Charles Spurgeon

A Prayer for Sunday

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“Lord, look with great grace, we pray, upon the slaves of sin that are present here this morning; break their chains. Save this people. We know there are some in this congregation who are currently “poisoned by bitterness and bound by wickedness” (Acts 8:23). Move, divine Spirit, over this audience, and fetch out from among us those who do not know God, that they may know themselves and their God this day. Make this to be a profitable, soul-winning Sunday, one of the high days on which heaven’s bells shall ring out more sweetly than ever, because many and many a prodigal child has come back to the Father’s house to make the Father glad.
Amen” (Charles Spurgeon).

I usually try to pray every Sunday for my church. I typically pray that God would make our hearts good soil for God’s word to go deep and produce a harvest. I also pray that if there’s anyone sitting in the rows during the service that doesn’t have a saving faith in Jesus that they would come to know Jesus as Savior and Lord.

I’m not typing all that to humble brag. I’m simply being obedient. Who knows? Maybe God would have saved someone anyway, but I know the Bible says that we have not because we ask not (to put it in super King James English).

Are you praying for your church? Are you praying for God to move in your services? With all the talent in most churches, it can be so easy to preplan and program every service down to the second and leave no room for the Holy Spirit to move. We can run an entire Sunday off of our own agendas and abilities and charisma and not even be aware that God was not present because we never invited Him in.

It’s always a good idea to pray for lost people to come to Christ in your church services. It’s never wrong to pray for reconciliation of families and marriages, for the calling of people to the ministry and missions, for God to bring revival to your church, your city, and the world.

Lord, move in every place where we assemble to worship. Don’t let us get by on our strength alone but bring us to the place where we’re dependent on You for anything good that happens this Sunday. Speak, Lord, for Your servants are listening.

The Lines of Your Likeness

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“Oh Lord Jesus, deepen in us our knowledge of you. You have made the first lines of your likeness upon our character; go on with this work of sacred art until we shall be like you in all respects. We wish that we had greater power in private prayer, that we were more often wrestling with the covenant angel. We long for the Word of God to be more sweet to us, more intensely precious—that we had a deeper hunger and thirst after it. Oh, that our knowledge of the truth was more clear and our grip of it more steadfast.

Teach us, oh Lord, to know the reason of the hope that is in us, and to be able to defend the faith against all objections. Plow deep in us, great Lord; and let the roots of your grace strike into the roots of our being, until it shall be no longer I who live, but ‘Christ who lives in me Amen’” (Charles Spurgeon).

I love that imagery. God is chiseling away at His child. With each hammer blow, a little bit of me falls away and more and more of His own likeness remains. What must seem like chaos to the created is simply creation to the One who made us.

The end result is “no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” That means less and less selfishness and petty anger and more and more love, joy, peace, patience, and all the other fruit of the Spirit. The less of me saying and doing what I don’t really want and not doing and saying what I truly desire, and the more I find the life of Christ within me taking root and taking over.

Lord, help Your children to endure patiently as You chisel away all that does not look like You or reflect Your glory. Remind us of the finished product that we are becoming that is worth whatever painful blows and patient waiting we endure. In the morning, You will see Your likeness in us and be satisfied. Amen.

A Prayer for Humility and Sincerity in our Faith

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“We long for a humble and sincere faith in our divine Lord. Lord, if it is necessary to break our hearts in order that we may have it, then let them be broken.If we have to unlearn a thousand things to learn the sweet secret of faith in him, let us become fools that we may be wise, only bring us surely and really to stand upon the Rock of Ages—so to stand there as never to fall, but to be kept by the power of God, through faith, unto salvation.
As Christians, we should be humble. Lord take away our proud look; take away the spirit of ‘stand by, for I am holier than thou;‘ make us condescend to people of low morals. May we seek them out and seek their good. Give to the church of Christ an intense love for the souls of men. May it make our hearts break to think that they will perish in their sin. May we grieve every day because of the sin of this city. Set a mark upon our forehead and let us be known to you as people who sigh and cry for all the abominations that are done in the midst of the city.
Amen” (Charles Spurgeon).

Lord, make us humble in our relations to others and to You. Keep us sincere as we seek Your face and serve our brothers and sisters in Christ. May our compassion never cancel out our convictions nor our convictions cancel our compassion.

