Gregg Phillips @greggphillips

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Prayer About Failure in Doing God’s Will

Heavenly Father, I want to pray for myself and everyone else who has tried to do something, large or small, out of love for You, and have failed. Failed big, like people who try to start a church or charity and it fails financially and closes, wasting huge amounts of money dedicated to Your service. Or something small but upsetting, like I bend to help someone on the ground and they curse and say, “Get your hands off of me!”

Or even the little failures of everyday life. When I start to pray to you and my mind drifts, and suddenly I am thinking how angry I am at someone, or how nice I look in my new shirt. If I get dressed for church but lose track of time, and I’m ten minutes late again.

Dear God, I pray for myself and for everyone who is carrying a burden of guilt or pain for such a failure. Let us know 100% that when we fail, trying to do something out of love for You or our fellow man, that You are with us and love us with a huge powerful love that only You can give. Let us feel joy in Your love and in our salvation.

You never said, “Blessed are the successful.” You said, “Blessed are those who are poor in spirit,” and “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.” For we are not going to find real success in this life, are we, Lord? So I pray, let us know joy and fulfillment instead of depression and guilt when we fail in Your name. For you have not commanded us to succeed; you have commanded us to love.

In Christ’s name I pray,

Amen.

Isaiah 53:1-9 (ESV)
"Who has believed what he has heard from us?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
For he grew up before him like a young plant,
and like a root out of dry ground;
he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
and no beauty that we should desire him.

He was despised and rejected by men;
a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his wounds we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned — every one — to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he opened not his mouth.

By oppression and judgment he was taken away;
and as for his generation, who considered
that he was cut off out of the land of the living,
stricken for the transgression of my people?

And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death,
although he had done no violence,
and there was no deceit in his mouth."


Notes on the Scripture

Israel after Solomon (29): Isaiah’s Messianic Prophecies
We have, over the last few days, looked at Isaiah as a prophet of the Kingdom of Judah, for he both prophesied and lived through three great events: the fall of Israel to the Assyrians, the exile of the ten tribes, and the successful defense of Jerusalem against the Assyrians. He also prophesied events in the far future, after his death: the ultimate fall of Jerusalem that would occur 150 years later, the exile of the tribe of Judah to Babylon, and their return to rebuild the Temple.

But something else began to stir around 700 B.C. For it was at this time that God began to reveal more explicitly that He had plans beyond the first covenant and the law of Moses; that through Israel, He would send His Son to redeem the earth. Christ’s birth was 700 years in the future, and yet, we begin to see more and more prophecy of the Redeemer (called messianic prophecy). And of all the latter prophets, the greatest prophet of Christ was Isaiah.

This was to sustain the Jews for seven centuries. For no matter how dire their situation became — and it was often quite terrible — they had the comfort, before the fact, of Christ’s eventual salvation.

The messianic prophecies are breathtaking in their description of Jesus, both in their detail and in the very non-Jewish theological implications. The great Jewish heroes — Moses, Joshua, David — were men of earthly power, beloved leaders in battle, political forces who strengthened and increased the nation of God’s chosen people. One would expect to see the prophets predicting the return of such a man. Even Elijah, a holy man, destroyed the priests of Baal with the sword and stood as a prophet to the extinguishing of Ahab, Jezebel, and their entire line.

But Isaiah prophesies a messiah who will not walk in worldly majesty or political power, one oppressed and afflicted, who “opened not his mouth” (see Mark 15:3-5), one who would be led “like a lamb to the slaughter” and be “pierced for our transgressions.”

These messianic prophecies are mixed into Isaiah among various other subjects, making it difficult to read at times. The prophecy is critical to Christianity — who can doubt, after reading this and comparing it to the life of Jesus, that He was the Son of God? — but it is also important to see that there is a spiritual history paralleling the worldly history of the Jews. God reveals his intentions over time, but the revelation always precedes the act by a great period of time. Think of the promises to Abraham or Moses; God works out His purpose — slowly, by the human clock, but with absolute certainty.

Prayer for Those Who Have Turned Away

Grant, O Lord Christ, peace, love and speedy reconciliation to your people whom You have redeemed with your precious blood. Make your presence become known to those who have turned away from You and do not seek You, so that none of them may be lost, but all may come to the knowledge of the truth and be saved. May all the earth praise your holy Name, living in the true love and harmony you purchased for us by your suffering.

Amen.