Pastoral Prayers - Spirit and Truth

Below is the pastoral prayer for this Sunday. You can find past prayers here.

Holy Father,
You are a God of Spirit and truth. You are Spirit – nothing in this world can contain You or explain You. You are not like us or any other created thing. We cannot shape You as we desire. You are formless, but You are not indefinable.

You are also Truth. You are the Creator and Sustainer of all that is. We do not define You, but You do define us. You formed us before we were born, You direct our steps. More than that, You are the purpose and direction of all things. Everything in this world is measured against Your righteous character.

Lord, we worship You in Spirit. We do not come before You in our strength or on our merit but by means of Your gracious gift of Your Holy Spirit. By Your Spirit, draw our spirits, the truest and deepest parts of our being, into Your presence.

We also worship You in truth. We come before You as You have revealed Yourself, praising You for the innumerable beauties of who You are. We pray that You might move so that our human praises, born of leaden tongues and sinful hearts, might be transmuted into the gold of true adoration.

Father, we pray that You might be at work in our world through Your Spirit and in Your truth. Move among us, sanctifying us by Your Spirit. Break the power of sin over us. Teach us to walk in paths of true righteousness. Move by Your Spirit among our neighbors and among the nations, calling to Yourself those who are lost and breathing life into the dead things of this world.

Speak Your truth to us. Teach us to believe and follow all of Your ways. Purge from us all half-heartedness and the half-faith that too often masquerades as true discipleship. Teach Your truth to the nations as well. Help them and those who lead them to love righteousness, to seek justice, and to walk in peace. Exalt the humble and poor and humble the exalted and proud.

Father, we know that by Your Spirit you hear all of our prayers. In this moment our hearts are joined with Yours, our spirit speaking to Yours and Your Spirit interceding alongside us. As we are so near to you, we pray especially for those who are on our hearts. For those who are sick and hurting, for those we have wronged, for those we are distant from us, we pray. For the afflictions of our own hearts, for our secret sins and doubts, our grief and our fear, we pray. Speak Your truth to us, hear our prayers, and move in our world to bring it closer to Your perfect Truth.

AMEN