As usual, I started my day with biblegateway.com‘s “verse of the day” (hitting up a random verse chosen by someone other than myself is one of my devotional practices; it is how I try to hear from God). Today, that verse was this one:
This is a verse I’ve heard many times before. This time, though, I heard it slightly differently. I always thought the phrases “enter his gates with thanksgiving” and “[enter] his courts with praise” were commands; I always thought they were telling (even ordering) us to do something; I always thought they were saying, “You better give thanks and praise when you enter his gates and courts”. When I read them this morning, though, I wondered if they could be conditions instead; I wondered if they were actual telling us how to do something; I wondered if they were saying, “You enter his gates and courts via thanksgiving and praise; thanksgiving and praise are the keys to entering his gates and courts”.
This fits with the sermon series Pastor Doyle just finished at The Church Next Door. That series was called “The Current”, and in it Pastor Doyle repeatedly told us that there is a “current” to the live/walk with God, that there is a way living/walking with God goes.
This idea is absolutely true. There is a current to the life/walk with God. There is a “way” to God Himself, a way/direction/flow that God just goes, a way revealed to us by Jesus the Christ. If you can’t take Pastor Doyle’s word on it, then consider this word from John Eldredge’s book Moving Mountains:
And I believe thanksgiving and praise are a part of that way. I believe that when I give thanks and praise rather than grumbling, complaining, boasting, etc., I am going in the way of God, flowing with the current of God. Whether this is actually what Psalm 100 is saying or not (and I imagine that is debatable; I also know I’m not at all interested in debating it), it is nonetheless true that thanksgiving and praise are a how to enter the gates and courts of God if not the how.
This is something I have discovered in my evening prayer. I used to follow Tim Keller’s five-fold prayer plan during my evening prayers.
But I’ve recently been modifying this a bit. When I come to the “free prayer” part, I don’t offer petitions for myself anymore. Instead, I offer thanksgiving. I do what I call “a deep dive on my day”; I look at the day and consider everything I have to be thankful for. There is always a lot, always far more than I thought. I give thanks for those things, and when I do I find that anxiety, anger, grief, and every other negative emotion that haunts my heart is forced out. I find a great power for drawing nearer to God and representing God to others when I am thankful.
Psalm 100, whether command or condition, reminded me of that source of power today. It was a beautiful reminder, one that not only fit the season but that encouraged me to keep on this path I, by God’s grace, stumbled upon.
I pray the Ransomed Heart daily prayer about four times a week. I pray it four times a week instead of daily because there are other prayer forms I like to use. But there are some elements of the daily pray I do pray every day, elements I bring into those other prayer forms. One of them is this one:
I guess there are a lot of elements there, but the one I want you to notice is two or three lines from the bottom. It is the “I ask you to send forth your Spirit to raise up prayer and intercession for me.” I have expanded this in my version of the daily prayer. I have it like this:
I ask You to send forth Your Spirit to raise up intercessors for me. I ask that people will love and pray for me, and will further let me know of their love and prayers for me.
This element of this prayer became very important to me during a very difficult time I endured a few months ago. I prayed this often during this difficult time and was answered. People did contact me by phone, text, email, Facebook, etc. to let me know they were praying for me. Many even said they loved me.
I thought about this as I prayed this part of the daily prayer today, one of my all-time favorite days, the day before Thanksgiving. As I prayed this part of the prayer, I thought about that difficult time and all the people who prayed for and loved me. And I became thankful for them. I became greatly thankful for them and expressed that thankfulness is a great way to God.
I thought I ought to also express it here, though, so that’s what I’m doing now. Here is a list of the people who contacted me during this time and the weeks after to tell me they were praying for and loving me:
Annie, Brandon, Sarah, Mary Ann, Randy, Keith, Robert, other Robert, Steve, the other other Robert, Art, Dale & Jo, Melrose, Melia, Carrie, Mom and Dad and Eli
I think that’s all, but it is probably not; my memory seems to be failing me as I write this, but I’m pretty sure I got them all as I prayed earlier. To any of you reading this, please know that you were an answer to pray (as I told some of you). Please know that God used you to help me in the darkest moment of my life and I greatly, greatly appreciate it. Please know that I am praying for and loving you as well.
