P.R.A.Y
PAUSE
REJOICE & REFLECT
ASK
YIELD
Gather Weekly
Rio’s first core value is to Gather on a Sunday morning. In John 17 we find another reason why gathering is important: That we all may be one.
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
For you alone my soul waits in silence; for from you comes my salvation. (Psalm 62:1) Teach me to trust that as I wait on you, you will continue the work of redemption that you began in me.
We choose to rejoice in God’s grace and love with all God’s people in the words of Psalm 147…
Praise the LORD! For it is good to sing praises to our God; for it is pleasant, and a song of praise is fitting. The LORD builds up Jerusalem; he gathers the outcasts of Israel. He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.
Psalm 147:1-3
John 17 contains the longest recorded prayer we have of Jesus and is an example of the intercession he now lives to make for us. It takes place on the night that he is betrayed. Having shared their last Passover together, and as a preface to the sacrifice he will soon make for all Christians, he prays for them and for us! For, he says, in part:
My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
John 17:20-23
In this prayer, he includes all who will come to know him in the future. He is calling all Christians to unity, that we would be one with each other and with him and the Father. This unity includes being incorporated into one body (with many parts, which we will talk about tomorrow), animated and joined together by the Holy Spirit, with one heart of love towards each other. Obviously, because we are unable to know all the other believers around the world, this prayer will ultimately be fulfilled in heaven, as we come together with all the saints over all generations!
However, in each of our local churches, Jesus calls us to experience and to express this unity now. We are to know and care for each other, and, in corporate worship, to lift up our prayers and praises to our God with one heart and voice. This effectively proves our love for Jesus to a watching and lost world!
My Jesus, it is so easy to come to church only focused on what I will take away from the time there. Will you show me my heart towards other believers at Rio?
Am I actively seeking the unity of this body? Do I seek to know my fellow believers there and encourage them in the faith? Am I holding something against anyone there that is hurting that unity?
Help me to understand my place in your design for this body of believers, so that I can show to the unbelievers around me the beauty of your united church!
Father God, I come to you and ask you to bless my fellow saints at Rio. Would you make us one the way you would desire? Grant us to be strengthened with power through your Spirit in our inner beings, so that Christ would dwell in our hearts through faith. Root us and ground us in your love that we may be filled with all your fullness and overflow in that love to each other (Eph. 3:14-19). Show me this Sunday, someone you want me to introduce myself to, or to befriend in some way. Bring to mind someone I know that has a need that I can lay before you now.
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.
My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
John 17:20-23
I take a moment to marvel at the plan of God and that he would share his glory with me.
Yielding Prayer
Father, the picture you have given us of a church in complete unity with you and each other, especially after the events of the past couple years, feels far off. I know, my Lord, that in failing to actively be a part of the healing, I may have inadvertently become part of the problem. Give me a heart that promotes the unity and love that will make Rio shine with the light of your glory. I yield to your call on my life.
Yielding Promise
And now, as I move into the day ahead, the Lord who has loved me and made me one with himself says to me in Ephesians 4…
There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
Ephesians 4:4-6
Closing Prayer
Lord God, almighty and everlasting Father, you have brought me in safety to this new day: Preserve me with your mighty power, that I may not fall into sin, nor be overcome by adversity; and in all I do direct me to the fulfilling of your purpose; through Jesus Christ my Lord. Amen.1
1Phyllis Tickle, Divine Hours, Prayers for Summertime, (Doubleday: Random House), The Concluding Prayer of the Church, pg 51.