Jesus, just as You told the woman caught in the act of adultery that He didn’t condemn her, so may our hearts be far from judging with an eye to condemn. And just as You told her to go and sin no more, may we also be zealous to stir one another to holiness in all our words and deeds.

Help us to love with a holy love that seeks nothing less than the best from the beloved, just as You settle for nothing less in us than for us to be made like Christ in every aspect of our lives. Amen.

Prayer for a Faith that Never Fails

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“Perhaps it is written in the tablets of your eternal purpose that we shall soon end this mortal life and die. It is well if this is so, for then we shall see your face that much sooner and drink gallons of eternal bliss. But if you have appointed for us grey hairs and a long and weary time; only grant us grace that, by infirmity, our faith may never fail us; but when the windows are darkened, may we still look out to see the hope that is to be revealed; and when the grasshopper becomes a burden, still let our strength be as our days, even to the last day.
Amen” (Charles Spurgeon).

The Apostle Paul said that to live is Christ and to die is gain. Both are good. To die is to immediately be in the presence of Jesus and to be free from sin, death, and every form of suffering. But to live is to have one more day here because God still has a purpose for you and a meaning for your life.

To die for the faith is good and noble, but to continually die to self in a million small ways while still living in this world is way more difficult. To hold on to faith in a world that celebrates everything that is contrary to what we believe is hard. It’s like constantly swimming upstream when it would be so much easier to give up and go with the flow, as so many have.

But to hold on and keep believing is to cling to the promise that one day our faith will be made sight. One day we will see all the worship songs we have ever sung come alive in full 3-D 4K Technicolor glory. Whatever heaven is, it will make whatever hardships and loss we experience here seem light and momentary compared to the joy that awaits.

Whether God calls you home or wakes you up for another day, it’s worth celebrating. Either way, you are held and loved. Nothing has the power to remove you from God’s love or harm you apart from God’s sovereign plan that still works all things together for good. No matter what, it’s gonna be a good day.

A Good Prayer from Spurgeon

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“We long for a humble and sincere faith in our divine Lord. Lord, if it is necessary to break our hearts in order that we may have it, then let them be broken.If we have to unlearn a thousand things to learn the sweet secret of faith in him, let us become fools that we may be wise, only bring us surely and really to stand upon the Rock of Ages—so to stand there as never to fall, but to be kept by the power of God, through faith, unto salvation.
As Christians, we should be humble. Lord take away our proud look; take away the spirit of ‘stand by, for I am holier than thou;‘ make us condescend to people of low morals. May we seek them out and seek their good. Give to the church of Christ an intense love for the souls of men. May it make our hearts break to think that they will perish in their sin. May we grieve every day because of the sin of this city. Set a mark upon our forehead and let us be known to you as people who sigh and cry for all the abominations that are done in the midst of the city.
Amen” (Charles Spurgeon).

I had a couple of takeaways from reading this prayer earlier today. First, man this Charles Spurgeon could pray! Second, I wonder when was the last time my heart broke over someone who is lost without Jesus in this world. I wonder when was the last time I was grieved over the sinfulness of my city.

It’s easy sometimes to get into my holy huddle and stay in my sanctified circle and never see how lost the people around me really are. I can pray for them. That’s the best course of action. But then I could also pray for God to open up opportunities for gospel conversations in my daily life.

The world would be more open to the Church if they knew how the Church loved and wept for them. If they saw the Church crying out to God on their behalf instead of pointing fingers in their faces, might they not be more receptive to the gospel we preach?

Again, I go back to something my pastor said. The world hates the Church not because we’re too different from them but because we’re not different enough. There’s often no discernible difference in the lives people who profess Christ and those who don’t. When our words don’t match our walk, they don’t listen to what we say. They listen to what we do.

God, help our hearts to be broken over our lost city. Help us to weep for those around us who are dying without Christ. May we not just be people who talk about loving our neighbors but be people who actually love them in a real and tangible way. Amen.

To Those Who Grieve

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“Look upon each of us now. There are so many families that have been bereaved, that we pray for all. You take away a mother here; you take away a husband there; you remove a child there; you are smiting on the right hand and on the left. We would kiss the rod and the hand that wields it, but we pray that the richest consolation may be given, especially to those who suffer much.
We pray that richer consolation than usual may be given where it is most required. Sanctify their bereavements. May the whole of the flock feel that when the Shepherd is taking away one after another, it is time for us to be ready for his coming.
Amen” (Charles Spurgeon).

