21 Prayers

Prayers

Mar 12

This is a compilation of 21 scripture prayers for the 21 martyrs.Prayer 1:If one of the men who persecuted the 21 Coptic Christians came into CCW Worship Gathering, I don’t think I would be very inviting toward him. He could approach me in the local Publix and I probably wouldn’t even tell him where the eggs were. But today we pray, not curses, but blessings, toward the persecutors. Read and study these verses and make them your prayer today.

¹⁴Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. ¹⁵Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.¹⁶Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly.[h] Never be wise in your own sight.¹⁷Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. ¹⁸If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. ¹⁹Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it[i] to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”²⁰To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.”²¹Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

¹²I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service,¹³though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, ¹⁴and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. ¹⁵The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.¹⁶But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. ¹⁷To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever.^[d] Amen.

The following words come from Allen Yeh, Professor of Intercultural Studies & MissiologyThe Apostle Paul. Saint Paul. Often when we add these appellations, we are reminded of who Paul became, but it obscures the fact of who he used to be. If anybody was realistically cognizant of his past, it was Paul himself. “I am the chief of sinners!” he cried. But to us, we dismiss that as hyperbole: “Surely Paul cannot be the worst sinner that ever lived,” we think. But consider this: he murdered Christians in the name of God. There is a very obvious modern-day parallel: killings perpetrated by radical Muslim terrorists seem to show no signs of abating today, from 9/11 to Hezbollah to ISIS to Charlie Hebdo. Of course not all of them target Christians, but many of them do specifically. Leaving aside, for now, the issues of how to address these, and also recognizing the fact that many other parties on all sides are also culpable of some degree of violence, this image is mainly used here to illustrate this visceral point: imagine if Osama Bin Laden walked through the door of your church and said that he was a converted believer (and let’s say for a moment this were true). How would you feel? How would you react to him? Could you accept him into your fellowship? How long would it take you to “get over” what he had done? When would you finally be able to trust him? Could you ever forget and forgive his past? Would you ever go so far as to call him a saint, no matter how “good” he became later on in his life?Today we Christians often turn too quickly to the victory and the triumph, without walking through the valley of the shadow of death first. We can glory in the resurrection without feeling the crucifixion. We want Easter without Lent or Good Friday. We expect forgiveness without sufficient dwelling on our depravity, the utter wretchedness of who we were as “sons of wrath” and “children of disobedience” (Eph. 2:2-3). This is not meant to keep us in bondage to guilt but rather to highlight how far God has brought us. This is the point of Lent: to walk that journey and that Passion with Jesus, and to remember the sinfulness of who we were—and still are. It underscores our utter incapability to redeem ourselves, and it is a deterrent to cheap grace.Paul wrote these words while in prison in Rome. By this time, he is a senior apostle with tremendous influence. He is about to be martyred for his faith by the most powerful man on earth, Caesar. He was so beloved that the Ephesian elders wept over him (Acts 20:17-38). And yet he still called himself the chief of sinners. Not in the past, but now. Because compared to the goodness of Jesus, he still is. And we all are. But it just goes to show: nobody is beyond God’s reach.

Prayer 2:Now those who had been scattered by the persecution in connection with Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch, telling the message only to Jews. Some of them, however, men from Cyprus and Cyrene, went to Antioch and began to speak to Greeks also, telling them the good news about the Lord Jesus. The Lord’s hand was with them, and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord.

Prayer 3:Many are the foes who persecute me, but I have not turned from your statutes.

Prayer 4:How long, O LORD, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, “Violence!” but you do not save? Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrong? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and conflict abounds. Therefore the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted.

Prayer 5:Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Prayer 6:Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. He who receives you receives me, and he who receives me receives the one who sent me. Anyone who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and anyone who receives a righteous man because he is a righteous man will receive a righteous man’s reward. And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward.

Prayer 7: All men will hate you because of me. But not a hair of your head will perish. By standing firm you will gain life.

Prayer 8:So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him.

Prayer 9:So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. For in just a very little while, He who is coming will come and will not delay. But my righteous one will live by faith. And if he shrinks back, I will not be pleased with him. But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved.

Prayer 10:I, John, your brother and companion in the suffering and kingdom and patient endurance that are ours in Jesus, was on the island of Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.

Prayer 11:Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes will not be hurt at all by the second death.

Prayer 12:When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. They called out in a loud voice, “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?” Then each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to wait a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and brothers who were to be killed as they had been was completed

Prayer 13And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.