Lamentations 2

Prayers based on Colossians

Colossians 1

Great God and King, You have sent forth apostles in former days proclaiming the glory and suffering of the life of faith in Christ. Thank You for this good Word, and help us to walk in a manner worthy of Your Son. Grant to us spiritual power that we might give thanks to You for the forgiveness of sins. We glorify Your Name, O Lord, for the greatness of Your Son. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. All Your fullness dwells in Him. We have a full reconciliation in Him as we continue in the faith. Thank You for the opportunity to testify to Your glory day by day. Through lives of gospel love we rejoice in the truth that Your Son is alive in us.

Colossians 2

Lord God, in Your Son is hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Help us to reject false philosophies and deceitful traditions that would take us away from the greatness of the person and work of Your Son. We were dead in sin, but through our great Savior we have been made alive through His cross and resurrection. Teach us not to settle for shadows when we have been given the glory of Christ within us and among us in Your church. We have died in Christ. Let us not return to worldly religious practices that may appear holy and disciplined, but are of no value in our fight against sin.

Colossians 3

Father, we are with Christ in heavenly realms. Therefore we earnestly seek those things which are above. Help us to turn away from all ugly thoughts, words, and actions. These will do us no good. Help us to put on compassion, forgiveness, and love. May the peace of Your Son and the dignity of His Word dwell in our hearts richly as we sing to You with joy. Help us to live appropriately in all relationships, particularly within our families. We want to serve You, O God, for Your Son died for us, and we are alive in Him.

Colossians 4

Great King and Master, we want to be kind to all. Help us, O Lord. Grant us graciousness and true wisdom, that we might conduct ourselves well in this passing world. Help us to love the brothers and sisters throughout Your church. We are thankful for the love that You have granted to us for You and for Your entire household. Fill us with Your grace moment by moment, that we might live as followers of our great Redeemer.

Prayers based on Lamentations

Lamentations 1

Great God, we are in great need. We cry out to You. Send forth Your Comforter, the powerful Spirit of Holiness. We suffer bitterly in this great battle. We have faced horrible defeat in warfare all around us. We have spirits, but we also have bodies. We are fearfully and wonderfully made. What has happened to our homes and our place of worship? Where are our children? How have we come to this state? Father we live in a place that has faced Your judgment. You are in the right. Yet, look upon us in our suffering. Our young men and women are gone. Many have died. Others are far from Your sanctuary. We do not pretend to be strong. Our groans are many. Our hearts are faint. Send forth Your Comforter, and rescue us.

Lamentations 2

Glorious Father, have You utterly forgotten us? In Your just wrath, You send Your devastating judgments. What must the cross have been like for Your Son? You came upon Him with the fullness of punishment. He was the spotless sanctuary of Your presence. He had no sin. Yet He took all our filth and rebellion upon Himself on that awful day of atoning death. Your wrath came upon Him for us. Lord, we are in horrible trouble now. We are in need of basic things that we might be able to stay alive here and now. Feed us from heaven. Our false prophets are removed from our midst, but our enemies are still all around us. They think that they have complete victory over us. What can we say to You? Our cries are too deep for words. We are in distress. We have had such trouble as we had never understood or imagined. There is terror on every side.

Lamentations 3

Sovereign Lord, we have faced great tribulation. We cry for help. Do You not hear us? Where is Your help? O God, we hate our sin. Father, we feel no hope in our hearts. Yet we remember Your steadfast covenant love, Your mercy, Your great faithfulness. We should wait patiently for You when it seems that we have no future. Help us to take this affliction now. This will not last forever. You are not vicious, O God. You must have a purpose in this day of testing. Help us to turn now from all sin. Grant us a very large repentance. Surely there is something good that will come from all these tears. There must be some good in this horrible loss. Do not close Your ear to our cries for help. Through Christ, You have surely redeemed our lives from complete destruction.

