Pay for my friend.

[The Encourager]

May God in Jesus' name answer your prayer request according to God's perfect love, wisdom, will, timing, grace, and mercy. God is so in love with you. Be Encouraged!

Psalm 37:4: Delight yourself in the Lord, And He shall give you the desires of your heart.
Matthew 6:33: But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.

Prayer Focus: God, Thank You for loving me. Thank You for loving me, Jesus. God, I ask You in Jesus’ name please bless me with everything that I stand in need of and everything You want me to have. God bless me to prosper, walk in excellent health, and never stop growing in the love, grace, wisdom, and knowledge of Christ Jesus. God bless me to know You in truth, fall in love with You with all my heart, mind, soul, body, and strength and never fall out of love with You. God, bless me to have an ever growing closer stronger, more intimate relationship with You. Bless me with the love, desire, strength, and the spirit of obedience to always delight myself in You, seek first Your kingdom, Your righteousness, and to always respect and obey You. Bless me to know You, the way You want me to know You. So that I will trust You with my life and anyway that You move in my life. Bless me to trust You with all my heart, lean not to my own understanding, acknowledge You in all my ways, and allow You to direct my footsteps and actions. Bless me with knowledge, wisdom, and understanding in all You have called me to do.

God heal me in every area of my life. Deliver and cleanse me of everything in my life that doesn't honor You. Transform and renew my mind. Bless me with love, power, and a sound mind. Let the mind that is in Christ Jesus be in me. Bless me to have and operate with a God-conscious-solution-focused-heart-mind-spirit-and-attitude. Bless me to have a God Kingdom Culture Mentality. God be with me as a mighty warrior. Let no weapon formed against me prosper. Protect me from all the plans of my enemies and the plans of the enemy of my soul. God, all that I have asked of You, in this prayer, please do the same for the writer of the prayer, all those who love and care about me, and all those I love and care about. God, please forever honor this prayer over each of our lives. God Thank You. Amen, so be it by faith, and by faith, it is so. Prayer written by The Encourager-Prayer Warrior-Board Certified Professional Christian Life Coach. www.theencourager.net

Heal Me Lord Jesus Spirit, Soul, And Body

Healed Spirit Soul And Body

be-an-encourager.blogspot.com

 

[Chrysostom]

Your burden for your friend has been heard and we join you in lifting her before the Lord with you. We thank you for loving her enough to bring her sorrow to prayer when she feels she cannot pray for herself.

We hear how weary she is. She has walked with God for a long time and now trials keep coming from work and from people close to her, and she feels that joy and happiness have not come. She says she wants only to be alone in peace, that she has not found the love she longed for since childhood, and she wonders what she has done wrong before God. She even says she needs nothing from God now and that He may take her breath if He wills. This is the voice of deep discouragement, and it is right to bring it into the light of prayer.

Scripture teaches that trials do indeed befall us in this life, but the consequences of the trials need not overcome us, and this is through the power and grace of God. Patience works probation and probation hope, as it is written. Those who have passed through many dangers and were recovered through hope in God learn to hold more firmly to that hope in all things. The present moment is short and momentary compared to what is eternal. Even if one is racked with many troubles, the hope of what God has promised can carry him through, while a life of ease without that hope has no true peace.

For that reason we must not despair of our salvation while we still live. Today, while it is called Today, there is hope. As long as we are in this world, Today is still in season for turning to God, for being restored, and for finding mercy. The enemy never despairs of our destruction, and we should not despair of the mercy that God freely offers. We are saved by hope, and hope that is seen is not hope. Much of what God has promised is still matter of hope, and that hope is sure because He who promised is faithful. He has already shown His love by finding us when we were lost and making us His children through Jesus Christ alone. If He did that for us when we were far off, how will He fail us in what is to come. He both allows trials and withholds judgment for a time, calling us to trust that He sees and will bring all things to His just and merciful end.

We also hear her words about love and sexual sin, about being given to the wrong hands and falling. We want to speak with gentleness and truth here. God created marriage as a lifelong covenant of one man and one woman, and He has given sexual union as good and holy within that covenant alone. Outside of it, we are called to purity, not because God withholds love from us, but because He loves us and calls us to what is holy and good for us. No human relationship, right or wrong, can make us fall without our own consent, and no loneliness must drive us to what God calls sin. There is forgiveness and cleansing through Jesus Christ alone when we confess and turn from sin, and there is grace to walk in purity going forward, whether God in His wisdom leads to a godly marriage or calls us to serve Him in singleness. Peace is not found in simply being away from people or in being left alone, but in being reconciled to God and walking in His way.

So we will pray for her in this way, and we invite you to keep praying with us and to keep reaching out to her with patient love. Do not let her remain alone in her isolation, but gently keep the door open, encourage her to stay near the fellowship of believers and to speak honestly with a trusted pastor or mature believer where she is.

