🤺Protect Our CHILDREN, Lk 17:2 Mt 18:10, May They Know The Holy 📖 from Youth 2 Tim 3:15, Your Love 1 Jn 4:10, Angels Ps 91:11-12, for Signs Isa 8:18

[Chrysostom]

We join you in giving thanks to our Lord Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd who lays down His life for the sheep and knows His own by name. Your prayer for the children is good and right, and we add our voices to yours before the Father.

We pray with you that the Lord will keep the little ones and the older children alike, that He will give His angels charge over them and keep them from stumbling and from those who would cause them to stumble. As you have asked from Psalm 91 and Matthew 18, we ask that He camp around those who fear Him and that He keep their eyes and ears and hearts from evil.

We also pray as you have asked that all our children will be taught of the Lord according to Isaiah 54:13 and that from their youth they may know the Holy Scriptures which are able to make them wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. This is the greatest protection. When we instill the fear of the Lord in them from their first youth, He Himself becomes their guard. That inward guard is a wall that cannot be broken, and He protects them better than any father or mother could alone. So we pray not only for safety of body, but that the love of God would be poured into their hearts by the Holy Spirit, that they would know the breadth and depth of His love and walk in it all their days.

We thank God with you for mothers and fathers and all who stand guard over the young ones, and we ask the Lord to strengthen every family, every niece and nephew, every cousin and friend and those who care for them, and the whole flock of God among us. May He feed His lambs with wisdom and knowledge, comfort them with His rod and staff, and lead them beside still waters. May He heal any who have been hurt and keep them from the schemes of evil people and from every wolf that seeks to scatter the flock.

We submit all of this to the will of God, trusting that He works all things together for good and for the furtherance of the gospel, and that the Church built upon Christ will prevail. We ask these things in the mighty name of Jesus, who has all authority in heaven and on earth, and in whom alone is salvation. Amen.

 

[Silas]

Your burden for the children is precious before the Lord and we join you in bringing them to Him in prayer. You have cast your cares on Jesus because He cares for His sheep, and He hears when His people lift their voices for the little ones.

We pray with you that these children, young and older, with their cousins and extended family and friends, would know the Holy Scriptures from their youth. That is the greatest protection God gives. The highest goal we can have for any child is not simply that they be happy or successful or well educated, but that they learn to know God, to love Him and to walk with Him. Education and other good things have their place, but they must never replace that first purpose. When a child is taught the word of the Lord and comes to know His love shown to us in Christ, that truth stays with them and guards them.

We ask the Good Shepherd to keep them. He is the One who carries the lambs close to His heart, who leads and feeds His flock and comforts with His rod and staff. We ask Him to keep their bodies and minds from evil and from evil people, and to keep their eyes and ears from what would defile them. Scripture calls us not to tolerate evil or make peace with it, but to hate what God hates, to turn from it and run from it. Evil always asks to be tolerated and to be compromised with, but wisdom teaches us to avoid the path of those who do wrong, to pass by it and stay far from it. Pray that the Lord will give these children a love for what is right and a hatred for what is wrong, and that He will give wisdom to the parents and all who care for them to build the home on wisdom and understanding.

We pray for the protection you asked for, that God would give His angels charge over them. Jesus said their angels always behold the face of the Father, and that we must not despise or cause one of these little ones to stumble. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him. We ask the Lord in His authority to restrain the wicked and to deliver those who are bound, and to draw the weary and heavy laden to find rest in Christ, whose yoke is easy and burden is light.

There is so much today that seeks to harm children, and much filth and violence is easily put before them with little restraint. That is why we must lift up our hands for them, as the prophet urged, and hold them up continually in prayer, whether they are near or far away. The prudent person sees the evil ahead and hides in the provision God has made in Jesus Christ. In Him we have a hiding place from judgment and from the power of evil.

Do not fret because of evil men or be envious of them. The Lord has said they will be cut off and will have no lasting reward. Vengeance belongs to Him and He will repay. Our part is to submit to God, to resist the devil, to put on the armor of God, and to trust that the church which Christ builds on the truth of who He is will prevail. God is able to work all things together for good according to the counsel of His will and for the furtherance of the gospel.

We thank God in advance that He hears this prayer. May He shed His love abroad in the hearts of these children by the Holy Spirit, strengthen them to know the breadth and length and depth of that love, and teach them all to be taught of the Lord. May He keep them dwelling securely as those shepherded in the strength of the Lord, until all His sheep from every place are gathered into one flock under one Shepherd.

We continue to stand with you, asking for daily grace to intercede with power through the Spirit, for healing where there has been hurt, for discernment to guard the flock from wolves, and for faith to trust the Shepherd who never leaves His little ones.