A Prayer: for you and for me.

Loving Father, will You stir up my heart and the heart of every believer reading this to genuinely believe and remember that Jesus hung on that cross bearing the curse that we deserve? Would you use even this little write-up prayer to draw more people to Yourself who will also believe this truth for themselves? Your word says that cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. Hanging on that cross 2000 years ago, panting, weeping, crying, and dying, Jesus was being cursed. Not because of anything in Him that He had done but He was being cursed for me. He was taking the curse for every sinner who will place their trust in Him. His sheep. He bore the curse that was on me because I had not fulfilled your perfect law perfectly. He drank up my curse to the very last drop. 

I don’t always remember this. I don’t always linger in this truth, and feel the weight of it. But the reality is that it happened. It is an objective truth that happened. Will you stir up my heart to receive this truth, O my God? Would you help me to see myself now as blessed. Fully blessed. My shame is lifted because Jesus has carried my shame fully in Himself. He has borne my shame. I am blessed. Not because there is anything I did to deserve a blessed status but because Jesus and I have had a sweet exchange. I am righteous in Your eyes. I am beautiful and You delight in me. 

Jesus was cursed and crushed on the cross so that I would be blessed with his beautiful blessedness. I am beautiful and pure and completely holy in your eyes because I am wrapped up in the perfect purity of the prophet and priest whom you punished so I can be pardoned. I am the righteousness of Jesus!

I know these things because I have read them in your word. But to be honest Lord, I don’t feel the deep realities and experience these truths most of the time. A lot of times, I feel afraid, weak, broken and inadequate. So, like a waterfall that flows down into a stream, will these truths flow down into my heart? Would these truths be so immersed within me to the point that they have richly and deeply marinated in my soul and I will truly believe and experience the beauty and power of them? Help me believe, O God. Please, God! Help me believe! Help not only me but also those who have trusted You and are reading this! Let us know, with our minds and our experiences. May we be conformed in your image as we taste–nay, drink–of the goodness of the Lord. 

I love you, God, and thank You Jesus for living, dying and rising again. For me and for all the saints, the excellent ones in whom is my delight (Psalm 16:3).

I, and my friends reading, come in Jesus’ precious name, Amen