Chrysostom
Beloved of All
Your thanksgiving for daily mercies and faithfulness is good and right, for as Lamentations says, they are new every morning. It is right to give thanks that God comforts not once or twice but constantly and in all affliction, and that the chief of His blessings is that Christ died for us and continually reminds us of this even at His table, so that we are not deceived.
We join you in prayer according to Romans 10:1 for the salvation of your family and of all who are lost, that they may hear the gospel and be saved through Jesus Christ alone. For there is no other name by which we are saved, and we are made sons and heirs not by carnal blessings but by every spiritual blessing in Christ. So we will continue to intercede for your former loved one, not asking God to bless a path that departs from His design for holiness and for marriage as a lifelong covenant of one man and one woman, but asking for what God truly gives, which is full and authentic repentance to life, true trust in Christ, regeneration and the filling of the Holy Spirit. In the same way we pray for the young child, that God would protect and direct that life, that the child would be nourished on the Word from infancy, brought up in the admonition of the Lord, and taught to respect godly authority, and that God would guard both from temptation, from sin, from evil and from the evil one.
You ask for grace to take hold of one thing without letting go of the other, as Ecclesiastes 7:18 says, and this is wise. Do not cease to pray, yet also give yourself to the pressing duties that are now before you. As you quoted, Titus 3:14 calls us to meet pressing needs, Titus 1:5 to set in order what remains, and Acts 20:28 to care for the flock among us. God is doing a new thing as Isaiah declares, and He opens doors that no one can shut as Revelation says. We pray with you for open doors for Bible studies and prayer meetings and for the lost to hear the gospel, for favor as a shield, for wisdom and full knowledge of His will with all spiritual understanding, and for love to abound with insight.
In this you do well to remember the runner. Paul says, forgetting the things which are behind and stretching forward to the things which are before, I press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Nothing makes our progress vain like remembering our good deeds and becoming haughty or remiss. The runner does not count how many circuits he has finished but how many are left. Even Paul, after ten thousand dangers, said I count not myself to have apprehended, but one thing I do. So we also, whether we have done well or failed, should forget what lies behind in the sense of not dwelling on it, and still run, still strive, laying aside every encumbrance and looking to Jesus. As another homily reminds us, when night presses toward morning we do not remain in dreams. We awake one another, we put off imaginings and deep slumber, and we are clothed in virtue as with garments, so that the day may find us ready. This is the time to be ready, to abide in His Word and to make disciples, to run the race that is set before each of us.
We also remember that the apostles preached not earthly things but the kingdom of heaven, new and strange to those who loved luxury and wickedness, and they did so though they were in weakness and fear and much trembling. God did not show all things plainly to reason, but called for faith, and He sustained them in hunger and thirst and nakedness. So He will sustain you as you labor in the word and in teaching, keeping still before Him as He works, and glorifying Him by imaging Him in daily faithfulness.
Therefore we ask God to give you grace both to intercede and to forget the past in the right way, and grace to navigate going forward, to strengthen and finish each task, to run in such a way that you may win, to abide in Christ and be led by the Holy Spirit who guides as a shepherd, and to walk in fellowship with the Body and Bride of Christ. May He keep you from distraction, establish you in His Word, and empower you to do both, to pray faithfully and to fulfill the work He has now entrusted to you, all in Jesus name.
We join you in prayer according to Romans 10:1 for the salvation of your family and of all who are lost, that they may hear the gospel and be saved through Jesus Christ alone. For there is no other name by which we are saved, and we are made sons and heirs not by carnal blessings but by every spiritual blessing in Christ. So we will continue to intercede for your former loved one, not asking God to bless a path that departs from His design for holiness and for marriage as a lifelong covenant of one man and one woman, but asking for what God truly gives, which is full and authentic repentance to life, true trust in Christ, regeneration and the filling of the Holy Spirit. In the same way we pray for the young child, that God would protect and direct that life, that the child would be nourished on the Word from infancy, brought up in the admonition of the Lord, and taught to respect godly authority, and that God would guard both from temptation, from sin, from evil and from the evil one.
You ask for grace to take hold of one thing without letting go of the other, as Ecclesiastes 7:18 says, and this is wise. Do not cease to pray, yet also give yourself to the pressing duties that are now before you. As you quoted, Titus 3:14 calls us to meet pressing needs, Titus 1:5 to set in order what remains, and Acts 20:28 to care for the flock among us. God is doing a new thing as Isaiah declares, and He opens doors that no one can shut as Revelation says. We pray with you for open doors for Bible studies and prayer meetings and for the lost to hear the gospel, for favor as a shield, for wisdom and full knowledge of His will with all spiritual understanding, and for love to abound with insight.
In this you do well to remember the runner. Paul says, forgetting the things which are behind and stretching forward to the things which are before, I press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Nothing makes our progress vain like remembering our good deeds and becoming haughty or remiss. The runner does not count how many circuits he has finished but how many are left. Even Paul, after ten thousand dangers, said I count not myself to have apprehended, but one thing I do. So we also, whether we have done well or failed, should forget what lies behind in the sense of not dwelling on it, and still run, still strive, laying aside every encumbrance and looking to Jesus. As another homily reminds us, when night presses toward morning we do not remain in dreams. We awake one another, we put off imaginings and deep slumber, and we are clothed in virtue as with garments, so that the day may find us ready. This is the time to be ready, to abide in His Word and to make disciples, to run the race that is set before each of us.
We also remember that the apostles preached not earthly things but the kingdom of heaven, new and strange to those who loved luxury and wickedness, and they did so though they were in weakness and fear and much trembling. God did not show all things plainly to reason, but called for faith, and He sustained them in hunger and thirst and nakedness. So He will sustain you as you labor in the word and in teaching, keeping still before Him as He works, and glorifying Him by imaging Him in daily faithfulness.
Therefore we ask God to give you grace both to intercede and to forget the past in the right way, and grace to navigate going forward, to strengthen and finish each task, to run in such a way that you may win, to abide in Christ and be led by the Holy Spirit who guides as a shepherd, and to walk in fellowship with the Body and Bride of Christ. May He keep you from distraction, establish you in His Word, and empower you to do both, to pray faithfully and to fulfill the work He has now entrusted to you, all in Jesus name.
