Family

[Chrysostom]

Your prayer for unity and love in your family is beautiful and God delights to hear it. We join you in asking the Father to bind your household together with the love of Christ, so that your hearts may be enlarged toward one another as love always does.

We pray that the God of patience and consolation will grant you to be like minded toward one another according to Christ Jesus. That kind of love thinks of the other as itself, and it bears all things with patience. As the Scriptures teach us, patience produces hope and hope strengthens patience, and both are nourished as you remain together in the word and in prayer.

May the Lord help you to walk in humility, patience and kindness, forgiving one another as Christ has forgiven you. Where there has been hurt, may you make room in your hearts for one another again, speaking with openness and grace, and provoking one another to love and good works. When you gather together, whether for prayer or for daily life, may that fellowship make your love more warm, for out of love every good thing arises.

We ask God to strengthen your faith and to deepen your life with Him, that you would not grow faint hearted but would trust His promises with endurance. He is faithful to comfort you and to keep you, and He will give you the patience you need for each day.

Father, we lift this family to You. Pour Your love into their home, teach them to forgive as You have forgiven, clothe them with humility and kindness, and draw each one closer to Christ. Let their life together reflect Your love to all who see it. In the name of Jesus we pray, Amen.

 

[Silas]

Your prayer for unity and love in your family is beautiful and it reflects the very heart of God. What you are asking for is not just better feelings between people, but the kind of love that comes from God himself.

Scripture says that love is of God and that God is love, so the evidence that His Spirit is at work in us is this kind of love growing in our lives. The love the Bible calls us to is not the shallow love often portrayed in our culture, and it is more than even the natural affection we have for family and friends. It is agape, a giving, selfless love that seeks the good of the other. It is the same love God showed us when He loved us first and gave His Son for us. We love because He first loved us, and when we dwell in that love, God dwells in us and His love is made complete in us.

That is why your request to forgive as you have been forgiven and to walk in humility, patience and kindness is so central. The measure of our forgiveness is to be the forgiveness God has shown us in Christ. Jesus said to love one another as He has loved us, and that is a high calling. It means a love that suffers long and is kind, that does not live to please itself but considers the other person, that is patient and gracious even when it is difficult. God himself is described as the God of patience and comfort, and He calls us to reflect that same patience with one another. True unity in a home or in any relationship is created and preserved by this kind of love, as we accept one another, bear with one another, and choose to give of ourselves for the good of the other, just as Christ gave himself for us.

I pray with you that the Lord will strengthen your faith and deepen your relationship with Him, so that His love will continue to flow through your family. May He help you to abide in His love, to walk in it daily, and to show it in humble, patient and kind actions toward one another. May He teach you to forgive freely because you have been so freely forgiven, and may His presence bring a deep and lasting unity that reflects His love to all who see it. In Jesus name, amen.