A Prayer About How God Changes Us

A Prayer About How God Changes Us

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. 2Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. Romans 12:1-2

I have shared several prayers with you written by Pastor Scotty Smith from Nashville, Tennessee. Here is a powerful one on how God changes us ...

Gracious Father, every day, with no exceptions, I need a refresher course in the gospel. Better said, I need the gospel every day. If I’d been one of Martin Luther’s students, he probably would’ve been looking at me when he said,“Most necessary it is, therefore, that we should know this article (the gospel) well, teach it unto others, and beat it into their heads continually.”

I make no apologies… I feel no shame… I offer my head and heart for a good “gospel-beat-down” this morning. Therefore, I’m going to dial in my gaze on your mercy (not my mess or merits), which of course means, I’ll fix my eyes of Jesus. There’s no greater expression or concentration of your mercy than in Jesus. He is the author and the perfecter of my faith… but he’s also the object of my faith. I cannot look at me and Jesus at the same time.

So, Father, I look to Jesus, right now and what I see is the One who completely fulfilled your law for me… the One who, on the cross, took all the punishment I deserve for my sins… and the One who is my perfect righteousness, now and forever.

As I see Jesus this morning, I go “palms up”… in praise and in surrender. I cry out with your beloved sons and daughters, “Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!” (2 Cor. 9:15) To know that we are fully and eternally accepted and acceptable in Jesus is staggering, freeing and transforming.

That’s why I now surrender my body to you, Father… my whole being… as a sacrifice of praise. Jesus is the only sacrifice for sin I’ll ever need. My sacrifice is an act of worship… the kind of worship only the gospel can create. Take my mind… my emotions… my choosing… the actual members of my body, and use them for your glory. I’m no longer my own… you bought me and have set me apart for a life that’s holy and pleasing to you, Father.

You’ll never love me more than you do today, and you’ll never love me less, but I want to love you more by loving Jesus… embracing your good, pleasing and perfect will, as it’s revealed in the Scriptures… and hating sin and evil.

Father, I realize the primary means by which you change me is through the renewing of my mind, so keep on applying the grace and truth of the gospel to the way I think, and the way I look at all things. The gospel is so counter intuitive… it contradicts the way I’ve always thought about you and the way the world seems to operate. So keep showing me more and more of Jesus’ beauty and the wonders of his kingdom, so I will be less enticed and shaped by the values of the world around me. So very Amen, I pray, in Jesus’ most glorious name.

Are you bold enough, courageous enough, to pray this prayer today? Guess what? God may just take you at your word! -- Bill Welte is President and CEO of America's KESWICK

Digging Deeper: Proverbs 1; Psalm 135-136; 1 Corinthians 12

Dig This Quote: To be forged upon the anvil of God's purpose, to be at once His hammer, His tongs, and His molten iron; to hear words that rend the heart, see visions that pierce the chest; to be emptied like an urn, again and again and again until one desires only rest, only an end to the refilling -- and to know one cannot live without the refilling. To be given words that one dare not speak, and to feel those words churning and boiling in the belly until one must speak them aloud, or die. To be despised, soon or late, by everyone except Adonai -- and to desire it so, while hating it. This is to be a prophet. Thom Lemmons

Determined Digging: Level 1 - Jeremiah 33:3; Level 2 Psalm 128:1-5

Determined Praying: Nothing is more disastrous than to study faith, analyze faith, make noble resolves of faith, but never actually to make the leap of faith. -- Vance Havner