Day 21: That we would fight the good fight

Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. (1 Timothy 6:12 ESV)

It feels kind of strange praying that churches would fight, yet there is a type of fight which is absolutely vital to a churches health. Paul in 2 Timothy 4:7, at the end of his life, said that he had fought the good fight and that he had kept the faith. Here he encourages young Timothy to keep fighting for faith. This tells us that we will not drift into holiness. Keeping our faith is not a passive or simple thing. We must fight. We must, as 1 Timothy 6:11 says, flee some things and pursue others. Let us pray today that our churches would fight for the right things, that we would put more energy into fighting for holiness as we do getting our favorite carpet colors.

Father, we are prone to fight the wrong battles. We are prone to make the significant insignificant and that which is not vital we are prone to give our lives for. We thank you, Jesus, for giving your life for our good and the glory of God. Help us, Lord, to fight the good fight of faith. Help us to not take our faith for granted but to labor to stoke the flames of faith. You are worth every drop of sweat. May way take hold of the eternal life to which you’ve called us. Amen.

Day 20: That we would fear the Lord

Oh, fear the LORD, you his saints, for those who fear him have no lack! (Psalm 34:9 ESV)

I have made several dumb decisions in my life. Almost every one of them can be traced back to a lack of fearing the Lord. I believe the same is true of churches. A lack of fearing the LORD causes us to put our eyes in the wrong spot. Rather than living life under the authority of God and to the glory of God we live our lives as if we were in a fishbowl. We ask horizontal questions and make horizontal decisions, while giving a mere hat tip to the vertical. The fear of the Lord changes this. Those who fear Him have no lack because God is a great Father.

Father, you are very good to us. And you are absolutely holy. Your ways are not our ways and your thoughts are not our thoughts. And yet you’ve condescended to make yourself known by us creatures. We thank you that you’ve even made yourself known. We also thank you for rescuing us as believers from terror fear. We know that Jesus drank the full cup of your wrath. And yet we still relate to You as wholly other. Give us—and our churches—a holy and reverent fear of you.

Day 19: That we would exalt his name together

Oh, magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt his name together! (Psalm 34:3 ESV)

When we magnify God we aren’t exaggerating His greatness. We’re using all of our resources to see and show how great He really is. As John Piper has helpfully illustrated magnifying God is like using a telescope and not a microscope. I love how David calls upon the people to join Him in this work of exalting God’s name. God is so great that it takes the entire church to even scratch the surface of His greatness. Shouldn’t this be the goal of every Christian and every church?

I like how Piper makes this practical by showing how thanksgiving is the chief way to magnify God’s greatness:

Therefore, when gratitude springs up in the human heart toward God, he is magnified as the wealthy source of our blessing. He is acknowledged as giver and benefactor and therefore as glorious. But when gratitude does not spring up in our hearts at God’s great goodness to us, it probably means that we don’t want to pay him a compliment; we don’t want to magnify him as our benefactor. From here

Father, you have been so good to us. Give us hearts of gratitude which magnify your greatness. You are so grand and we are so feeble, we need your grace to exalt you. We know, Lord, that if given to ourselves we’ll go about our lives trying to magnify our own names. Rescue us from this ignorance. May we be found in You—the truly great One. May our church be united in our singular aim of exalting your name together. We are fine if nobody remembers us or our church—so long as You are exalted.