Month of Prayer
Week 1
Sunday 2nd to Saturday 8th February
Praise and Devotion to God
For this first week of February we’re going to be concentrating our prayers on praise and devotion to God - the focus and starting point of all our prayers.
Each day we will reflect on different aspects of God’s character and actions.
It will be an opportunity to think about how we have experienced him in our own lives, in the lives of people around us and to think about what has been recorded for us in the Bible.
Cover photo by Michael Kroul on Unsplash
Monday 3rd February
Today’s focus is God’s Love
God’s love is where it all starts.
Its overflow led to the universe’s creation and then to each of us.
Its desire manifested as Jesus, coming to express love in the ultimate sacrifice.
Its continued passion works to empower and enliven us.
It is because God loves us - I mean really, passionately and extravagantly loves us - that we can have a relationship with him and come to him in prayer.
Today consider the remarkable truth that the creator of the Universe would love us. Lean into his love and feel the gratitude and joy that accompanies the acceptance that we are loved, not because we deserve it, have earned it or are loveable, but because it is the nature of God, who is love.
Today consider God’s love. How you have experienced it. How you have struggled to accept it.
Pray for a deeper revealing and understanding of his love. And, for a world where ‘love’ is often conditional and cheap, we can pray that God’s love will break into cold hearts.
You might want to reflect on God’s character as described in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7. Or the magnitude of his love in Psalm 36:5-7.
Tuesday 4th February
Today’s focus is God’s Goodness
God’s goodness isn’t a foregone conclusion or something we have a right to. In other religious worldviews the goodness of their god or gods is something they need to earn through appeasement and ritual devotion.
However, in the Bible, God’s goodness is a central aspect of his character. He is good. His goodness defines how he acts. His goodness is constant, not subject to mood changes. He is always good to us and for us. And we discover him in every good thing we experience.
Today you could pray for a deeper trust in God’s goodness so we can be more resilient in a world that all too often isn’t good. We can pray that people who don’t know God might start to be aware of his divine hand behind the good they experience, so gratitude might lead them to the ultimate source.
Verse for reflection: James 1:17
Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting shadow.
Wednesday 5th February
Today’s focus is God’s Faithfulness
For God to be faithful means he is trustworthy and reliable. It means to put our faith - or trust - in God is a rational thing to do. We won’t be let down. We can trust in God’s attributes. He isn’t one thing one day and something else the next. We don’t pray thinking, “I hope he’s listening today”. We don’t have to wonder if he loves us while being convinced he obviously loves other people.
God’s faithfulness also means we can depend on all the promises he has made. His promise to be with us, to take care of us, to supply our needs, to work everything for good, to protect us, to forgive our sins, to give us eternal life… to just choose a few.
We see God’s faithfulness mirrored in his creation. Apparently scientists have no explanation about the consistency of the universe and why the laws of nature are so reliable. We take for granted gravity or the sun rising every morning. In the same way we should be assured of God’s constancy.
Today we can pray with amazed gratitude about God’s faithfulness. In our lives we so often experience being let down, disappointed or disillusioned by others and things we might put our hope in. In God we have find the ultimate dependable. Pray we would know it more and that others would experience it.
Verse for meditation: 1 Corinthians 1:4-9
Thursday 6th February
Today’s focus is God as Lord
God is in charge. It makes absolute logical sense - that the one who created the universe and sustains it, who made us and stands outside of time should be in charge. Yet often the issue is we wrestle with God for control. Do we think we could do a better job of running our lives - even with our limited abilities and knowledge and imperfect characters? Or do we struggle to trust God’s love, goodness and faithfulness?
God being Lord means we should feel uncomfortable. If we have a ‘God’ who agrees with us on everything, who likes what we like and doesn’t like the sort of people we don’t like, who has the same politics and opinions as us… well, we probably don’t really know God.
His Lordship should be a challenge to us. Something that requires us to submit ourselves to him as Lord - meaning we don’t just do what we want or feel like. In doing this we are changed - the opportunity for transformation towards the likeness of Jesus.
You can pray and reflect today about how God is Lord of your life. Where are you experiencing the tension of this. And we can celebrate the wonderful truth here - that we don’t have to carry the weight of the world on our shoulders, instead surrendering to the good, loving Lord who does it for us.
Passage for reflection: Colossians 1:15-17.
Friday 7th February
Today’s focus is God as Provider
One of the Old testament compound names for God is “I Am the One Who Provides”. In fact, apparently, the words use convey an even more proactive attitude from God - I Am the one who sees your need and provides.
The Bible is full of stories of God’s dramatic and miraculous provision - a ram for sacrifice, bread from the sky, water from a rock, armies of angels, relief from certain death…
But weaved in between these miraculous stories is everyday provision - rain and sun for crops, air for our lungs, jobs, friendships, a set of good circumstances, a providential outcome… these very normal things that could be missed as random, but, as we saw on Tuesday in James 1:17, all come from God’s good provision.
As we pray today we might think of all the good things God has provided for us, and even those challenges that might feel hard, but in fact God is with us and using them to shape us.
Of course, the ultimate provision was God giving himself - the gift of that first Christmas when he came to be with us and take our place to save us.
Passage for today: Romans 8:31-32
What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us? Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else?