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A Prayer for Fellow Teachers
Lord, I pray today for my fellow Sunday school teachers. I thank you that our church has a team working together to train people how to live for Christ. I value their ministry, whether they are teachers of younger ages or a different class of adults. Thank you for the privilege of serving you with others.
I pray that my fellow teachers might be filled with wisdom and understanding as they direct their classes. Give them the creativity to teach their students so that every week the class is excited to learn about you.
Give my fellow teachers encouragement in their ministry. I know that they, like me, will have those days and weeks where busyness, troubles of various kinds, and interruptions tend to suck the energy and life from their spirit. Help them to persevere for you. Let them know that their work has eternal results and eternal rewards.
Help me to be an encouragement to my fellow teachers. May I never be a source of frustration or irritation. Instead, help me to be a great team player for the cause of Christ. I pray all this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Keeping God’s Word
Read John 17:6-8
“I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word” (v. 6).
They were “keepers of the flag” when they planted it on the tiny sulfuric island called Iwo Jima because they considered what it stands for worth defending to the death. And 6,800 heroic American servicemen did just that in that brutal, pivotal battle for freedom during World War II.
The word “kept” in this verse means to cherish and protect, a state of grace that goes beyond mere belief in truth. It is defined by a commitment to embrace, obey, and defend that truth; to allow no shift or compromise of that which is absolute. It is to defend, as the final authority, the Word of the Father as depicted in Jesus. It means stepping up and planting the standard of the gospel on the ground of those who would abolish it. Jesus is pure divine truth in human form, the living verbatim message of Almighty God to us. As His disciples would do, we must live and die in allegiance to the keeping of His life-giving Word. (R. Wayne Skeen, II)
What is God today leading you to do as a true Word-Keeper?
Keeping God's Word
Read John 17:6-8
“I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word” (v. 6).
They were “keepers of the flag” when they planted it on the tiny sulfuric island called Iwo Jima because they considered what it stands for worth defending to the death. And 6,800 heroic American servicemen did just that in that brutal, pivotal battle for freedom during World War II.
The word “kept” in this verse means to cherish and protect, a state of grace that goes beyond mere belief in truth. It is defined by a commitment to embrace, obey, and defend that truth; to allow no shift or compromise of that which is absolute. It is to defend, as the final authority, the Word of the Father as depicted in Jesus. It means stepping up and planting the standard of the gospel on the ground of those who would abolish it. Jesus is pure divine truth in human form, the living verbatim message of Almighty God to us. As His disciples would do, we must live and die in allegiance to the keeping of His life-giving Word. (R. Wayne Skeen, II)
What is God today leading you to do as a true Word-Keeper?
A Prayer for Believers
Focus Text: John 17:1-5, 14-26
Central Truth: The Christian lives in victory through Christ’s provision.
Objective: By the end of this lesson my students should be able to identify several things for which Christ prayed in John 17.
Lesson Outline:
I. A Prayer for Eternal Life (John 17:1-5)
II. A Prayer for Preservation (John 17:14-16)
III. A Prayer for Sanctification (John 17:17-19)
IV. A Prayer for Unity (John 17:20-26)
A Prayer for a Lesson
Heavenly Father, I ask for your wisdom and enlightenment as I study for next week’s lesson.
Help me, Lord, to understand your Word. I know that hundreds of years separate us from when your Word was written. The culture today is very different from that of those to whom your Word was first written. Therefore, I pray for your help as I seek to understand how the first hearers of Scripture understood what you were saying to them and then bridge it to our context and culture today.
Father, I ask for wisdom in applying your Word. Help us not to use your words as “proof texts” to create legalistic rules with which you are not pleased. Yet help us also to regard your Word as authoritative, rather than merely “good suggestions” for living.
I pray also that you would give me creativity and passion in delivering this lesson. Help me to present it in such a way that my students are truly engaged with the topic and text. Help me to teach it with such passion that the students are not bored or might think that the text does not matter to their lives.
Thank you for the help you are sure to give. Amen.
Praise for God’s Mercy
Read Psalm 103:6-11
“The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy” (v. 8).
A. B. Simpson wrote: “The mercy of God is an ocean divine . . .” and then urges us to “launch out into the deep.” God not only has mercy, He is Mercy. While there are times that He must reprove, when His anger is like the lightning that flashes, His mercy is as the sunshine, warm, personal, generous.
The psalmist portrays three dimensions of God’s mercy — ”as the heaven is high above the earth . . . as far as the east is from the west
. . . from everlasting to everlasting.” None of it is merited, but God’s character overflows with grace and mercy.
God’s mercy evokes heartfelt praise from His people. Right now, offer a prayer of praise to God for His mercy. “Bless the Lord, O my soul.” (Leonard L. Sankey)
“Oh, let us be lost in the mercy of God, Till the depths of His fulness we know” (A. B. Simpson).