I am so very thankful for these intercessors. And I am ready and willing to be such an intercessor myself.
I have been on a quest to learn how to more accurately pray for about a year now. I may have mentioned that here before. One of the places my quest took me was a book by John Eldredge.
In this book, I was introduced to Eldredge’s “daily prayer”, a prayer he constructed and prays everyday. I’m not sure he gives the prayer in that book (he might; I’m just not sure that’s where I found it), but he definitely does on his Ransomed Heart website. He has both the text and audio version of the prayer there. It is also on the Ransomed Heart app. I found it in one of those places, and have added it to my repertoire, praying it not daily but at least four times a week. I pray different things every day; sometimes I do this Daily Prayer, sometimes I do the Lord’s Prayer, sometimes I do the Celtic Daily Office. So I don’t do this prayer every day, but I do it frequently.
And I have found it useful. I won’t go into all the Daily Prayer does or all that prayer in general does; I’m not qualified to do that, in fact, because I don’t know all that. But I know it is at the very least true that “prayer changes me”, as the Anthony Hopkins version of C.S. Lewis says in Shadowlands.
Repeating the truths of God drives those truths into my mind, giving me a type of spiritual “muscle memory”, making those truths a natural, instinctive part of how I interpret what I see and experience. Eldredge’s Daily Prayer contains a lot of these truths, and, while I again don’t want to try to explain what he could explain better, I think it does so for this reason: changing me, developing my spiritual muscle memory. The Daily Prayer has done that for me, anyway, whether it was designed to or not, and that is one reason I love it.
I think prayer does more than just change me, though. I think prayer actually does change things. I don’t know that prayer “changes God”, as Hopkins-Lewis said, but I think God does act on prayer (again, for reasons I don’t know and can’t explain). For example, I have found that praying for consecration (which I’m not sure is in the Daily Prayer as much as it is in Moving Mountains) has somehow consecrated me; temptations began vanishing when I started praying that way. And the Daily Prayer contains petition for lots of similar changes.
So I think there is a lot of value in the Daily Prayer, and I do love it just as it is. However, I am an organizer by nature, and I began wondering if it couldn’t be organized a little better (better being subjective there; better in my eyes if no one else’s). I also had some other ideas I wanted to add to the Daily Prayer, ideas I took from other sources. I was a little reluctant to do tinker with the prayer in this way, but I contacted the Ransomed Heart team nonetheless, asking what they thought about the idea. They said this was a great idea, telling me the prayer was never meant to be recited in unwavering verbatim but was meant to be a guide. With their go ahead, I then refashioned the prayer some. I kept a lot of what Eldredge originally had, including the bulk of the structure, his repeated references to giving God “spirit, soul, and body, heart, mind, and will”, and his phrase “I receive it with thanks” which I find so powerful. But I imported some other phrases of my own design that I’ve been praying for a long time. I also imported some requests that weren’t in the prayer or that weren’t in the prayer as much as I would have liked. I added the Serenity Prayer in there, too, and the consecration idea from Moving Mountains, and just a little from St. Patrick’s Breastplate.
In the end, my Daily Prayer is no more perfect than Eldredge’s. As much as I would love to have every phrase and idea I ever pray on paper (because I again am and organizer and a collector and a preserver), I just can’t. There is too much that just spontaneously comes to me as I pray (a lot of it from my daily Scripture readings) and too much I will learn in the future. I just can’t document every great prayer idea or phrase I have. I think my version of the Daily Prayer is a good skeleton, though, a pretty decent guide to get me (and maybe you) started. So it is with humility (and thanks to John!) that I offer it to you now:
My Daily Prayer
My God; Great Three-In-One; holy Community, eternal Family, victorious Trinity; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; the God of whom I heard, in whom I believed, whom I serve, and whom I love; the One True God of Heaven and Earth, Israel and The Church, world without end:
I come now to be with You and be made one with You. I come now to be restored and renewed in You, refreshed and rejuvenated by You, reconnected and rejoined to You. I come now to Your throne of grace to receive all the mercy and find all the grace I so desperately need this day.