Lamentations 4

Lord God, what has happened to Your church? We were precious stones in Your holy temple. Where are our children? Where have our companions gone? Where are those who once professed faith in You? How is it that they have gone out from us? Were they never part of us? Have mercy on us, O God. Your people are deeply bruised by an enemy that we cannot see. Brutal men and angels must be all around us. How could we have become a people that seem to be cursed by You. We look for help from far off. Where is our help, O Lord? The enemy seeks the ones He may devour. Yet His day of punishment will surely come. Help us, O Lord.

Lamentations 5

Father, we face the truth of our affliction with brutal honesty. Food, shelter, safety, life… these things we need. Celebration is only a bitter memory. Yet You are still the Lord. You will reign forever. Restore us, O God. Our confidence is in Your Son, for He was utterly condemned for our transgressions, and rose again for our justification.

Lamentations 1

How lonely sits the city of Jerusalem! She was once full of people. Where are they now? Leaders and important people have been killed or deported. The walls of the city are destroyed and so many buildings have been burned or demolished. It would seem that the worst has happened, and the godly man offers up a sad lament to the Lord.

Jeremiah 52

Jeremiah 51

Jeremiah 50

Jeremiah 49

Throughout the centuries of human existence there have undoubtedly been many, many people groups that have come and gone, of whom we can say that there is no common knowledge of them remaining. There may be some few scholars who have a handful of artifacts or copies of written records. There may be a few sentences of ancient citations from historians who have known of certain cities and languages. Their descendants have no knowledge of their ancestors, for they have been folded into many other streams of human heritage without any sense of the names of places and people who were once formidable powers to be reckoned with. Now they are all gone. All that remains of them, all that even refer to them as primary or secondary sources could be boxed up in one trunk and put away in an attic, and almost no one would care, or even notice. Many other groups have absolutely no remaining record of their existence, though scholars search diligently for some sign of who once inhabited one part of the world or another. How many people over the centuries are from such unknown tribes? Yet the Lord made them, and He knows all. Even though they were not a part of His covenant people Israel, He knows all about them. They were raised up for their time in the sun, but they seemed to fade away with no remaining trace or even a whimper. Yet God knows.

Among such peoples there were surely many false gods. They also had leaders, men of pride who were important for their moment. Now their bones are unidentifiable. This is a sad fact for those created in the image of the eternal God. Even in the case of those groups that have some biblical record of their existence, of what worth are a few verses that speak of their pride and their destruction?

The Ammonites, part of the descendents of Lot, are remembered because they would not help the Israelites on the way from Egypt to the Promised Land. They had an eye for the weak, that they might take advantage of them in their distress. When some within Israel were in a bad way, the Ammonites were right there to be their captors and helpers, provided that all the Israelite men would submit to having their right eyes gouged out. Yet some of their women were mothers of a few important people in Israel, and in this way of intermarriage, they became a part of the Jewish people. Jeremiah announced that God would bring terror upon the remaining Ammonites. A city of theirs would become a desolate mound. As they had harassed the tribe of Gad, they would face trouble from other powers, but afterward God promised to restore the fortunes of the Ammonites.

The Edomites were the descendants of Esau, the brother of Jacob. Again the Edomites were not helpful to the Israelites when the Hebrews were leaving Egypt. For centuries the Edomites were adversaries. When Israel was stronger, the Edomites served the Israelites. When Edom was stronger they threw off the rule of the descendants of Jacob. Amazingly, certain kings of God’s people became interested in the gods of Edom, and this idolatry brought great trouble upon God’s people. According to Jeremiah, the descendants of Esau would face serious difficulties. Wisdom would flee from her counselors. She would be stripped bare by conquerors. God would be the one who would appoint leaders for her. He would also appoint the rise and fall of her prospects. Yes, there would be great trouble ahead for Edom.

Syria or Aram was the old country for the descendants of Abraham. It was part of the confession of the Israelite concerning his heritage to say publicly “My father was a wandering Aramean.” In the land of the Syrians were the old gods that continued to have such a pull upon the hearts of the Lord’s children. Damascus, the capital of Syria, would also face devastating days according to the prophesy of Jeremiah.

