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The prayer below is from Everyday Prayers by Scotty Smith.  What a great reminder as we begin this new year! January 1   A Prayer about the New Year and the Gospel   Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. (Josh. 24:14–15)  Gracious Father, as I sit here sipping fresh coffee and watching flames dance in the fireplace, it’s early into the first day of a new year. Tons of confetti cover the streets of Manhattan, and gratitude fills my heart.  I’m thankful I’m beginning this year with a little better understanding of the gospel than I had last year and the previo...

What a great prayer for Christmas Eve from Everyday Prayers by Scotty Smith.  It was too good not to post in its entirety.   Jesus, it’s the beloved day we call Christmas Eve, the date we’ve set aside to remember and reflect upon your nativity. Luke took so much care to fix your birthday in the context of real history and a real world, but whether or not you were born anywhere close to December 25 is not important at all. That you were born—that you actually came from eternity into time and space—that’s what’s important, Jesus. I sing to you today with all the passion and delight I can possibly muster, “Born that man (including me) no more may die, born to raise the sons of earth (including me), born to give them (including me) second birth.” For the certainty of your birth, and therefore my rebirth, I give you great praise. But for all the care Luke took to detail the circumstances of your birthday, it’s the quietness of your birth that astounds me. Any other king would...

As I have written before, I love the book Everyday Prayers by Scotty Smith.  Here is a portion of his prayer for today: “When the time had fully come” you came, not a day early and not a day late. As humbling as it was to be born under the ceiling of a stable, being born under the weight of the law was a far greater burden. Yet that’s exactly why you came into the world—to be born under God’s law to redeem us—to redeem me from my sin and my rebellion, to rescue me from my unwillingness and inability to love God as he deserves. There’s no way in the world I could’ve ever fulfilled the demands of God’s righteous, perfect, and holy law. Only you could and only you did. I worship, praise, and adore you, Lord Jesus. Because you lived in my place and died in my place, I’m no longer a slave but a son of the living and loving God, with the full rights thereof. Abba, Father has robed this prodigal with your righteousness and has sent his Spirit to live in my heart. My future looks amazi...

Here is a selection from Everyday Prayers by Scotty Smith: Heavenly Father, we come before you today challenged by this picture of radical grace. This one story alone underscores why we can never emphasize your grace too much. Grace is never to be counterbalanced with law, only multiplied with more grace. Indeed, through Jesus you continue to give us grace upon grace (John 1:16). What an amazing story—the severely afflicted and extremely poor Christians of Macedonia became a model of radical generosity to the much wealthier believers in Corinth. And according to you, their motivation wasn’t fear and guilt; it was multiplied grace. For you love cheerful giving, not reluctant giving compelled by pressure from without (2 Cor. 9:7).  Father, only your grace is powerful enough to give us abundant joy in the absence of affluence, coupled with hearts that beg to give sacrificially beyond our means for the benefit of strangers! The law cannot produce that kind of people—not even ...

Below is a portion of a prayer from Everyday Prayers by Scotty Smith: I praise you for friends who’ve helped me understand the lyric of the gospel—theology. As a young convert my arrogant mantra was, “Don’t give me theology, just give me Jesus.” My sentiments were good, but my sensibilities were shoddy. To speak the name Jesus is to do theology. Thank you for patient teachers who have opened the Scriptures and have shown me the real Jesus—the one who lived and died in my place and who is making all things new.  I praise you for friends who’ve helped me hear and experience the music of the gospel. For those broken and beautiful saints who have helped me get a taste of the radical goodness of the gospel—its life-giving liberty, its healing melody, its soul-engaging joy—I praise you, Father. Now I know you to be a God who greatly delights in your people, who quiets us with his love, who rejoices over us with singing. This is astonishing, even shocking, and it’s all because of wha...

Here is a portion of a prayer from Everyday Prayers by Scotty Smith for today: Jesus, I praise you for your patience and forbearance with me. Sit on your right or left? I’m just grateful to be in your kingdom, covered in your righteousness, secure in your heart. I could never drink the cup you alone drank for us on the cross.  The cup I now drink and the bread I now eat remind me of your death, unite me to your life, and call me to your likeness. Jesus, I don’t want to be incredulous over anyone’s sin but my own. Through the gospel, please make me less and less oblivious to my patently obvious need for your transforming grace. I pray in your patient and forbearing name. Amen.

