A new year prayer for 2023

Happy New Year from Understand the Bible! This year we will be picking up where we left off in the Firm Foundations series. (If you aren’t subscribed on YouTube or signed up to the mailing list, please do so to get the new episodes as they are made!)

I came across a lovely prayer the other day, and I would like to share it with you. It’s a prayer for the new year, taken from the Valley of Vision. (The Valley of Vision of a collection of puritan prayers and devotions). The prayer uses old-fashioned language (thees and thous), and has a few unfamiliar words, but I think it’s a lovely prayer to open the year with.

It asks the Lord to be with us in everything we do, that we may serve him and grow in our service day by day.

O LORD,
Length of days does not profit me
except the days are passed in thy presence, in thy service, to thy glory.
Give me a grace that precedes, follows, guides, sustains, sanctifies, aids every hour,
that I may not be one moment apart from thee,
but may rely on thy Spirit to supply every thought,
speak in every word,
direct every step,
prosper every work,
build up every mote of faith,
and give me a desire to show forth thy praise; testify thy love, advance thy kingdom.

I launch my bark on the unknown waters of this year,
with thee, O Father, as my harbour,
thee, O Son, at my helm,
thee, O Holy Spirit, filling my sails.

Guide me to heaven with my loins girt,
my lamp burning,
my ear open to they calls,
my heart full of love,
my soul free.

Give me they grace to sanctify me,
thy comforts to cheer,
thy wisdom to teach,
thy right hand to guide,
thy counsel to instruct,
thy law to judge,
thy presence to stabilize.

My thy fear be my awe,
thy triumphs my joy.

Valley of Vision “New Year”

What a way to start the year! I pray this would be true of each of us in these coming twelve months, and always. God bless you through 2023!

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Lead us not into temptation – Lord’s Prayer #7

In the final part of the Lord’s Prayer series, we look at the line: “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil”. Why do we find the Christian life a battle against evil? What are we fighting against – and how do we win?

See more courses, including the Apostle’s Creed and Ten Commandments, on the courses index.

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Forgive us our sins – Lord’s Prayer #6

Learn to pray with the Lord’s Prayer – part 6: Do we just need to pray for forgiveness once? Or every time we sin? And why is it so important to forgive others?

The Apostle’s Creed course is available as a whole course here on the website, or you can watch The God Who Dies as an individual session.

See more courses, including the Apostle’s Creed and Ten Commandments, on the courses index.

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Your kingdom come – Lord’s Prayer #3

Learn to pray with the Lord’s Prayer – part 3: what is the kingdom of God, and how can we pray this today?

In this session we start by looking at what the kingdom of God actually is, then we think about how that works out in the church and then society.

The session from the creed I refer to is #11 – Eternal Life.

See more courses, including the Apostle’s Creed and Ten Commandments, on the courses index.

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Hallowed be your name – Lord’s Prayer #2

Learn to pray with the Lord’s Prayer – part 2: what does ‘Hallowed be your name’ even mean, and how can we pray it today?

In the video we think about what a ‘name’ is, what it means for it to be ‘hallowed’, and how we can learn to pray from it. In particular we think about praying for ourselves and praying for others.

The session I referred to from the Ten Commandments series is Misusing God’s Name.

See more courses, including the Apostle’s Creed and Ten Commandments, on the courses index.

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New series: Learn to pray with the Lord’s Prayer

As I promised at the end of the Ten Commandments course, in this new term I will be starting a new series on the Lord’s Prayer. Through the last 2000 years, countless Christians have learned how to pray using the Lord’s Prayer: although there are many prayers in the Bible, there is only one prayer which is given as a model to us by the Lord Jesus himself.

You can find the prayer in the Bible in Luke 11 or Matthew 6 (in the Sermon on the Mount). The prayers are slightly different to each other and probably a little different to the version you might be familiar with.

This is the version of the prayer from Matthew. Here Jesus uses ‘debts’ instead of ‘sins’ and ‘the evil one’ is used instead of ‘evil’:

“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.”

Matthew 6:9-13

For many people throughout the world – Christian or not – these will be familiar words. But, despite their familiarity, they still have much to teach us about how we should pray. This short prayer helps us to know how we should relate to God every day.

Starting next week we will be working slowly through the prayer, line-by-line, to see what we can learn about how to approach God and how we should pray.

If you’d like to be notified about videos as and when they go live, please subscribe on YouTube – alternatively, if you sign up to the mailing list you’ll get a weekly email with new content.

If you can’t wait until next week, you might like to watch this session on prayer as part of the How to Live as a Christian course.

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