We know much less about the remaining lands mentioned in this chapter. Kedar, Hazor, and Elam would face sorry prospects. The Babylonians would prove to be formidable opponents for all the nations within their reach. They brought terror on every side. Though some of these tribes may have once enjoyed tranquility, now there was danger everywhere. All of this was from the fierce anger of the Lord. Once again, some of these peoples would have descendants within various people groups that have perhaps continued to this day. For some of them the word of God included a message of some restoration in latter days, suggesting New Testament hopes for their descendants, though tracing the fulfillment of that Word might prove difficult for us.

The problem that any nation of the ancient world or of modern days faced was not only the threat of the superpower of their era. Ultimately their most frightening adversary was the Lord God Almighty. His wrath is the greatest problem that any nation or person can face. There is only one way to make peace with Him, to live, and to have a future hope that will be secure and good. That way is through the blood of Christ. With Christ, even Ammonites and inhabitants of strange lands unknown to us are now Israelites indeed. They are not Jews by birth, but today as they hear the gospel, believe and repent, they have the right to be sons of God. It is part of God’s glory that He would display His righteous wrath, but it is also part of His glory that there is a way of mercy for peoples that men have largely forgotten.

Prayer based on Luke 8

Luke 8

Great God, You sent Your Son preaching and teaching the Kingdom. You provided for His needs every day. He did not worry, but trusted You. As His Word comes to us today, we pray that it would find good soil in our souls, producing a fruitful yield. Keep away any enemy that would seek to destroy the work of Your Word and Spirit in our lives. Help us to have a perfect confidence in You. Grant to us honest and good hearts. Show us Your glory, and move us in the direction of all that is true and lovely. Thank you for the fellowship that we enjoy within Your family as fellow-travelers in the way of righteousness. Together we will keep our eyes upon You, for You can calm the wind and the waves. Your great Son has power in His hands. He knows all the dangers that face us as we work for the progress of Your Kingdom. Grant us close fellowship with Him in our service of You. Teach us amazing and wonderful things. Forgive us when we become filled with everything that this world offers us. We know that there is a much better way. You have done so much for us, O Lord! We appreciate Your many blessings. We thank You for Your healing power and Your sensitivity to us in our pain. We tremble before You with reverence and joy. Thank You for the gift of faith. Give us hope again for eternal life. We cast off the chains of fear and doubt, and walk with You in the way of hope. You make the dead rise. There is nothing too difficult for You.

Jeremiah 48

The great King David, from whom Christ descended, was himself a descendant of the Moabites through Ruth. Ruth is one of the heroes of the Bible. She showed a steadfast commitment not only to her widowed mother-in-law Naomi but also to Naomi’s God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of the Hebrews, our God. In this way she was like her great-grandson David, who left the most complete record of words of devotion to God in the Bible in a large portion of the book of Psalms. Ruth’s devotion to the Lord did not come from being a Moabitess. It was a startling break from her Moabite heritage.

Jeremiah 47

The Philistines were great enemies of the Israelites for centuries. Those who are familiar with the Bible may remember the exploits of Samson against this coastal people, and of course everyone has heard of Goliath, who was brought down by young David with a stone and a sling. The words of Jeremiah against the Philistines came centuries after these well-known events. The Philistines came to the Mediterranean coast of the Promised Land from Crete. They are recognized here and in other places as the Caphtorim, who settled south of Tyre and Sidon, and who were regularly battling the Israelites for land and power.

Jeremiah 46

The portions of the prophetic writings that may at first seem least relevant to us today would have been among the most obviously relevant to those who first heard them in the day that they were written. Over the next several chapters, the oracles of God for foreign nations of the sixth century before Christ are presented for your profit. You can be sure that many people back in their day were very interested in what the Lord God had to say about places like Egypt, Philistia, and Moab. Are we right in dismissing these writings as unimportant?

Jeremiah 45

Jeremiah 44