I ask the Holy Spirit to lead this time of prayer. I ask the Son to intercede in this time of prayer. I ask the Father to hear this time of prayer. I ask You to interact with me as I interact with You, to receive me as I receive You, to draw near to me as I draw near to You, to come close to me as I come close to You.
I pray sincerely, knowing You cannot be coerced, controlled, conned, cajoled, commanded, counseled, flattered, tricked, used, or manipulated. I pray confidently, knowing You hear and respond to the petitions of Your people. I pray submissively, surrendering to Your will whenever it differs with mine and agreeing with all those everywhere who are praying according to it.
God, I love You; I trust You; I worship You. I praise and venerate You; I glorify and magnify You; I honor and adore You; I exalt and extol You; I respect and reverence and revere You. I lift Your name high. I lift my hands to You and bow my knee to You and fall facedown before You.
You are; the self-existing one. You are almighty; omnipotent. You are all-knowing; omniscient. You are all-present; omnipresent. You are all good; omnibenevolent. You are merciful, mighty, majestic, marvelous, magnificent. You are good, great, gracious, and glorious. You are altogether lovely, altogether worthy, altogether wonderful. You are light; in You there is no darkness at all. You are life; in You we live and move and have our being. You are love; You unconditionally and contra-conditionally value and care for us all. You are the rightful center of everything, the one Whom this story is really about. You are superior to me in every way, the Rock that is higher than I. You are the King, and I am the subject. You are the Lord, and I am the servant. You are the Teacher, and I am the student. You are the Father, and I am the child. You are the Shepherd, and I am the lamb. You are the owner, and I am the owned. You are the Creator, and I am the created. This is the divine order, and I embrace it.
Heavenly Father, I love You; I trust You; I worship You. You are Yahweh of Old, the Ancient of Days, El Shaddai, Jehovah Jireh, El Elohe Israel, God of Abraham, Fear of Isaac, Lord Almighty, God of angel armies, the Living One, Father of Jesus. You are the Creator, the Sustainer, the Redeemer, and the true end of all things. You are the God of peace and the God of hope. You are my shield, my shelter, my shade, my stronghold, my fortress, my tower, my rock, my refuge, my anchor, my harbor, my center. You have chosen to love me before the beginning of time. You have proved Your love for me by sending Jesus. You have given me every spiritual blessing in Jesus: forgiven my sins through Him, included me in Him, granted me His righteousness, made me complete in Him and alive with Him, raised me with Him, seated me with Him at Your right hand, and established me in His authority. You have anointed me with Your Spirit, sealing me for the day of redemption and setting me apart as Your own. You have adopted me into Your family, bringing me into your household, and blessing me with the full rights of a son: the robe, the sandals, and the signet ring. I receive it all with thanks, and I give You total claim to my life – spirit, soul, and body, heart, mind, strength, and will.
Jesus, I love You; I trust You; I worship You. You are the Messiah, the Christ, the anointed one. You are the Lord and the King. You are the lion of the tribe of Judah, the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, the Holy One sent from God. You are the high priest in the order of Melchizedek, the prophet like Moses, the king of the lineage of David. You are king and God and sacrifice. You are the Branch, the Shoot, the Root of Jesse in whom both Jews and Gentiles put their hope. You are the First and the Last, the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, the Faithful and True, the rider on a great white horse, the One who is worthy to open the scroll, who holds the keys of death and hades, the one who was dead and is alive forevermore, who was and is and is to come, who opens and no one can shut and shuts and no one can open, who walks among the lampstands and holds the stars. You are the Firstborn from the dead, the head of the church, the Bridegroom. You are the Light of the World. You are the Bread of Life; the Way, the Truth, and the Life; the Resurrection and the Life. You are the lily of the valley, the fairest of ten thousand to my soul, the rose of Sharon. You are the daystar, the bright and morning star. You are my true brother, friend, teacher, and master. You have revealed the Father to me and ransomed me with Your own life. You have prepared a place for me in the Father’s house and showed me the way to it. You have loved me and given Yourself for me. Through You we and all things come from the Father and through You we live. By Your poverty I am made rich. By Your wounds I am healed. By You my every sin is atoned for, I am delivered from the kingdom of darkness and transferred to the kingdom of light, my sin nature is removed, my heart is circumcised unto God, and every claim being made against me in the spiritual realms is nullified. I receive it all with thanks, and I give You total claim to my life – spirit, soul, and body, heart, mind, strength and will.