Below is a portion of a prayer from Everyday Prayers by Scotty Smith.  What a powerful reminder for us today that grace is greater than all our sin! As dead as we were in our sins and trespasses, we are much, much more alive in Jesus’ forgiveness and righteousness. As distant and disconnected as we were from you because of Adam’s sin and our own sin, we are much, much more at peace and intimate with you through the perfect work of Jesus on our behalf. As narcissistic and navel gazing as we were through our connection to the first Adam, we are becoming much, much more others-centered, loving, and caring through our union with Jesus.  Most generous and loving Father, you are most definitely for us. You didn’t spare your own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will you not also, along with Jesus, graciously give us all things? You’ve justified us, and there is now no condemnation. Jesus, you died for us and you now perpetually live to pray for us and advocate for us. Nothin...

Below is a portion of prayer for November 2nd from Everyday Prayers by Scotty Smith. My self-righteousness usually shows up not in trying to merit more of your love but in withholding your love from others. The dark irony is that the sins that offend me most in others are the very sins most pronounced in my own life—a lack of mercy, unbelief, a critical spirit . . . I wish those were the only ones.  Lord Jesus, as cardiologist and ophthalmologist, bring your grace and truth to bear in my heart and my eyes. I want to love as you love and see as you see. I do not want people to feel pressure to change who they are around me, nor do I want them to feel my indifference and disengagement. Teach me and lead me in the third way—the way of the gospel.

The following is an excerpt from a great devotional on prayer called Everyday Prayers by Scotty Smith.  Dear Jesus, I have no clue what kind of wild beasts Paul wrestled with in Ephesus, whether they were of the four- legged or two- legged variety or if they were simply demons. It makes absolutely no difference. For Paul, all of life became a journey and adventure of living out the radical implications of the gospel. Because of your resurrection, he would be resurrected; therefore death held no threat. Because of your resurrection, all “beastliness” will be ultimately eradicated; therefore, he would wrestle anything for your glory. Jesus, this moves me to pray today for friends who have taken on various “beastly” callings. Who in your life do you need to pray for today?

Below is a portion of a prayer from Everyday Prayers by Scotty Smith. But that’s not at all what I’m feeling today. I see your beauty in the gospel, and I do not doubt your love for me one bit. Right now I’m just feeling scattered, splintered, discombobulated, pulled in a myriad of directions with a big school of little piranha nibbling away at my soul. I’m not feeling tempted to do something crazy; I’m just feeling a little crazed. I so long for the day when “all things in heaven and on earth” will be brought together in you— that is, “summed up,” integrated, reunited. No more discombobulation, just combobulation! In light of that day, please meet me in this day. Center and settle me, Jesus. Help me to take my thoughts captive; help me to reel in my fluctuating emotions; help me to still the clatter and remove some of the clutter from my spirit. You are my head and I am in your heart, and that is enough. I love being loved by you, Lord Jesus. I love you only because you fi...

This is a excerpt from Everyday Prayers by Scotty Smith. Indeed, more clearly than we see the enemies of beauty, let us see the wonders of your cross. More than we desire to see burning coals heaped on their heads, let us see you, Jesus. The only way we can even imagine overcoming evil with good is by remembering you’ve already secured the utter annihilation of all evil and darkness.  But we confess, Jesus, we’re clueless about feeding hungry, thirsty enemies. Take our hand and show us the way. No one does this better than you.  And Jesus, where we’re just too sensitive, too easily offended, too quick to keep a record of wrongs done to us, too slow to overlook what can and what should be overlooked, have mercy on us, but also be at work within us. Free us to do the right thing, the gospel thing. As far as we are able, as far as it depends on us, show us how to make peace, guard peace, nurture peace with everyone. All of this is simply impossible apart from you, Jesus. ...

I have been sharing "Prayer Power" on this blog for several months.  I am transitioning to a new resource called Everyday Prayers by Scotty Smith.  This book on prayer has been a blessing to me as I live my daily life. I would encourage you to pick it up at your local Christian bookstore. As I think of our own church family, I pray for new church plants meeting resistance and older church families needing renewal; for missionary teams under fire and in duress; and gospel ministries of various and sundry sorts. Jesus, bring the grace and truth of the gospel to bear in observable and transforming ways.  No one has done more to secure our unity than you, Jesus (Eph. 2:14–22). No one is praying more for our unity than you (John 17:20–21). No one is more glorified by our unity than you (John 17:22–26).  Continue to heal us, reconcile us, and deploy us into your ripened harvest and broken creation together. We pray in your glorious and gracious name. Amen. ...