you have shown us in your Son Jesus Christ. Revive in us the ethic of love that you have given your people, so that we may be a witness to the watching world.
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…
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
1 John 4:7-12
Yielding Prayer
Lord, I submit to you today. If I am honest with myself loving people to any degree is often difficult and burdensome in my life. I yield to the command you have given me to love as you have loved me. A love that seeks after the messy and the broken. A love that never ceases or gives up. Fill me with your Spirit today so that I can pour out the love that I have been given by you.
Yielding Promise
And now, as I move into the day ahead, the Lord who loves me reminds me in 1 John 4:10..
In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
1 John 4:10
Closing Prayer
Father, help me to live this day out of the love you have bestowed upon me.
Jesus, help me to live this day in love as I abide in you.
Spirit, help me to live this day by loving all those you will put in my path.
Amen.