Holy Spirit, I love You; I trust You; I worship You. You are the Spirit of God who hovered above the waters of creation, the One sent out into the world, the deposit guaranteeing what is to come, the anointing that teaches us about all things, the seal of my redemption. You are counselor, comforter, helper, advocate, strengthener, and guide. You are teacher, witness, and intercessor. You are prophecy, power, truth, glory, and freedom. You are the raging fire, the rushing wind, the heavenly dove. You have come through Pentecost, clothed me with power from on high, sealed me in Christ, made me to overflow with hope, and become my union with the Father and the Son. You have revealed the truth to me and convicted me of sin, righteousness, and judgment. You are in me and with me. I receive it all with thanks, and I give You total claim to my life – spirit, soul, and body, heart, mind, strength, and will.
I turn away from all gods and all idols, having found them to be false and worthless – scarecrows in a melon patch, broken cisterns, empty streets. I give You the place they once occupied in my heart and mind: the first place. I trust in You and You alone to be the source of all I need and want and look to You and You alone to supply it. I give myself over to You in my heart’s search for light: goodness, peace, hope, and joy. I give myself over to You in my heart’s search for life: meaning, purpose, reason, strength, and support. I give myself over to You in my heart’s search for love: family, friendship, relationship, and belonging.
Father, I accept You as my true Father and the One always intended to be my true Father; I ask for Your fathering; parent me, I pray. Extend the covenant of Jesus Christ once more over me that I might understand I am secure in a committed family relationship with You. Apply the blood of Jesus Christ once more to me; I receive it as my salvation and sanctification and ask that it constantly be applied to me as my covering and propitiation. Bring the riches of Jesus Christ once more over me that I might not be poor or perceive myself as being poor.
Christ Jesus, I take my place now in Your cross and death, dying with You to sin, putting off the old man and putting on the new man which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator, clothing myself in you, wearing Your righteousness as a robe. I take my place in Your resurrection, through which You have conquered sin, death, judgment, and the evil one. I take my place in Your ascension, through which You have gone to fill the whole universe and cast down the evil one. Apply to me all the work and triumph in Your appearing, death, resurrection, ascension, and rule.
Spirit, fill me afresh. Lead me into all truth. Keep me in step with You. Restore my union with the Father and the Son. Anoint me for all of my life and walk and calling. Bring me deeper into Jesus today. Make me more and more aware of God’s presence.
I acknowledge and accept Jesus as my rightful and righteous authority: Jesus is Lord. I acknowledge and accept that through Jesus I am a Kingdom agent, able to bring the Kingdom at all times in every way. I give Jesus my life so He can live and reign through me. I bring myself under His banner. I surrender myself, my home, my household, my work, and my Kingdom to Him and His. I submit everything to Him. I open every door to Him. I invite Him into every room. I welcome Him into every corner of my life. I give Him every key; full access to me and mine.
I accept the all the goodness of God: love, grace, mercy, faith, hope, joy, peace, truth, wisdom, power, and strength. They have been offered through Jesus Christ by the Spirit, and I receive them all with thanks.
I offer myself to You as a living sacrifice: spirit, soul, and body, heart, mind, strength, and will. I ask You to accept me as this offering. I ask You to place me on Your altar. I ask You to touch my lips with coal. I ask You to sprinkle me with water and hyssop. I ask You to wash me, to cleanse me, to redeem me, to sanctify me, to purify me, to consecrate me unto Yourself. I confess that my body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and is made for the Lord, not for immorality or wickedness. I ask that all ignoble things be removed from me that I be an instrument for noble purposes, made holy and useful to the master, prepared to do every good work.
I ask that I will abide in the Vine and trust in the Gardener, knowing I can do nothing apart from Them but can bear much fruit in them. I ask that You equip me with everything good for doing Your will. I ask that You fulfill my every good purpose and every act prompted by my faith. I ask that Jesus will be glorified in me and that I will be glorified in Him. I ask that I be a workman who does not need to be ashamed but who correctly handles the word of truth. I ask that I have the wisdom that comes from heaven and that I be a peacemaker who sows in peace and raises a harvest of righteousness. I ask that You will spread everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of Jesus through me. I ask that I be a good minister of Christ Jesus.
