A Prayer of One Afflicted

[Sue J Love]

“Hear my prayer, O Lord;
let my cry come to you!
Do not hide your face from me
in the day of my distress!
Incline your ear to me;
answer me speedily in the day when I call!” (Psalms 102:1-2 ESV)

Do you want to know the main thing that I pray for daily? It is for the salvation of the people of this world from their addiction (slavery) to sin, that they might now surrender their lives to Jesus Christ, to let him be their Lord and Savior to deliver them out of their bondage to sin and to empower them to now live godly and holy lives to the glory and praise of God. It is that they will die with him to sin and be raised with him to walk in newness of life in him no longer as slaves to sin but as slaves to righteousness.

More specifically I pray for my family members and for my friends and my neighbors and my acquaintances, especially for those who are believing a lie which tells them that they can verbalize a profession of faith in Jesus Christ and now all their sins are forgiven and heaven is secured for them, but without any mention of what God requires of us for us to receive such a great salvation as this. So many of them are still walking in sin. So many are not walking in obedience to our Lord’s commands. That breaks my heart!

And many of them know better. They know what God requires of them and yet they put their trust in the lie, for the lie gives them permission to keep living in their sin while having heaven still guaranteed them when they die. The liars take the Scriptures out of context and they twist them to say what they do not say if taught in context, and so they are giving the people false assurances of salvation from sin and eternal life with God. They are giving them promises which do not apply to them but only to the truly righteous.

And so I also pray for them and for all people that they will have their spiritually blinded eyes opened to the truth, that they would see the lies for what they are, and that they would reject the lies and now embrace the truth. I pray that they would not die in their sins but that they will live, not just in this life, but for eternity. I pray that God will bring them home to Jesus, in truth and in righteousness, in surrender of their lives to him, that they would no longer conform their lives to the ways of this sinful world.

Acts 26:18; Romans 6:1-23; Romans 12:1-2; Titus 2:11-14; Luke 9:23-26

“Let this be recorded for a generation to come,
so that a people yet to be created may praise the Lord:
that he looked down from his holy height;
from heaven the Lord looked at the earth,
to hear the groans of the prisoners,
to set free those who were doomed to die,
that they may declare in Zion the name of the Lord,
and in Jerusalem his praise,
when peoples gather together,
and kingdoms, to worship the Lord.” (Psalms 102:18-22 ESV)

I believe this was a prophecy (beginning with verse 12) regarding the coming of Jesus Christ to be the Savior of the world and regarding the New Covenant relationship God has with his people (Jew and Gentile) who have trusted in Jesus Christ to be Lord and Savior of their lives. And the prisoners are those who are still enslaved to their sin, whether or not they profess faith in Jesus Christ. For they are those who are doomed to die because they held on to their sin rather than to let Jesus deliver them from their sins.

For Jesus Christ gave his life up for us on that cross, not just to forgive us our sins so that when we die we get to go to heaven and not to hell. He died to free us from our slavery (addiction) to sin so that we will now no longer make sin our practice, but righteousness and obedience to God will be our practice (our lifestyle). He shed his blood for us on that cross to buy us back for God (to redeem us) out of our slavery to sin so that we will now serve him with our lives in walks of surrender and obedience to his commands.

For true praise and worship of the Lord is not in singing songs only, nor only in the lifting of hands, and even those are not required for genuine biblical worship of God. True worship of God has to do with us giving our lives to the Lord as living sacrifices to him, holy and pleasing to him, which is our acceptable worship of him. And this involves self-denial, dying to sin daily, and walks of obedience to his commands, in daily practice (habit), by the grace of God, in the power of God, as we yield control of our lives to God.

But should we refuse, and should we decide to accept a diluted and altered gospel message which promises us forgiveness of all sins and heaven guaranteed when we die based solely on a verbal profession of faith in Jesus Christ, then we are not given the hope of salvation from sin and of eternal life with God. Instead we are promised that we will die in our sins and that we will not inherit eternal life with God unless we die with Christ to sin daily and we walk (in conduct) in obedience to his commands, in practice.

[Matt 7:13-14,21-23; Lu 9:23-26; Jn 10:27-30; Ac 26:18; Rom 2:6-8; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-14; Rom 12:1-2; 1 Co 6:9-10,19-20; 1 Co 10:1-22; 2 Co 5:10,15,21; Gal 5:16-24; Gal 6:7-8; Eph 2:8-10; Eph 4:17-32; Eph 5:3-6; Col 1:21-23; Col 3:1-17; Tit 2:11-14; Heb 3:1-19; Heb 4:1-13; Heb 10:23-31; Heb 12:1-2; 1 Pet 2:24; 1 Jn 1:5-10; 1 Jn 2:3-6,15-17; 1 Jn 3:4-10]

Bring Him Home

By Alain Boublil / Claude Michel Schonberg / Herbert Kretzmer

God on high
Hear my prayer
In my need
You have always been there..

Let him rest
Heaven blessed.
Bring him home

He's like the son I might have known
If God had granted me a son.
The summers die
One by one
How soon they fly
On and on
And I am old
And will be gone.

Bring him peace
Bring him joy..

You can take
You can give
Let him be
Let him live
If I die, let me die
Let him live
Bring him home

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