Father God,
We are grateful for the signs and seals of your covenant; indeed they are precious gifts. But at the same time, oh Lord, we have a sinful proclivity as fallen human beings to idolize the good gifts that you have given us and forget who has given us the gifts.
We ignore your creation and idolize the creations of our own hands. We look away from the promise of the gospel and think that we can find salvation in the signs and seals apart from the gospel and apart from Christ.
May this not be said of us. Instead, Lord, we pray that you would help us to look through the sacraments and to see Christ with the eyes of faith, and to see the promise of your grace to save, to redeem, to sanctify in those signs and seals of the covenant. We pray that in this way that you would fill our hearts with a robust and hearty faith and that we would look unswervingly to your son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and that we would cry out to your Spirit to strengthen our weak and failing faith.
We pray that our faith would not be anemic but that it would be powerful, indeed, the kind of faith that can move mountains. We pray, Lord, especially in this challenging season that you would not only give us a faith that looks wholeheartedly to Christ for our salvation, but that you would give us a faith that trusts you even in the face of these challenging times.
Lord, so often in our faith we are willing to trust you with eternity but we are unsure about today. Forgive us Father for these doubts. May we not only trust you for eternity but may we trust you today in the moment. Help us to remember that the Christian life is not merely about our destination, as blessed as it, but that the christian life and the gospel and living it out is all about the journey, too.
Moment by moment, day by day, as you enable us by the faith in Christ not only to know that our sins have been forgiven and that we have hope of eternal life but that come what may, whether in times of plenty or in times of want, that we would be able to say that we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. That you would fill our faith with peace though the world may be losing its mind. that you would fill our faith with a confidence in your fatherly and providential care for us and that we would have this unshaken hope that you continually love us and that as our heavenly Father, when we ask you for bread, you do not give to us a stone or a serpent but you lovingly provide for us above and beyond what we could ever ask, imagine, or think.
Strengthen our faith that we will not lose sight of the promise of the gospel that you have given us in Christ Jesus our Lord. We pray and ask all of these things in Christ's precious and holy name, Amen.