prison ministry
Servant
Dear Heavenly Father,
You are a gracious and merciful God, whose love is unending. You are always patient with me, forgiving me time and time again. I am so thankful for Christ’s death, which opened the curtain into your presence, allowing me to call you Abba.
I come before you today to pray for Joshua Watermeyer. I thank you Lord that you have provided the ram as a substitutionary sacrifice (Genesis 22:14). I confess that I so often pray about his health and behavior more than anything else. I’ve prayed for his healing from illness. I’ve prayed for particular behavioral changes. I’ve asked for help and wisdom in dealing with tantrums and defiance and in weeding out discontent and selfishness.
But increasingly, I’ve come to see that while those prayers are good, that you hear them and accept them, there is one prayer that stands above them all. While asking for healthy bodies and good behavior certainly makes my life easier, it doesn’t address his most serious and deadly ailment: his heart.
The most important prayer I can pray for him is that he would see his sin and need for you. I ask that you humble him before you. Pierce his heart so he would see his need for the gospel of grace. I pray that he would know there is nothing he can do to earn your love or to keep your love. Each time he stumbles into sin, draw him back to the gospel and foot of the cross. I pray that he would be overcome and overwhelmed by your love for him, that his love in response would overflow beyond measure.
I pray, along with Paul, that he would know the hope that is his in Christ. I ask that your Spirit would enlighten him, grant him wisdom and understanding. Give him a desire to know you more deeply and intimately.
You have been teaching my own heart that change happens from the inside out. Help me to parent in this way. I ask that you would give me grace to speak to his heart and model the grace of the gospel in all my interactions with him. Please keep me from being a barrier between him and you.
I thank you for the power of the gospel. May it be the motivation for my children’s growth in you as well as my own. I thank you that because of Jesus Christ, all is grace.
In Jesus’ name, Amen
You are a gracious and merciful God, whose love is unending. You are always patient with me, forgiving me time and time again. I am so thankful for Christ’s death, which opened the curtain into your presence, allowing me to call you Abba.
I come before you today to pray for Joshua Watermeyer. I thank you Lord that you have provided the ram as a substitutionary sacrifice (Genesis 22:14). I confess that I so often pray about his health and behavior more than anything else. I’ve prayed for his healing from illness. I’ve prayed for particular behavioral changes. I’ve asked for help and wisdom in dealing with tantrums and defiance and in weeding out discontent and selfishness.
But increasingly, I’ve come to see that while those prayers are good, that you hear them and accept them, there is one prayer that stands above them all. While asking for healthy bodies and good behavior certainly makes my life easier, it doesn’t address his most serious and deadly ailment: his heart.
The most important prayer I can pray for him is that he would see his sin and need for you. I ask that you humble him before you. Pierce his heart so he would see his need for the gospel of grace. I pray that he would know there is nothing he can do to earn your love or to keep your love. Each time he stumbles into sin, draw him back to the gospel and foot of the cross. I pray that he would be overcome and overwhelmed by your love for him, that his love in response would overflow beyond measure.
I pray, along with Paul, that he would know the hope that is his in Christ. I ask that your Spirit would enlighten him, grant him wisdom and understanding. Give him a desire to know you more deeply and intimately.
You have been teaching my own heart that change happens from the inside out. Help me to parent in this way. I ask that you would give me grace to speak to his heart and model the grace of the gospel in all my interactions with him. Please keep me from being a barrier between him and you.
I thank you for the power of the gospel. May it be the motivation for my children’s growth in you as well as my own. I thank you that because of Jesus Christ, all is grace.
In Jesus’ name, Amen
