Prayer to Focus on What's Most Important Today During The Pandemic
Thursday April 9, 2020
It’s so easy to get pretty self-focused during these days of physical distancing. We see our needs. We feel the emotional swings of days at home with changed rhythms of work and interaction with others. We face an uncertain future. Who knows when restrictions will lift? Who knows if we will have a job to go back to when there’s the opportunity to work again. So many things consume our minds about ourselves, our condition, and our future.
This is the day in the Christian calendar when we remember Jesus who is so one with us and yet so much better than all of us. At the point in His life when His followers and others should have been honouring Him and serving Him, they were focused on their own needs, their own fears, their own power – or lack of it – and their own uncertain future.
At the Last Supper, Jesus should have been the focus of honour with His friends but he’s the one who paid attention to them and who got up and humbly served them by washing their feet. This Jesus is the one who explains how the bread of the Paasover represents His body broken for our sins and how the cup of wine will become a reminder of His life’s blood poured out so we could all find forgiveness and life with God for all of eternity. And this is Jesus who offers that life to all those who sat with him – including Peter who would soon deny him and Judas Iscariot who was about to betray him and sell him off for a few pieces of silver.
This Jesus, the Son of God, our Saviour, needs to become our focus today and in all of these days of the pandemic. How can we love him? How can we serve him? How can we give ourselves – whether in life or in death to living His plan, His purposes, His will. This is what He has given us. This is the life he has called us to live, in his memory, in his honour all the days of our lives, including today.
God’s Word reminds us:
So, although we continue to pray for all impacted by the covid-19 virus, today we want to pray that we will hold steady in our honouring and serving of this amazing Jesus, who loved us and gave Himself for us.
Let’s pray:
Lord Jesus,
Today we remember how you ate the Last Supper with your friends. Your own heart was filled with a variety of emotions as You anticipated the suffering and death you were about to endure. Today we want to pause and respond to the great love you have for us and the way you persevered until the end to offer us what we need – a way to be reconciled with the Father through the forgiveness of our sins.
We confess again today that we have no life outside of You. We have no hope except the hope that we have that through your life’s blood, poured out for us in your death on the cross, so we can be washed free from our sin, brought to life spiritually, and enjoy life with You and the Father in heaven for all of eternity.
We look to the future in this time of the pandemic and we don’t know what the weeks and months ahead will hold in terms of disease and death and even finances and the ability to meet needs for ourselves and our loved ones down the line after things open up again. What we do know is that You are the consistent one – always loving us, always serving us, going all the way to the end to do what’s needed for us in this life and the next. We rest our hope in your word that assures us,
While You lived on this earth You were the one who served Your disciples in washing their feet – when they should have been honouring you and taking care of Your needs. You are the one who had never sinned and didn’t deserve to die and yet you allowed your body to be broken and your life’s blood to be poured out so we, the sinful ones, could find life and have it both in this life and in the next. Your death and resurrection are the fulfillment of your promise – your covenant of love – that is unbreakable. You love us fully. You love us with all that You are. You love us in a way that is life giving even at the cost of Your own reputation, comfort, and your own life.
Lord Jesus, help us to be your followers today. Help us to love you back and remain faithful in our love to you even though the circumstances around us may be difficult. Help us to keep eternity in mind and view everything else from Your perspective. As one writer in the Bible has said,
We don’t know who will live through this pandemic and who will die – who will survive covid-19 only to experience an accident or other illness. We just know that each day of our life is a gift from You and we want to live each day in loving response to Your unfailing love.
We love you, Lord Jesus and we honour you with the words of a simple children’s song that many of us learned as young toddlers:
JESUS LOVES ME
Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so
Little ones to Him belong
They are weak but He is strong
Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me
Yes Jesus loves me. The Bible tells me so
Jesus love me, He who died
Heaven’s gate to open wide
He will wash away my sin
Let His little child come in
Jesus loves me, He will stay
Close beside me all the way
If I love Him when I die
He will take me home on high
We can’t go to church today, tomorrow on Good Friday, or Resurrection Day on Sunday but we can spend these days with God and find the hope His death and resurrection bring to us settling even deeper in our hearts, motivating us to greater commitment in our service to Him.