Right now, I’m thinking about Erika Kirk, the widow of recently assassinated Charlie Kirk, who spoke the words “I forgive him” about the person who pulled the trigger and prematurely ended Charlie’s life. That’s not a natural response to loss. That can only happen under the power of the Holy Spirit and in someone whose heart is ruled by the peace of Christ.

There’s something so unnatural about death. It wasn’t in the original design, but sin entered the world and brought death and decay with it. So now we live in a world where life is temporary and fleeting. But we have the hope and promise of the resurrection.

Because Jesus was dead and is alive forevermore, so can we. We can face death with the knowledge that it is a defeated foe and won’t have the final say. We can grieve the ones we love with hope because we know that they currently more alive than ever but have merely changed their address (as the late Billy Graham once said).

I love the illustration about a man told a famous doctor that he was afraid of dying. The doctor responded by pointing to the office door where they both could hear a scratching sound and a whining voice behind it. Once the doctor opened the door, his dog came joyfully rushing in to embrace his master. The doctor said that the dog knew nothing about the office before he entered — only that his master was there.

And so it is with heaven. We know snippets. We don’t know a lot of details. We may not know much about what happens when we die. We just know that our Master is there. And that is enough to give us joy in the midst of our fear. We can rest in the assurance that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. What we know see dimly through eyes of mustard seed faith we will see clearly by sight one day. And Jesus will be there. That’s enough.

A Prayer for Sunday Worship

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“Oh Lord God, we earnestly seek your help in truly worshiping you. We thank you for this occasion and bless your name for setting apart this sacred season. Lord, would you please shut the door on the distractions of the world for us? Help us forget our worries and concerns. Enable us to rise above the worldly tendencies that weigh us down. May the allure of earthly things fade away, and may you draw us close to yourself. Amen” (Charles Spurgeon).

Lord, help us to enter into Your gates with thanksgiving and into Your courts with praise. May we worship You in spirit and in truth and not just in singing and lifting hands. May our entire lives become offerings of worship as You commanded in Romans 12:2.

We enter Your presence with a myriad of distractions and a multitude of things coming at us from all sides. We who are programmed into anxiety by every other voice in our heads seek after Your peace that will calm our fears and give rest to our souls.

Help us not to be conformed any longer to the thought patterns and ways of the world but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds through the reading and hearing of Your Word. Help us not only to retain new information but to put it into practice by obeying what we hear. May we truly be doers of Your Word and not hearers only.

Help us to be mindful of those who are struggling or hurting within our midst. Help us to see them through Your eyes of compassion and to invite them into the circle of our fellowship. May we be Your hands and feet to them just as others have been Your hands and feet to us in our time of need.

Above all, help us to remember that Your Church is not a location or a building but a community of flesh and blood believers gathered together for a unified purpose. Remind us that as we exit through the sanctuary doors that we are still as much the Church as we were inside. May we bear in mind that as we drive off the parking lot of the church building, we are truly entering the mission field where the harvest is ripe and ready but the workers are few. Make us Your workers tomorrow and every day. Amen.

Known by Name

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The old saying goes something like this: Satan knows your name but calls you by your sin. God knows your sin but calls you by name.

We live in a world that preaches a watered-down god that tolerates anything and everything but has no real power to do anything about real evil. In such a culture, it’s easy to take for granted that God loves me.

But when you look at the real God from the Bible who knows every single thing about you including all those hidden sins and secret pasts, and He still loves you? And not only that, but this love isn’t a benign and vague feeling but a love demonstrated in Christ laying down His life for us.

That is an infinite love. It means He loves each and every one of us as if we were the only ones to love. He loves us with a purifying love that doesn’t merely tolerate us and cover over what’s wrong with us. His love transforms us and removes anything that is unworthy of God’s holiness or keeps us from being who God made us to be.

If we really understood and believed in that kind of love, we’d live different. We’d be different. The ones who get the love of God are the ones who love God and others well. They seek to know and do what Jesus says, not out of obligation but out of adoration. Their lives are a testimony to others and a kind of thank you back to God.

