Finding the WordsSample

NOTE: Each day, a prayer is written based on that day's Bible reading.

Dear Father in heaven,

We come before You today and thank You for the gift of life. When thinking rightly, we are a people who celebrate life and mourn death. We cheer the birth of a newborn and annually celebrate another year of life on our birthdays. Life is a basic and beautiful gift. Without it, nothing else physical is possible. The lifeless cannot appreciate a sunset or converse with a friend or enjoy a good book. In order to enjoy anything, life is a prerequisite. Today, we thank You for our physical life, and the water, food, and environmental provisions You have set in place to make it possible.

But dear Father, we have more to be thankful for than merely our birth and physical life. Today, we want to celebrate our second birth and our spiritual new life in Christ! Without spiritual new life, nothing else spiritually is possible. As Jesus said to Nicodemus, unless we are born again of water and the Spirit, we will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Dear Lord, all who have trusted in You for our salvation from sin have received this gift of new spiritual life. Indeed, the old has gone and the new has come. We have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer we who live, but Christ who lives in us. The life that we now live in our flesh we live by faith in You, Jesus, who loves us and gave Yourself for us.

Lord Jesus, as we gather today, may we not forget our new life in You. May we find our identity in our second spiritual birth and not merely in our first physical birth. We thank You for the physical and spiritual life You have given to us, and we thank You for the eternal life that is possessed by all who are in Christ today.

It is in Your life-giving name we pray, AMEN