A Prayer for Hope. For those in desperate need of it.
Heavenly Father,
My hope is faint today. Help me. Help me to endure when I feel no hope. Forge a hope-producing character in me. Do not let me be ashamed.
By your Scriptures, give me hope and grant that I would be saved by hope. “My hope is in the Lord who gave himself for me” – help me to believe that. Today. Right now.
Lord, you are my hope. I am so often sorely tempted to look for hope in something, someone, anything else. But, by your grace, make me to hope only ultimately in You.
When you saved me, when you gave me new life, when I was born again by the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit, I was born to hope. I need that hope, more than ever, as an anchor for my soul today. I need to enter into the inner sanctuary, where my Savior has gone before, and to know the presence and favor and communion of the one who is my hope. My only hope.
Remind me again, and teach me to believe, and live out the gracious truth and reality that Christ in me gives me the sure and certain hope of glory. Don’t allow me (fickle as my heart is) to shift my soul’s hope away from the hope of the Gospel.
“My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness; I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus’ name. On Christ the solid rock, I stand; all other ground is sinking sand, all other ground is sinking sand.”
“His oath, his covenant, his blood support me in the whelming flood; when all around my soul gives way, he then is all my hope and stay. On Christ the solid rock, I stand; all other ground is sinking sand, all other ground is sinking sand.”
Lord, I need to believe that now. But my faith is weak and my strength is small and the fire is almost out. I hang by a thread, but that thread is of Christ’s spinning. Do not let me go.
The full assurance of hope until the end. How inestimably precious that phrase. How comforting the prospect. Make me earnest to seek and find and have and hold it. All by your grace.
In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.
Let endurance produce character in me, and character produce hope – such a hope that does not put me to shame. Romans 5:4-5(ESV) Through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures, let me have hope, Romans 15:4(ESV) and be saved by hope. Romans 8:24(ESV)
Let the God of Jacob be my help, and my hope always be in the LORD my God. Psalm 146:5(ESV)
I was born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 1 Peter 1:3(ESV) and let that hope be to me as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, entering into the inner place behind the curtain, where the Forerunner has gone on my behalf. Hebrews 6:19-20(ESV)
Christ in me, is the hope of glory, Colossians 1:27(ESV) so never let me shift my hope from the hope of the gospel; Colossians 1:23(ESV) but enable me to be earnest to have the full assurance of hope until the end. Hebrews 6:11(ESV)