“Do your best to come to me quickly... When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, and my scrolls, especially the parchments...Do your best to get here before winter” (2 Timothy 4:9, 13, 21).
Heavenly Father, we are Your body through whom You often extend Your sufficient grace. Help us to "love one other deeply, from the heart" (1 Peter 1:22). Help us to think of the needs of others and not just our own. Give us tender and compassionate hearts, open to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, so we can minister to the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, the imprisoned and all of "the least of these" (Matthew 25:34-36).
We lift our prayers for those who are in prison. For those who are there, like the apostle Paul, because of their faith; longing to see a familiar face; needing practical items for basic comfort, for mental occupation, and for spiritual fortification. We pray for others who have found Your peace while in prison. And for still others who do not yet know Your grace.
Help us to minister to their needs. Help us to do our best to come to them quickly. Even where we have no physical access, help us to visit them with our prayers. Fill them with Your hope and purpose. Surround them with songs of deliverance.
We pray for those locked in other prisons—dungeons of despair, distress, bitterness of soul, weariness of spirit. Desperately needing the cloak of Your saving grace, the scrolls containing Your love and mercy. Help us to do our best to get to them before the dark of winter robs them of hope forever.
We pray for Your people everywhere. We pray for those who are isolated, ostracized, or living in fear because they profess the name of Jesus. Strengthen their hearts, lift their spirits. Fill them with courage and resolve, peace and trust. Give them hope and endurance.
Lord, for those living in relative comfort and freedom, raise us up out of apathy and fatigue. Help us to see beyond our borders and our frames, so that we can truly pray for Your kingdom to come and for Your will to be done. Rid us of our preoccupation with self, and our obsession with creature comforts, with shallow entertainment, and with worldly pleasures.
Thank You that You "richly provide us with everything for our enjoyment" (1 Timothy 6:17)— thank You for Your many blessings. Forgive us for making them our focus. Forgive us for turning them into idols, for worshipping and serving "created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised" (Romans 1:25).
Help us to love You, Lord, "with all [our] heart and with all [our] soul and with all [our]mind and with all [our] strength" (Mark 12:30). Help us to "love [our] neighbor as [ourselves]"
(Mark 12:31). Help us to tend to the beaten and the abused, "bandaging wounds, and pouring on oil and wine" (Luke 10:34).
Help us to seek opportunities to minister—to arrive armed with Your abundant provision and Your gentle invitation, "Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you" (1 Kings 19:7).
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