God gave them up! January 2014 Prayer Column

Does God really ever give up on anyone? In one place in the Bible it says three times that he does (Romans 1:18ff). It’s to do with attitudes to truth. If we suppress what we know about God, i.e., deny his existence when the evidence of his creation is all around us, his wrath is revealed from heaven. Our proper role as created beings is to honour the Creator God thankfully, and if we refuse to do so then he gives us up to spiritual blindness of hearts and minds. And when we exchange the truth about God for a lie, and worship the things he has made rather than him as Creator: e.g., the cult of celebrity; outward beauty (primping parlours); star signs; consumerism – then God gives us up to inner debasement, and a dishonouring of self and others. Those who choose to turn away from God are allowed to do so. It may seem a fine step of independence, but it does us no good at all: folly, futility, impurity, baseness, a downward spiral deserving death. Without Jesus there would be no hope at all.

So for what shall we pray in 2014?

1. That we honour God as God: creator of all that is, including us.
2. That we recognise his truth, and uphold and honour it in our lives.
3. That we follow Jesus as Saviour and Lord:
   
   1. In his calling and purpose, that we may get our focus right;
   2. In his light and active rightness, that we may live richly;
   3. Honouring others as he honours us, hard as we may find it;
   4. In short, praying to find his true life, that he won for us, when he died on the cross in our place, which is why he came at Christmas.

Roy Lorrain-Smith

A prayer for each week

More suicides on January 8th than any other day, as post-festivity credit card bills come in? Father God forgive us for what we have made of Christmas. Please show us how to share the true life of Jesus. Amen.

‘Every day we wake up to a world we did not make.’ Creator God, who still keeps hold of the world when it totters, help us to marvel at your handiwork, and worship you as Creator, through Jesus the Word. Amen.

‘...every prospect pleases, and only man is vile.’ Saviour Lord, who sent Jesus into the world to re-enlist us into your cadre of creation carers, help us honour you by keeping your charge in Team Earth-manager. Amen.

What are you doing in Bradford North, Lord, among your people in all this ethnic mix? Shepherd God, who knows the way and leads, through Jesus, help us follow faithfully and honour one another in the going. Amen.

Your own prayers