While sitting down to write my next post on “Yearning for Unity and Purity,” it seemed better to me to write out my prayer. I’ll get to the regular post later today, Lord willing. Perhaps we can pray this together.

Gracious Father, whose goodness and mercy we see in the suffering of your Son and our brother Jesus, we love you. 

We love you, our Father, with a love that burns in us because your Spirit has set us afire and refuses to let us put it out. We love you, Jesus, because without you we would be lost, condemned, and alone.  We love you, O life-giving Spirit, because it is by your strength and not our own that we are set free from our sin and can turn outward toward the world as witnesses to Jesus Christ.  Yes, Lord, we love you.

Yet we confess, Lord Jesus, that our thoughts and our actions are often full of hatred and animosity, toward you and toward your Body.  We know that to love you is also to love your people, yet under our breath we often self-righteously claim that our hatred of others is a righteous hate that comes from our love for you.  And we know that we cannot truly love your people without first loving you, and yet often we forsake you in our searches for an artificial peace and unity among your people.  We are all guilty.  I am guilty.  Lord, have mercy on us.

Lord Jesus, you prayed that your people would be one as you and the Father are one, and we believe that when you return we will see and experience this unity and rejoice in it! And yet here and now we see and experience a church that is rent into thousands of pieces and our witness to you is severely compromised because of it.  By our sin we have split and broken your Body. We have taken your prayer to the Father and have thrown it back into your face.  And we have done this with great confidence, even believing that severance from others might make us more pure. Lord, have mercy on us.

And Lord Jesus we believe that by your Spirit you have made us new creations and have freed us from the power of sin, death, and the devil!  You have called us to a life renewed by the Spirit and conformed to your image. And yet we often prefer to truncate the Gospel, hoping it’s okay for us to accept freedom from the guilt of sin while still living under its power.  We have often, in thought, word, and deed, chosen to listen to the voice of the devil and of evil spirits, following them in the way of sin and death, preferring self-assertion, this-worldly satisfaction and enslavement to our lusts over the freedom that comes with self-sacrificial discipleship and the way of holiness.  We have defiled your Body, some parts beyond recognition. And we have done it with great confidence, even believing that we were just living free in Christ. Lord, have mercy on us.

Father, into our rebellious confusion and hardened hearts, we plead with you to breathe righteous clarity and the desire to seek you above all things.  In the midst of our disunity and impurity, we plead for a mighty movement of your Spirit, that we might have the wisdom and power to promote unity and purity. 

Through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen.