June 12 – The focus of this week’s prayers is on Courage.
Joshua 1:9, CSB, ‘Haven’t I commanded you: be strong and courageous? Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”’
Father, Your command to Joshua, in the face of a daunting season in his life, was to be strong and courageous. Your word to us today is still, ‘be strong and courageous’ for You are with us and will never leave nor forsake us.
It would have been so easy for Joshua to get trapped in a mind-set of failure, fearing that he would fail to lead Israel properly after the incredible leadership of his mentor Moses.
Expecting failure each time we step out and do something which we feel is beyond us, is not new. Throughout the ages many could testify to that dread, ungodly fear.
Forgive us for such an attitude, we repent and turn to Christ in this. Instead, we choose to stand on Your word to Joshua and be strong and courageous. We pray for the strength to keep following Jesus everyday.
At the heart of the Gospel message is the Good News that Your Son came to seek and save the lost, including those lost in failure; and then, through His salvation, give them His victorious life. His salvation brings the courage of faith which is our victory over the world (1 John 5:4), and every failure.
We thank You that many who have previously failed have gone on, in Him, to become some of the most successful people – successful in Your eyes, perhaps not in the world’s. This often requires humility, repentance from destructive mindsets, and a determination to look to Christ as the foundation stone of their lives.
We pray for all those today that we know who are struggling to move on from past, or even present, failures. Grant them the revelation of what Redemption in Jesus could mean for them, and the courage to persevere following Him. The Holy Spirit imparts the courage needed – fill us with this word-inspired courage. In Jesus’ name. Amen
June 13 – Source unknown, although attributed by many to Winston Churchill, ‘success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.’
Success may not last, and that failure does not have to determine the course of one’s life; failure, or period of failure, in itself doesn’t write a person off forever. It is the courage to move on that is really important.
Father, thank You that the grace of Your Son enables us to get up when we fail, dust ourselves down, put one foot in front of the other, and move forward. Your Spirit brought this word-inspired courage and boldness to the early church.
Following Jesus each and every day, in spite of what we face, feel or have thrown at us defines the courageous. It is keeping on keeping on in Him that leads a person eventually to a new place and sanctified way of living.
Grant us the wisdom to learn from what caused our failure, the humility to seek to apply good godly principles, and may Your Spirit create the drive to succeed which is often developed during the refining fires of defeat or failure. In Jesus’ name. Amen
June 14 – Father, facing our fears and doing what Your word says we should in obedience to You is the best way of becoming ‘an overcomer in life’ – living a courageous life.
Your word is full of strengthening words which make us strong in the faith. 1 Corinthians 16:13-14, CSB, ‘Be alert, stand firm in the faith, be courageous, be strong. 14Do everything in love.
We pray that many in our church will be courageous and able to testify that they have resisted fear, mastered it as Jesus’ love took over in their lives, while recognising that there will still be times of fear.
We no longer have to live in the dread of ungodly fear’s controlling power. We pray for those who settle for second best instead of remaining alert, standing firm in Christ, being courageous in the faith, and doing everything in love.
Lead us all into a new place of godly alertness, biblical strength of character, courage, Holy Spirit inspired strength, and agape love. In Jesus’ name. Amen
June 15 – Although James Hollingworth was not a Christian, in fact he was into the occult, his quote, ‘Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear,’ is worthy of consideration.
For us as believers, following Jesus Christ, obeying His call to Discipleship, and stepping out with the Spirit in joining Him in His mission to the world with the Good News of the Gospel are the more important.
We acknowledge that the great issue with fear is that its presence tends to cloud our judgement and put everything else into the background, including taking up our cross and following Jesus.
When ungodly fear itself comes to the fore, and often is the only thing I can see, I ask that Your Spirit will grant me Your perfect love, and the courage and boldness that flows from Your covenant commitment to me to overcome it.
I ask for the same today for anyone who has lost perspective on what it is they are really supposed to be doing, or who have lost the sense of who they really are in Jesus, or what should be number one in their lives.
I also pray for those who have ended up in the state of surviving by protecting themselves because their ungodly fear now controls them. For many to be able to overcome the paralysis such fear produces is one of the hardest and most frustrating battles in life.
May they gain victory in these areas today and every day. Enable our church to be really good at instilling the biblical principles, and through our ministries in person and online, the power and grace to be courageous and victorious followers of Christ. In His name. Amen
June 16 – Father, Your Word proclaims that the fear of death is an enslaving power in our lives. Hebrews, 2:15, speaks of Your Son coming to ‘free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.’ That is an amazing promise and we choose to stand on it today – Jesus came to set me free from the fear of death. Hallelujah!
Elsewhere, John writes the following, ‘CSB, ‘In this, love is made complete with us so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment, because as he is, so also are we in this world. 18There is no fear in love; instead, perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. So the one who fears is not complete in love. 19We love because he first loved us’ (1 John 4:17-19).
We pray that the potential for Your love to drive out ungodly fears will become ever more clearly our day by day experience and reality. Impart to us the grace needed in order to produce in us the strength, security in who were in Christ, and the power to drive out ungodly fears. In Jesus’ name. Amen
June 17 – Father, Mark Twain’s, ‘It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare,’ (Mark Twain (2013). “Autobiography of Mark Twain”, p.372, Univ of California Press), also points to the difficulty of naturally developing moral courage.
Many seek to do so and end up living in a straight-jacket of conformity to this world. Only salvation in Your Son can lead to true biblical morality.
Moral courage is even rare in Christian circles. It is the courage to stand for Jesus and His commandments even when everyone else is saying that it doesn’t matter.
We pray for the exposure and overthrow of the philosophy of ‘moral relativism’ which dominates our Western society. ‘Moral Relativism asserts that moral standards are culturally-defined and therefore it may be impossible to determine what is truly right or wrong’ University of Texas accessed 11-6-2023 https://ethicsunwrapped.utexas.edu/glossary/moral-relativism
While attractive allowing non-believers to nearly do anything they wish, it is unbiblical and anti-Christ in ethos breaking the clear imperative to obey God commands, especially to believe in Jesus, love one another (1 John3:23), and follow Him.
We pray that You will raise up, within Your church, clear thinking practitioners who will be able to teach and model a biblical narrative for life, discipleship, relationships and mission which transcends the tendency to simply morph into the philosophies of this present evil age.
Instead, may we be courageous in faith, filled with the Spirit and fully committed to King Jesus and His call upon our lives to follow Him denying self and taking up our crosses daily (Luke 9:23). In His name. Amen
June 18 – Father, on this Father’s Day – we pray for courage and strength for each father in our church, or associated with our church, to be the dad You call them to be.
You model perfect Fatherhood. Teach us about how we can seek to emulate Your Fatherhood, and point people to Christ thereby. Bless Pastor Samuel as he preaches today, and bless the service focus on fatherhood.
I love the way that a number of times people’s hands were strengthened in Your Word receiving the courage to follow Your blueprint for life. We are told to encourage and build each other up (1 Thessalonians 5:11) in Jesus; in other words, to speak courage to each other.
For too long many of our brothers and sisters in the faith have lived with discouragement, words of fear and timidity dominating their lives – we all need to hear words of courage, and to allow Your love to drive out fear. Forgive us when we have allowed the words of death to shape us.
May our church, in person and online, be filled with Your ‘words of courage.’ In Jesus’ name and for His glory. Amen
