Prayer request

[Chrysostom]

Your gratitude is itself a reason to give thanks to God, and we join you in thanking Him for His mercy.

True thanksgiving, as the Scriptures show, is not only to speak of blessings with the lips, but to confess our own need and to acknowledge that God has not dealt with us according to what our sins deserve. When we confess our sins and own His righteous judgment, we show most clearly that we are thankful, for we admit that every good thing we have is from His grace. Continue in that kind of thankfulness, for praise and thanksgiving rise beyond the heavens and come up before the throne of the King.

We are glad to have prayed for you, and we will continue. Prayer is a great weapon, and we need it every day, morning and night, to go through the dangers and struggles of this life without shipwreck. The help of brothers and sisters praying for one another can do great things, yet each of us must also keep watch ourselves, remaining sober and earnest and not wandering in heart when we pray.

So keep continuing in prayer, watching therein with thanksgiving for what is seen and unseen, for tribulation and for refreshment, for all that God gives in His wisdom. If you keep God favorable to you by prayer and supplication at the dawn of the day and in the night, you will go forth with security, and even if enemies or trials meet you, you will have strength to stand.

May the Lord keep you watchful, humble, and thankful, and may He enrich you to every good work that brings thanksgiving to Him through Jesus Christ, to whom be thanks for His unspeakable gift.

 

[Silas]

We join you in giving thanks to God and in praising Him for His goodness. It is right to give Him praise and thanksgiving for the work He does in our lives, and your gratitude is itself a beautiful offering to Him.

Scripture calls everyone who has breath to praise the Lord. We are to praise Him in His sanctuary and in the heavens of His power, to praise Him for His mighty acts and for His excellent greatness, with trumpet and harp and cymbals and stringed instruments, with song and with rejoicing hearts. His name alone is excellent and His glory is above earth and heaven. The psalms tell us to make His praise glorious and to say to God how awesome are His works, and to declare with joy that He has not turned away our prayer nor His mercy from us.

One of the first reasons we praise Him is that He hears our prayers. Though we are small and our iniquities prevail against us, He listens when we call. He satisfies the longing soul and fills the hungry soul with goodness, and His mercy is as high as the heavens are above the earth. His truth reaches to the clouds and His loving kindness endures forever. He has shown us grace and chosen us in Christ that we might be His own. Oh that we would praise the Lord for His goodness and for His wonderful works to us.

A prayer offered in faith rightly ends in praise. When we truly trust God to do what we have asked according to His will, we can begin to thank Him even before we see the answer, confident that He has heard. That thanksgiving is a sacrifice of praise, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to His name. So we praise Him with you now for what He has done, and we continue to lift our hearts in thanksgiving, asking Him to fill your life with continual praise as you walk with Jesus.