Chrysostom
Beloved of All
Your desire to abide in Christ and to have His words abide in you is good and right, and we join with you in asking that the Lord would open your understanding as He did for His disciples, that you might understand the Scriptures.
We thank God with you that Jesus lives to make intercession for those who come to God through Him, and that He is able to save completely. It is in His name alone that we have access to the Father, and we rest our prayers there, for there is no other way of salvation.
We hear your longing for the Holy Spirit to speak and to guide your family, and for your wife and children and extended family to be kept from evil and brought into the light. We pray with you for this husband and for his wayward wife, for their children and household, and for all who minister alongside them, that God would grant repentance where there has been wrongdoing, healing where there has been wounding, and steadfast love that reflects Christ and His church. Marriage is honorable and ordained by God as a lifelong covenant of one man and one woman, and it is to be kept pure. Holiness in marriage is a chaste and orderly life together, not permitting defilement, but preserving the holiness that comes through faith. We ask the Lord to establish peace in this home and to lead both husband and wife to follow peace with all people and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord.
Concerning visions and dreams, we encourage you to hold fast to what is most sure. The Word of God is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path, and the prophet says to speak according to the Law and the Testimony. God is sovereign and can warn and direct as He wills, as He did in former times, yet our confidence is not to be placed in seeking extraordinary experiences, but in hearing the gospel preached, in receiving the Scriptures, and in walking in obedience. When the heart is ordered by reverence for God, by moderation and prayer, even sleep becomes settled and regular, and dreams are not full of wild fancies and troubling visions, but the mind remains collected and wakeful to do the will of God. Let us therefore put off the imaginings and deep slumber of this present life and be clothed with virtue, giving ourselves to what is comely and to attending upon the Lord without distraction.
So we pray that the Lord would give you a pure heart and a sincere faith and a good conscience, that you would be kept from temptation, from deception and from the evil one, and that you would know His incomprehensible peace as you make your requests known to Him with thanksgiving. May He grant you all things needed for life and godliness as you grow in the knowledge of Christ, and may He keep you from using Christian freedom as an occasion for excess, but rather to use all things with moderation to His glory.
We ask that Christ would be invited and honored in your home above all else, that your lives would be marked by gentleness, modesty and gravity, and that your hope would remain fixed on the day that is drawing near, when we must be found ready and watchful. May the Lord establish you in love, confirm you in truth, and bring your whole household to walk faithfully with Him.
We commit you to God and to His Word, asking these things in the name of Jesus, in whom all the promises of God are Yes and Amen.
We thank God with you that Jesus lives to make intercession for those who come to God through Him, and that He is able to save completely. It is in His name alone that we have access to the Father, and we rest our prayers there, for there is no other way of salvation.
We hear your longing for the Holy Spirit to speak and to guide your family, and for your wife and children and extended family to be kept from evil and brought into the light. We pray with you for this husband and for his wayward wife, for their children and household, and for all who minister alongside them, that God would grant repentance where there has been wrongdoing, healing where there has been wounding, and steadfast love that reflects Christ and His church. Marriage is honorable and ordained by God as a lifelong covenant of one man and one woman, and it is to be kept pure. Holiness in marriage is a chaste and orderly life together, not permitting defilement, but preserving the holiness that comes through faith. We ask the Lord to establish peace in this home and to lead both husband and wife to follow peace with all people and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord.
Concerning visions and dreams, we encourage you to hold fast to what is most sure. The Word of God is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path, and the prophet says to speak according to the Law and the Testimony. God is sovereign and can warn and direct as He wills, as He did in former times, yet our confidence is not to be placed in seeking extraordinary experiences, but in hearing the gospel preached, in receiving the Scriptures, and in walking in obedience. When the heart is ordered by reverence for God, by moderation and prayer, even sleep becomes settled and regular, and dreams are not full of wild fancies and troubling visions, but the mind remains collected and wakeful to do the will of God. Let us therefore put off the imaginings and deep slumber of this present life and be clothed with virtue, giving ourselves to what is comely and to attending upon the Lord without distraction.
So we pray that the Lord would give you a pure heart and a sincere faith and a good conscience, that you would be kept from temptation, from deception and from the evil one, and that you would know His incomprehensible peace as you make your requests known to Him with thanksgiving. May He grant you all things needed for life and godliness as you grow in the knowledge of Christ, and may He keep you from using Christian freedom as an occasion for excess, but rather to use all things with moderation to His glory.
We ask that Christ would be invited and honored in your home above all else, that your lives would be marked by gentleness, modesty and gravity, and that your hope would remain fixed on the day that is drawing near, when we must be found ready and watchful. May the Lord establish you in love, confirm you in truth, and bring your whole household to walk faithfully with Him.
We commit you to God and to His Word, asking these things in the name of Jesus, in whom all the promises of God are Yes and Amen.
