The Gospel Prayer
This weekend, at the Summit, I’m dusting off an old resource and rolling it back out. It’s a little prayer I pray, almost every day, to fortify my mind in the gospel. I call it the gospel prayer.
This isn’t a magical prayer, and it’s certainly not something I claim to have invented. It came about a few years ago as I began to see how central the gospel is to all of Scripture and all of the Christian life. This was my way of applying the gospel to my daily life. As we often say around the Summit, the gospel isn’t just the diving board; it’s the pool itself.
There are four components to the prayer, and all four flow out of our identity in Christ. Because I am in Christ…
1. There is nothing I have done that could make you love me less, and nothing I could do that would make you love me more.
2. You are all I need for everlasting joy.
3. As you have been to me, so I will be to others.
4. As I pray, I’ll do so according to the compassion you’ve shown at the cross and the power you demonstrated through the resurrection.
For more, check out this excerpt from Gospel, about Diagnosis vs. Prognosis. Or read Tim Keller’s foreword to the book. Or you can pick up your own copy of Gospel: Recovering the Power that Made Christianity Revolutionary.
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About J.D. Greear
J.D. Greear is the pastor of The Summit Church in Raleigh-Durham, NC and author of several books including Gaining by Losing: Why the Future Belongs to Churches That Send.
Thank you JD for this prayer. I’m Rebooting again today. God bless you.
just want to thank you so much much appreciated and keep up the great work x
That’s for your service and commitment to the God, Jesus,and the Holy Spirit; I’m a new listener and love your energy for the gospel. I drive a bus on a college campus and you are tuned in so all the students who ride will hear your radio show. Thanks again.
Thank J.D. for your constant encouragement and reminding of the Gospel and what it is all about. Today I am the interim pastor at a small church who has been destroyed by shepherds who added to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and have laid burdens grievous to be born so that the people are beat down and destroyed. Having gone through your Gospel Revolution I keep coming back to this Gospel prayer and long for the day when the people here are able to grasp it’s full understanding. Thanks again for you obedience to the Cross.
thanks jd, you are a very important tool for the world. Congratulations on the blog