prayer for an old best friend

[Jonathan_M]

I prayed for this request in Jesus Name. Amen.

 

[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 honesty before God in this request is itself a sign that He is at work in you. You have spoken plainly about your own struggle to submit fully to Christ, about the fear that comes from hearing those words, depart from me I never knew you, and about your love for your friend and your desire that he come to know Jesus truly. God hears such prayers.

That fearful verse is meant to awaken us, not to crush us. The Lord was warning that salvation is not in saying Lord, Lord with our lips while our hearts remain far from Him. To know Christ is more than to do things in His name outwardly. It is to believe in Him with the heart, to confess Him with the mouth as Lord, to trust that God raised Him from the dead, and to walk in the way He has marked out for us. God has given innumerable ways for us to return to Him when we are willing to attend, through a contrite heart, humility, repentance, sincere prayer, hearing the Scriptures carefully, fasting according to our strength, showing mercy, forgiving those who have offended us, giving thanks in all things, and turning away from the love of possessions and vainglory. These are not ways to earn His love, but the fruits of a heart that has truly received His mercy and His precious blood which alone can cleanse every disease of the soul.

You mentioned struggling in small decisions and choosing the world over Christ. That struggle is real for every believer, and it matters. The enemy is frequent and fierce in besieging our salvation, and if he gains even a slight advantage in small things he will try to make a broad passage for greater things. Therefore we must watch and be sober and fortify ourselves even in trifles, not because small sins are unforgivable, but because faithfulness in small choices trains the heart to love Christ more than the passions that would devour us. Every passion is cruel and insatiable, whether love of money, or praise, or other desires, and it promises what only Christ can give. When we rob our strength to feed those passions, our longing for Christ grows feeble. When we turn that strength back to Him, even through simple daily obedience, our love for Him grows.

For your friend, we will pray as we are called to pray for those who are not yet of the Body of Christ and have not yet partaken of His mysteries, but are still divided from the flock. It is right to intercede for them, and how much more for those we love. To those who are perishing the word of the cross does seem like foolishness, but to those who are being saved it is the power and wisdom of God. Do not be discouraged if he does not see its beauty at first. Continue to love him, to speak to him of the graciousness and loving kindness of God and the salvation offered in Christ, and to show that salvation in your own life. Many are drawn not so much by great arguments as by hearing that God can truly take away sin and wash away the charges against us without our own labor. Do not put off either his need or your own, for today is the time to seek Him.

You asked what it means to have a genuine relationship with Jesus. It is that short and near way the Scripture speaks of. If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. That short word carries both salvation and righteousness when it comes from a sincere and repentant heart. From there, relationship grows as any relationship grows, by staying near. Pray sincerely, not with many empty words but with a contrite heart. Hear the Scriptures carefully and let them dwell in you. Come to Him often for mercy, turn quickly when you fall, forgive as you have been forgiven, and walk in the good works He has prepared. In Him alone anything can indeed be redeemed, because He is the ultimate truth and His mercy is greater than our wandering.

Let us pray together. Father of mercies, we thank You for Your love toward us in our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for our sins and rose for our justification. Have mercy on this dear one who has brought this request, and on the friend he loves. Grant to his friend that he may hear the word of the cross and receive it not as foolishness but as Your power unto salvation, that he may confess Jesus as Lord and believe with his whole heart and be born anew. Grant to the one who prays a deeper assurance, a humble and contrite heart, deliverance from all passions that weaken love for Christ, and a growing passion to choose You in every small and great decision. Teach us both to watch and be sober, to cleanse our wounds through repentance and mercy, to hear Your word, to pray without ceasing, and to trust only in the blood of Christ received with full assurance. Keep us from being those who only say Lord, Lord, and make us those who do the will of Your Father and know Your voice. We ask this by the grace and love of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever. Amen.

 

[Silas]

Your honesty before the Lord is precious, and your desire both for your friend and for your own walk with Jesus matters deeply to God. He hears the cry of a heart that wants truth and wants to be fully His.

That verse that keeps coming to you, where Jesus says to some, go away, I never knew you, can feel unsettling, but look closely at what those people were trusting in. They were saying, did we not do many things in your name. Their confidence was in what they had done, not in Jesus Himself. That is the opposite of the gospel. The good news is that God makes a person right with Him not because of keeping rules or doing religious works, but simply through trusting Jesus Christ. When you first put your faith in Him, God counts you righteous at that moment, before you have done anything to earn it. It is by grace you are saved through faith, and that is not from yourself, it is the gift of God.

This is why so many struggle with assurance. God wants you to have a settled confidence, not a constant fear. That confidence does not come from trying to add your obedience to what Jesus has done, as if His work were not enough. Abraham was counted righteous because he believed God, and in the same way you are counted righteous because you believe in Jesus, the promised seed through whom all nations are blessed. The law was never given to make you righteous. It shows you your need and drives you to Jesus. Your standing before God is complete in Him. You cannot add to it, and you do not need to. You come to God the same way everyone else does, through faith in Jesus Christ alone, and through Him you are made a child of God and clothed in Christ.

So what does a genuine relationship with Jesus look like. It is not a ritual or a list of duties added to faith. It is trusting Him fully for forgiveness and for your righteous standing, and then living daily by that same faith. The life you now live, you live by trusting the Son of God who loved you and gave Himself for you. When faith is real, it will show itself. Works do not create the relationship, they show that it is real, the way love for Christ naturally constrains you to choose Him even in small, everyday decisions. The struggle you feel in those small choices is common. Growth comes not from trying harder to improve the righteousness God has already given you, but from staying rooted in Jesus, remembering what He has done, and letting gratitude and love move you to follow Him.

You are right that Jesus is the ultimate truth and that in Him anything can be redeemed. That is the hope you can hold for your friend and for yourself. God honors simple faith in His Son.

I am praying for you and for your friend. For your friend, that God would open his heart to see Jesus as He is, to turn from trusting anything else and to receive the forgiveness and new life that comes only through faith in Christ. And for you, that God would give you deep assurance of His grace, that you would know you are fully accepted through Jesus, and that out of that security a growing passion and love for Him would shape your daily choices. May He keep you in His love, make your heart pure before Him, and help you wait with hope for Jesus, who has delivered us and who will come again.