Prayer for the New Year – Let’s Rest in Jesus!
Are you busy today? Hopefully not! Christmas and this holiday time can feel so busy and so time consuming, but today I hope you are able to rest! Coming out of busy weeks and a maybe with a renewed sense to get back to the grind of life with a new year under way, what better topic to turn to the Lord with our minds and mouths so that we would find a deeper way today to truly rest.
The book of Hebrews has a theme that underlies the entire book: Jesus is better. In chapter 4, we get a recollection of Israel in its escape from Egypt in what was supposed to be their deliverance from slavery and bondage to a land of promise and rest. Yet in their dissatisfaction with God and their fear of worldly loss they did not find the rest God was leading them toward.
The word of God has given us this picture and this command to rest in the Lord throughout the Old Testament. Yet, there is a better rest for us in Christ that has come. This rest God gives through his son is better than anything this world would try to tell us to look for comfort and peace. So often the things that the world says will bring peace to our soul only create more conflict and restlessness in our minds. The word and our experiences chasing after things in the world to make us happy reveals this restlessness to us.
As we start a new year and we think about all that we would like 2026 to be, let’s not lose sight of what we already have in Jesus. What a great time for us now to think of how our lives can be conformed to him, how the word of God that pierces the soul and spirit becomes more ingrained in us so that we would be people who are living for Jesus, as a God-glorifying community, that is on mission making disciples of Jesus in our city and to the ends of the earth.
Let’s look to Hebrews 4 and out of that lets pray together for renewed passion for what God is doing in your life (for what he has already done), an excitement for what God will do with Faith Baptist Church in 2026, and for the world around us that needs the grace and mercy of Christ so that the kingdom would come, and His will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.
Hebrews 4:1-13
Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it. 2 For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened.[a] 3 For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said,
“As I swore in my wrath,
‘They shall not enter my rest,’”
although his works were finished from the foundation of the world. 4 For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.” 5 And again in this passage he said,
“They shall not enter my rest.”
PRAY UP: That God would grant us his rest in Christ and he would help us to enter and live in His rest.
PRAY IN: For the eyes of the church to be opened to it’s true mission and to who God truly is so that the church would not be deceived and bring condemnation upon itself.
PRAY OUT: That the good news of Jesus would go out to those who don’t know him, that his voice would be heard, and that we would be united together in faith
6 Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, 7 again he appoints a certain day, “Today,” saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted,
“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts.”
8 For if Joshua had given them rest, God[b] would not have spoken of another day later on. 9 So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, 10 for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.
PRAY UP: That God would give us a greater understanding and personal and collective appreciation of Christ’s person and of His work for us, as Prophet, Priest, and King (all the implications of that).
PRAY IN: for Faith to be a place people can come and find rest and that would be on display through how we love and serve one another. Pray for people at Faith and needs you may know of now.
PRAY OUT: All nations to repent and turn back to God and that leaders and representatives would embrace their God given jobs to be a minister of the Lord’s justice. Pray for your specific representatives in various levels of government now as they serve in their high offices.
11 Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. 12 For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13 And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
PRAY UP: That the Lord would pierce our hearts again today with his word and give us a passion to truly live for Him.
PRAY IN: For Faith to be conformed to the word in how we live together and specifically for the power of the Gospel work and see marriages and family members reconciled.
PRAY OUT: For people God has put in the domains he has called us to in this world to know that all man is naked and exposed to the eyes of the Lord whom we will give an account and pray for the Gospel to be frequently revealed to them. Pray for someone specific in your life now who needs to turn to Christ and receive him as Lord and savior.
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