“My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength—that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:14-19, The Message).

Just a Little Bit of Spurgeon

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“DAILY PRAYER (BY SPURGEON)
Blessed be your name God of all grace, you have revealed yourself to us, you have brought your life to our death and made us alive in you; you have brought your light to our blindness, and made us to behold you; and now you are not only the greatest source of joy to our spirit, but you are all our joy—we have none apart from you. Whatever comfort we find in creation, we know it is but fickle; and while it is there, it comes from you; for all these things are empty, and vain, and void without you. Whom have we in heaven but you, and there is none upon earth that we desire beside you!
Amen.“
“VERSE OF THE DAY (COMMENTARY BY SPURGEON)“Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!” (Philippians 4:4) In the first place, this is a very delightful thing. What a gracious God we serve, who makes delight to be a duty and who commands us to rejoice. Should we not at once be obedient to such a command as this? We should be cheerful—more than that, we should be thankful, and we should rejoice.This word, “rejoice,” is not only joy once, but it is joy over again, rejoice! We are to joy, and then we are to re-joy. We are to chew the cud of delight—we are to roll the dainty morsel under our tongue till we get the very essence out of it.”

I think Charles Spurgeon is one of my favorite preachers/authors. Even though he passed away over 130 years ago, his legacy still lives on. You can go and subscribe to receive a daily email with one of his prayers and a short commentary on a verse or two. Plus, you get to pray for a different unreached people group every week.

But back to Spurgeon. There’s a reason why he’s called the Prince of Preachers. We have so many of his sermons recorded in print for posterity. Unfortunately, the technology didn’t exist back then to be able to hear his actual preaching, but maybe somebody one day will figure out how to do an AI approximation of his voice. Or maybe not.

Here’s where you can go to receive daily emails from Spurgeon (or more accurately, from people who like Spurgeon a lot and keep his memory alive by posting his insights on a daily basis). Enjoy!

The God Who Gives and Takes Away

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“Oh Lord our God, before we ask anything from your hands, we desire to praise and magnify your name; for you are good in yourself, and in all your thoughts, and all your acts, and in all that you do toward us. You are good when you lay us low, when the bed of sickness becomes hard, and our bones are weary. You are good when you strip us of all earthly comforts; good when we stand at the grave’s mouth and bury our dearest love. You are good in everything. Shall we not bless the God who takes, as well as the God who gives? We would not follow you as a dog follows a stranger for a bone; but we would love you as loving children, who love even a chastising Father and have learned to say, “Though he slay me yet will I trust in him.” If ever, even for a moment, the thought of complaint should flit across our spirit, we beg to be forgiven.
Amen” (Charles Spurgeon).

I heard about a panel of godly leaders who were leading a conference. Someone in the crowd asked the question of all questions — how would they define Christianity in one word.

They huddled together for a bit before coming up with the answer. What they came up with is probably not what I would have come up with but it certainly makes more and more sense as I think about it.

The one word for Christianity is wilderness. Mind blown.

That certainly does seem to sum up our experience this side of heaven. While there are moments and seasons of blessing and joy, there is so much that is just plain wrong. So much is broken and distorted in this post-sin world. So much hate, disease, hunger, suffering, war, pain, and death.

The more I see, the more I pray the last verse of the Bible. “Even so, come, Lord Jesus.”

The world only seems to get weirder and crazier and harder to figure out as I get older. There seems to be less holding me here as so many people I love have passed away and so much of what I have known is fading away. But I know the story’s not ending just yet.

The wilderness is definitely not a prime vacation spot. But it is a place for testing and preparation. Think of Moses spending 40 years in the wilderness. Think of those Israelites wandering around in the desert for the next 40 years. Think of Jesus fasting 40 days in the wilderness.

The wilderness is God’s school for growing up up and making us more like Jesus. It’s where God shows up in burning bushes and pillars of fire and in a very hungry and thirsty yet very obedient Messiah. It’s where we learn the most intimate name of God – YHWH – and learn to speak with God face to face as a man speaks with his friend.

God, help us to remain steadfast wherever we are, whether in the valley or the mountaintop, in harvest or in the wilderness. God, be present to us wherever we are so that we will always know the way to go and who is leading us.