This is the day in the Christian calendar when we remember Jesus who is so one with us and yet so much better than all of us. At the point in His life when His followers and others should have been honouring Him and serving Him, they were focused on their own needs, their own fears, their own power – or lack of it – and their own uncertain future.
At the Last Supper, Jesus should have been the focus of honour with His friends but he’s the one who paid attention to them and who got up and humbly served them by washing their feet. This Jesus is the one who explains how the bread of the Paasover represents His body broken for our sins and how the cup of wine will become a reminder of His life’s blood poured out so we could all find forgiveness and life with God for all of eternity. And this is Jesus who offers that life to all those who sat with him – including Peter who would soon deny him and Judas Iscariot who was about to betray him and sell him off for a few pieces of silver.
This Jesus, the Son of God, our Saviour, needs to become our focus today and in all of these days of the pandemic. How can we love him? How can we serve him? How can we give ourselves – whether in life or in death to living His plan, His purposes, His will. This is what He has given us. This is the life he has called us to live, in his memory, in his honour all the days of our lives, including today.
God’s Word reminds us:
So, although we continue to pray for all impacted by the covid-19 virus, today we want to pray that we will hold steady in our honouring and serving of this amazing Jesus, who loved us and gave Himself for us.
Let’s pray:
Lord Jesus,
Today we remember how you ate the Last Supper with your friends. Your own heart was filled with a variety of emotions as You anticipated the suffering and death you were about to endure. Today we want to pause and respond to the great love you have for us and the way you persevered until the end to offer us what we need – a way to be reconciled with the Father through the forgiveness of our sins.
We confess again today that we have no life outside of You. We have no hope except the hope that we have that through your life’s blood, poured out for us in your death on the cross, so we can be washed free from our sin, brought to life spiritually, and enjoy life with You and the Father in heaven for all of eternity.
We look to the future in this time of the pandemic and we don’t know what the weeks and months ahead will hold in terms of disease and death and even finances and the ability to meet needs for ourselves and our loved ones down the line after things open up again. What we do know is that You are the consistent one – always loving us, always serving us, going all the way to the end to do what’s needed for us in this life and the next. We rest our hope in your word that assures us,
While You lived on this earth You were the one who served Your disciples in washing their feet – when they should have been honouring you and taking care of Your needs. You are the one who had never sinned and didn’t deserve to die and yet you allowed your body to be broken and your life’s blood to be poured out so we, the sinful ones, could find life and have it both in this life and in the next. Your death and resurrection are the fulfillment of your promise – your covenant of love – that is unbreakable. You love us fully. You love us with all that You are. You love us in a way that is life giving even at the cost of Your own reputation, comfort, and your own life.
Lord Jesus, help us to be your followers today. Help us to love you back and remain faithful in our love to you even though the circumstances around us may be difficult. Help us to keep eternity in mind and view everything else from Your perspective. As one writer in the Bible has said,
We don’t know who will live through this pandemic and who will die – who will survive covid-19 only to experience an accident or other illness. We just know that each day of our life is a gift from You and we want to live each day in loving response to Your unfailing love.
We love you, Lord Jesus and we honour you with the words of a simple children’s song that many of us learned as young toddlers:
JESUS LOVES ME
Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so
Little ones to Him belong
They are weak but He is strong
Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me
Yes Jesus loves me. The Bible tells me so
Jesus love me, He who died
Heaven’s gate to open wide
He will wash away my sin
Let His little child come in
Jesus loves me, He will stay
Close beside me all the way
If I love Him when I die
He will take me home on high
We can’t go to church today, tomorrow on Good Friday, or Resurrection Day on Sunday but we can spend these days with God and find the hope His death and resurrection bring to us settling even deeper in our hearts, motivating us to greater commitment in our service to Him.
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