I ask You to show me where You are working in my life and what You are doing in my life, not that I might question or complain but that I might cooperate. I ask for the ability to cooperate with You in what You are doing to and through me even if I don’t understand it. I ask that I might see Your shepherd’s staff leading me, Your pillar of fire and cloud guiding me. I ask You to take me through the valley of the shadow of death and bring me into green pastures beside still waters.
I ask You to send forth Your Spirit to raise up intercessors for me. I ask that people will love me and pray for me. I further ask that they will let me know of their love and prayers for me. I thank You for the people who have already done this and I ask that their numbers be multiplied. I also ask You to show me who I should intercede for.
I ask You to enter my anger, lust, grief, internal arguing, and every other negative emotion, reaction, or practice that is plaguing me; come into and overcome these things. I ask You to remove the lenses through which I see the world, lenses of weakness and rejection and comparison and competition, and replace them with lenses of Covenant and Kingdom.
I ask Your forgiveness for my every sin, and I ask Your strength to forgive every sin committed against me. Let Your forgiveness of me be my first response to Satan’s accusations. Let my forgiveness of others be my first response to others’ insults. May I be forgiven and forgiving. May forgiveness be my strength, my spirit, my story, my song, and the banner under which I stand.
I ask You to search me and know me completely; search and know my wrongs and my rights, my strengths and my weaknesses; challenge and celebrate me. Bless me with a deep and true repentance where and when repentance is necessary; give me a godly sorrow which leaves no regret; give me a grief not over the consequences of sin but over sin itself. Grant me the grace of Your healing and deliverance – spirit, soul, and body, heart, mind, strength, and will. Break from me all the burden of guilt and shame.
I bring the full work of Christ between me and every person, and I ask that nothing but the love of God be between me and every person. I ask Christ to be in the heart of everyone who thinks of me, in the mouth of everyone who speaks to me, in the eye of everyone who sees me, and in the ear of everyone who hears me. I ask that Christ be in my heart, mouth, eye, and ear as I think of, speak to, see, and hear others as well. I ask that my interactions with others will be fueled and flavored with Jesus. I ask that I say to others only what Jesus would say to them and do to others only what Jesus would do to them. I particularly ask for the ability to repay insult with blessing and to answer kindly when slandered. May I be innocent of what is evil, particularly evils of the mouth and heart. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight.
I put on the full armor of God: the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes of the gospel of peace, the helmet of salvation; I take up the shield of faith and sword of the Spirit. I pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. I will be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power and thus I will stand firm on the day of evil. I reject all anxiety; I choose not to be afraid but to believe.
I bring the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ and the full work of Christ against every evil power coming against me – against every foul ruler and authority and every vile device or dart they have launched. I cut them off in the name of the Lord; I bind and banish them from me and mine in the mighty name of Jesus Christ. I thank Jesus for His angels and ask Him to send them in His name to destroy all that is raised against me, to guard me and mine day and night, and to establish His Kingdom over me. I ask Jesus to deliver me from all evil.
By the power of Jesus Christ and the truth He has revealed to me, I break all agreements with the evil one. I reject the lies he has told me and which have bound me for so long, lies about You, me, and the future, as well as lies about how life should be lived and what should be valued. I confess the truths of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: the truths of light, life, and love.
I ask for the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Let me live one day at a time and enjoy one moment at a time. Let me accept hardship as a pathway to peace. Let me take, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it, trusting that You will make all things right if I surrender them to Your will.
Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace: where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Let nothing disturb me, let nothing affright me. All things pass but God never changes. Patient endurance attains to all things. He who has God wants nothing; God alone suffices.
I confess that Yours is the power, and the Kingdom, and the glory, and I ask that I might participate with You in these things forever. I ask You to establish the work of my hands and satisfy me early with Your mercy that I may rejoice and be glad all of my days. I ask that the beauty of the Lord be upon me.
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