Whenever I thumb through my old prayer journals, I notice a common theme. One prayer I pray the most. One thing I confess above others and one thing I ask for more than anything else . It’s not surprising really, since this prayer is related to God’s greatest command and what he created me to do.
What is that prayer?
For love.
I often find myself confessing to a lack of love, both for God and others. Sometimes I confess sins of idolatry—loving created things more than the Creator. Other times I confess not loving my family and others as I ought, being selfish with my time and energy, seeking my own wants and needs, complaining about my labors on behalf of others.
I also find myself asking the Lord to help me to love as he has loved me. To bear in me the fruit of love, through his Spirit. To love sacrificially, faithfully, and with humility. To love without expectation or condition. To love because he first loved me.
Perhaps you are familiar with such prayers. Here is one I wrote, asking the Lord for greater love.
A Prayer for Greater Love
Father in Heaven,
I come before you today humbled by your love for me. I read in my Bible from John 17:23 where it says that you love me as much as you love your Son. I paused to consider what that means. My finite mind faltered to grasp it. I just sat there overwhelmed and wonder-struck. You love me as much as you love your own Son? How can that be?
I thank you and praise you for your love for me in Christ. I thank you that before you spoke those words, “Let there be light,” you chose to love me. You set your heart on me. You decided to make me your own. I praise you because you are a God of love; John says you are love (1 John 4:16). Indeed, you’ve known love from all eternity; it’s what you’ve always shared within the Triune community. A love wherein each person of the God-head love, delight in, honor, treasure, and glorify the other. And you chose to share that love with your children whom you have created to love and worship you.
When I consider the love you have for me— when I look at the love poured out on me in Christ at the cross— all I can do is fall before you. Speechless. Humbled. Amazed.
Forgive me for not loving you with my whole heart. Forgive me for not loving my neighbor as myself. Forgive me for not forgiving others as I’ve been forgiven. Forgive me for being impatient and unkind. Forgive me for exalting myself and seeking my own glory and fame. Forgive me for not serving and giving and sacrificing for others.
Forgive me for the idols of my heart, for those things I look to in the hopes that they will give me what only you can give. Forgive me for treasuring things like comfort and pleasure, affirmation and adoration, success and work, family and fortune. Forgive me for setting them on the throne of my heart to worship.
I pray the roots of love would burrow deep in my heart and bring forth life. Help me to love with greater love. Help me to reflect and image you as I love others. Help me to radiate the love that lives within me through your Spirit to those around me. Help me to remove the idols of my heart and replace them with greater love for you. Help me to live out the love you’ve shown me in Christ in my thoughts, words, and deeds.
Your word says that love never fails. I thank you that even though my love for you falters and even though I flounder in my love for others, your love for me in Christ will never fail. It will endure to the end. Nothing can separate me from you.
Reshape my heart this day to love you and others. In the name of Jesus I pray, amen.