Let us pray. Father in heaven, we come through Jesus Christ Your Son, who alone is our salvation and our hope. You see this daughter who is weary and discouraged, who works far from home to care for her family and who feels pressed on every side. Have mercy on her and lift her eyes to You. Forgive her sins and ours, and wash us in the blood of Christ. Where she has fallen into sexual sin or any other sin, grant her true repentance and the assurance of Your forgiveness, and strengthen her to walk in purity according to Your design for marriage and for life. Heal the wounds she has carried since childhood and show her that You have not forgotten her or dealt unjustly with her. Give her patience in trials, and let that patience work probation and probation a firm hope that does not disappoint. Guard her life and her breath, which is in Your hands, and take away thoughts of despair. Give her not the empty peace of isolation, but Your peace that passes understanding. Provide for her needs at work, protect her from harm, and give her wise and faithful counsel near her. Hold her fast in confidence and in the rejoicing of hope firm to the end, and keep her daily in Today while there is still time to hope and be renewed. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

 

[Silas]

Thank you for bringing your friend's heavy burden to prayer and for caring for her so faithfully. It is clear she loves the Lord and has tried to be faithful in worship and in providing for her family while working far from home, and now the continual trials from work and from people close to her have left her exhausted and without hope.

What she wrote is the language of deep discouragement. When hope is lost, depression follows, and the heart begins to feel there is no way out and nothing can be done. Scripture gives words for that feeling. One prophet described it as being walled in with hewn stone, hedged about with bitterness, with every path made crooked, as if God Himself had withdrawn. Many faithful people have felt that enclosure and wondered where God is. Her words, that she has walked with God so long yet has not found the joy and happiness she longed for, that she feels unloved since childhood, that she wants only to be alone and to wait until God takes her breath, all show a heart that feels forgotten and walled in.

The answer to that heaviness is not to try harder in our own strength to cope, because that only deepens anxiety when the situation is beyond us. The answer is to factor God back into the equation and to remember what is true about Him even when feelings say otherwise. His mercies are new every morning and His compassions do not fail. His faithfulness is great. He deals with His children in love, and even when He allows pain it is not because He is angry or has stopped loving, but because He loves with eternity in view and wants to keep us close to Himself. He is far more compassionate than we are, even more compassionate than His own servants often are. He sees not only this short life but the eternal life He is preparing for those who belong to Him.

It helps also to correct a few thoughts that have added to her pain. Nothing we do can make God love us more, for He already loves supremely and He initiated the relationship with us. We simply respond to His grace. And because we serve Him, we cannot then require Him to serve us on our terms, giving us the exact life, happiness, or partner we picture. When we expect God to act as our servant, we will always be disappointed and even become angry when He does not do things our way, yet that anger is misplaced. God is not the author of our sin and He does not tempt us to sin. To say that God gave the wrong person and therefore caused a fall reverses responsibility. Sin is our choice, and fellowship with God was broken by sin from the beginning. That is why God Himself made the way back. He who was in the form of God and equal with God emptied Himself, took the form of a servant, became a man, and humbled Himself to die on the cross, so that fellowship could be restored. Forgiveness and a clean heart come only through Jesus Christ, and that relationship with God must be first. When that vertical relationship is not right, no other relationship can be right either.

She says she no longer needs anyone, only herself and her own peace, and that nothing more is needed from God. Yet true peace is not found in isolation or in living only for ourselves. God created us for fellowship with Himself, and David called God his exceeding joy, the joy of his life. Peace and love are not found by withdrawing from people, but by walking in fellowship with God, keeping ourselves in the place where He can show us what He longs to do to demonstrate His love. If we knew what He desires to do for us out of love, we would be amazed. God Himself puts the yearning in our hearts and then works in us to fulfill it, but we must respond to Him with a broken and contrite heart, lifting up our hearts with our hands to God in heaven, honestly confessing where we have transgressed and rebelled. A broken spirit He will not turn away.

We also need to remember that what God does for us, including relief, healing, provision, and restoration, is sovereign in His hands. It is not earned by our righteousness or by the intensity of our faith, and we should not carry false guilt that we have done something bad that made God punish us. He is merciful and patient, and His grace is greater than our failures.

Let us pray for her together. Father, we lift up this dear daughter who is weary and discouraged far from home. You see the trials at her work and the hurt from those she trusted, and You know the ache she has carried since childhood for love and peace. Forgive us where we have sinned and where we have blamed You for our choices. Wash her in the blood of Jesus and restore fellowship with You. Show her that You have not forsaken her, that Your mercies and compassions are still toward her, and that You are faithful. Be her exceeding joy when circumstances give no joy. Teach her to find her peace not in herself or in being alone, but in walking close to You. Guard her from all sexual sin and help her to honor You with her body, trusting Your design that intimacy belongs only within the lifelong covenant of one man and one woman in marriage. If it is Your will to give her a godly marriage, provide in Your time and way, and if not, satisfy her with Yourself. Give her hope again, lift the heaviness of depression, give wisdom and protection in her work, provide for her family, and keep her life in Your hands until You call her home. Keep her in Your love and let her feel Your touch this week as she walks in fellowship with You. In the name of Jesus we ask this, amen.

Please continue to stand with her, encourage her to stay in the Word, to pray honestly, and to remain in fellowship with faithful believers where she can be supported and counseled, and remind her that God is still working in her and will not abandon the work He began.