Praying with Paul

Romans 8:28-34​

Dear Father, who is totally "for-us,"
How wonderfully reassuring to know that in everything you work for good with those who love you, who are called according to your purpose.
Thank you that whom you foreknew you also predestined to be conformed to the image of your Son, that he might be the first-born among many brethren. Thank you that whom you predestined you also called; those whom you called you also justified; and those whom you justified you also...

 

Romans 8:26-27​

Dear Father, who knows my secrets,
Help me to wait patiently for my redemption. Thank you for giving me your Holy Spirit to make up for the inadequacies of my body and spirit. I know not how to pray as I should, so I praise you for your Spirit, who takes my inexpressible groanings and lifts them to the Lord Jesus, thus sharing in his intercession for me.
I thank you that the Holy Spirit searches out the remotest cranny of my heart, knows me in a way that I cannot...

 

Romans 8:9-15​

Dear Father, who indwells me,
Show me that I do not really live in the flesh, since your Spirit really dwells in me, else I would not belong to you. So with Christ living in me, my spirit is alive because of righteousness, even though my body is dead (doomed for decay!) because of sin.
May the same Spirit which dwelled in Jesus continue to dwell in me and give life to my mortal body. Enable me by the Spirit to put to death the deeds of the sinful body, and thus...

 

Romans 8:15​

Dear Father, creator and re-creator of the world,
Whatever I may have to suffer is nothing compared to the glory you will reveal in your people, and therefore in me.
Your creation waits in eager longing for that better day in which we, your children, shall be revealed in glory. Your glory will be shared with us, and ours with it!
Inwardly, Father, I groan while bearing the frustrations of life and the weakness and pains in my body. I long for the time when the...

 

Romans 7:21-8:1​

Dear Father,
I delight in your law even though evil keeps planting suggestions of rebellion in my mind. Help me to truly want to do what is right in your sight, Father.
Thanks be to you, my God, through Jesus Christ my Lord! You have provided a sufficient answer to the conflict within me - the life and sacrifice of Jesus and his resurrection.
Thank you, Father, that there is now no condemnation for me because I am in Christ!
In the name of Jesus I thank you and...

 

Romans 8:1-8​

Dear Father,
Thank you that there is no condemnation for me now that I am in Christ Jesus. Through the principle of the Spirit of life in him I have been set free from the principle of sin and death.
You, my God, did what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. You sent your own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin. Through him you condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in your people, of which...

 

Romans 7:1-20​

Dear Father,
I have died to the world (and to the idea that I can be justified by keeping a set of rules) through the body of Christ that I might belong to Christ.
He was raised from the dead that I might belong to him and bear fruit in his name. Help me to bear fruit for you in the way I live. Let me serve you in the new life of the Spirit.
Give me strength to resist suggestions to do evil. For even though I want to do good, opportunities to do evil lie close at...

 

Romans 6:19-23​

Dear Father, Master of my life,
As I once yielded my members to impurity and greater and greater iniquity, so now I yield them to you for righteousness and sanctification.
Thank you for setting me free from sin and making me your slave, your rich slave, because the return I get is sanctification and its result, eternal life.
Thank you for your free gift of eternal life in Christ Jesus, my Lord.
In the name of Jesus I thank you for your wonderful grace and all...

 

Romans 6:12-18​

Dear Father, Master of my life,
Help me to yield myself to you as one who has been brought from death to life. Help me yield my members to you as instruments of righteousness.
Let not sin reign in my body, making me obey its passions. Let sin have no dominion over me, since I am not under law but grace.
I praise you, God, that whereas I was once a slave of sin, I became obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which I have committed. Thank you for...

 

Romans 6:1-5​

Dear Father, God of grace,
Shall I continue in sin that grace may abound? Never, never, never! May I never presume that being under grace is a license to sin.
How can I live in sin when, through baptism into Christ, I have died to sin? If I have been baptized into his death, should I not walk in newness of life, even as Christ did when he was raised from the dead by your glory? If I have died with Christ, I will also live with him.
Thank you for the confidence and...