Heart Renewal: A Prayer

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”
-Matthew 22:37b

This prayer comes out of the prayer for repentance which I posted last week.

During your personal growth in wisdom and understanding of the Lord, I hope that you’ve realized this one thing: The greatest commandment is to seek the Lord with your whole heart. This is THE calling for us as Christians.

Out of everything we’ve done in our lives and will be doing, it is my prayer that we would fall more in love with Christ. Because in the end, we’re not simply doing good work. We are being prepared for the coming of Christ! Our faith is being perfected. The Lord knows your heart, whether or not you desire Him with your whole heart. He doesn’t need us but He is jealous for us. He desires the best for us. He wants us to know Him in all His fullness. Because He knows that fullness of life and joy and freedom is in Him alone.

We all know that we fail whenever we try to fulfill the will of the Lord and follow Him. But with every command of God, there is a promise of God. We must depend on the Lord and devote to Him our whole hearts if we truly desire to be filled with the Holy Spirit and claim the promises of God.

"I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws."
- Ezekiel 36:26-27

This is the promise of God. God says that HE will give us a new heart and put a new spirit in us. HE will do it.

It is on our part to ask and humble ourselves as willing vessels. Empty ourselves of whatever we may be holding on to so that God may fill us with His heart.

Let’s pray as we continue to serve this semester and as we continue in our walk of faith that we would have such a mindset to continually lay ourselves before the Lord and depend on Him with our whole hearts. That we would have such a culture of stepping in faith to seek the Lord first and above all else. That we would have the mentality of ones who serve out of the overflow of a life that is filled with the Holy Spirit. That we would be ones who would pass on that kind of heart to our future leaders. That we would have the habit of meeting with the Lord.

What constitutes a successful semester as leaders? There is only one thing. If you fall more in love with God.

Let’s pray right now in taking a step of faith to having a lifestyle of deep dependence on the Lord. We cannot move unless He moves us. We cannot lead unless He leads us. Let’s ask God for a new heart, clinging to the promise in Ezekiel which Jesus Christ fulfilled on the cross. He went to the Father so that He would be able to send the Spirit. Let’s pray right now to be filled with His love, filled with the Holy Spirit and be constantly drinking the wellspring of Life that Jesus provides.