A Prayer of Praise and Thanks, with a Petition

Lord God, heavenly father, you are God, and you are God alone – there is no God but you, and there is none like you. Lord God, you are perfectly holy. Blessed be your Holy Name forever! You are perfectly wise, and there is nothing that you do not know. You are all powerful. The earth heaves before you, and the mountains quake at your approach. You are perfectly good, and your love is perfect, and indeed you are perfect love. You are perfectly righteous in all your ways. Your mercy triumphs over your justice, but your mercy and justice each remain perfect. All glory and honor and praise are yours and yours alone, forever and ever. Amen.

You are the creator, the sustainer, and the redeemer of this world. You created matter from nothing, and you willed the laws that govern it. All existence is dependent upon your will, and there is nothing to challenge or rival your righteous decrees. If you were to withdraw your care from the world for a moment, it would straightaway pass into nothingness. But you keep ceaseless watch over the world, and you rule it perfectly. You are king and ruler of all. You created the heavens and the earth, the sky and the seas, the mountains and plains, and all manner of life, from trees and flowers to fish, birds, and mammals, including man, whom you created in your very image. Your world is good; its beauty is incomparable.

But man has corrupted your world through sin, and he himself is dead to sin – our hands are stained with the works of evil, and we are utterly lost, entirely incapable of saving ourselves. And not only do we reject your moral commands, but we reject you. We do not praise you, we do not thank you. We trade the glory of God for trifles which we soon discard. We run from you so that we may forget you. We do not deserve your love but rather your ire. Still, you love man, and you decided to rescue him. You became man – you, who are perfectly holy and good and all powerful, humbled yourself by becoming as one of us. And not only this, but you allowed yourself to be rejected, insulted, cursed, wrongly accused and wrongly convicted, spat upon, tortured, and even murdered. You allowed yourself to suffer all of this – you who are God alone, perfectly holy and righteous. And you did this to rescue us from our sin. You did this not despite our sin, but because of it, so that you could save us and restore us and reconcile us with you. These truths are staggering, beyond human comprehension. Even if we were to praise you ceaselessly until the end of time with the best voices and the best words, we could not even begin to offer you one part of one jot of one iota of the praise that you deserve. Please forgive us this failing and look on us with mercy. Please call us to join you at your table, to dwell with you, for we have no life apart from you.

Lord God, heavenly father, we beseech you, please grant us the gift of faith. Please justify us and sanctify us. Please let us grow in holiness, so that we may be like you. Please grant us love, so that we may love you with our whole mind, heart, soul, and strength, and please help us to love everyone, including ourselves, as Jesus loves them. Please help us to grow in obedience and discipleship. Please help us to answer the great commission. We ask that you do all this for your own glory and will, not for ours. And we ask that you do all this through Jesus Christ, your only son, and through the Holy Spirit. Amen.