Prayer for Believers

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Today, Dr. Gus Reyes leads us in a prayer for believers. Dr. Reyes serves as the Director of the Christian Life Commission for The Baptist General Convention of Texas. He also serves with Dr. Samuel Rodriguez in the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference on their Executive Committee. Prior to joining the BGCT, he worked with LifeWay Christian Resources and Sprint Telecommunications and served in the U.S. Marine Corps.

I’d like to encourage you to listen and read along with me as we look at Micah 6:8. I am reading from the New International Version (NIV) and I’d like for you to read the verse with me and hear what it might say to you as we get ready to pray.

This is a challenge for believers, specifically for leaders…but if you’re a believer, you’re a leader. So I want to invite you as a leader and believer to hear what we’re called to do—the criteria for leadership, the criteria for being a follower of Christ.

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to act justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?

Other versions might say “to do justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God.” God knows that today, in our environment, believers are going to be set apart because they’re the people that are going to be looking to do good.

You as leaders have influence in your home; in your community; in your church; in this country. We have an opportunity to look for darkness and to bring light to that darkness and to do justice.

Justice is about how we treat people. We’re very concerned with how people treat us; but as believers, we have an opportunity to look out for those who are marginalized, and ask God to help us take actions—not just to watch and see things happen, but to really get engaged with what we can do to make a difference in the lives of others under the banner of justice, because God is a God of just rules. He has given us rules to follow. We are His people and we can do justly.

Secondly, the Scripture talks about showing mercy. We like to use the version that says “being kind and doing kindness,” and God knows we need to be a people who are more kind today. It doesn’t take very long for you to see acts that are not very kind. All you have to do is drive your car on the freeway and put the blinker on and watch how people behave toward you.

Well, you can be one of those persons that stands out as a believer of Christ and who acts kindly toward others, who goes out of your way to be kind to people who perhaps haven’t had anyone be kind to them.

The last part of the Scripture talks about being humble. When you think about how God was not just with you; how He was merciful to you; how He found you; He loved you and gave you a path to Him, to be right with Him, through his son Jesus; how can we not be humble with our God and humble around people?

He gives us every breath. When we think about our breathing; all of our opportunities: a night’s sleep, a paycheck, our general health; and how He saves us and helps us, how do we not walk humbly before our God and before people?

Yet, we don’t have a lot to brag about. We have a Savior who has saved us and we have an opportunity to be kind and to do justice to others.

As leaders, I want to invite you to take steps today, to pray about how you can do justice, how you can be kind and what you need to do to even further walk humbly before our God. Let’s pray:

Prayer

Father, I thank You so much for believers who are praying around the world, even right now. Lord, we ask that You show us darkness, that we might be able to jump in and take action against darkness and bring light wherever it’s needed, Father, where we might be able to treat people kindly and treat people with just opportunities, Lord, that they might have an opportunity to serve and to have life and to live it abundantly as Jesus would have us do.

Father, we ask that You help us not to be arrogant about what we have and what You have given us, because You have given it to us with love and freely, Father.
Help us to be those people who are known by the world; by our neighbors; by people who are different than our political party; for being people who look for the opportunity to do just things, to do justice and to be kind to those around us and to those we don’t even know.

Father, help us to walk in that way of humbleness and humility; to point people to You and not to ourselves; for the wonders and the blessings You have given us. For all the things that we have said, Lord, that your Word calls us to do, we ask that You help us through your Son, Jesus, and your Holy Spirit, and that we might be those people who are doing the good things.

In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.