For years, I’ve used Scotty Smith’s book of daily prayers Everyday Prayers: 365 Days to a Gospel-Centered Faith as a part of my devotional reading. Here are 25 of my favorite quotes from his prayers:
- Father, forgive me when my worship varies in response to my perceptions of how well and quick you answer my prayers.
- Come, Holy Spirit, come. We need you to stir our hearts. Only you are powerful enough to resalt the desalted; to bring us back to gospel sanity; to restore in us the joy of God’s salvation; to reengage the disengaged with God’s plan for our communities, the cities, and the nations.
- Jesus, today and every day, we declare that our hope is built on nothing else, nothing less, and nothing more than you and what you’ve done for us on the cross.
- Jesus, bring me to a fresh place of godly sorrow for my sin—the kind of good grief that will lead me to repent more quickly and yet not get weighed down with vain regrets.
- Because of you, true greatness is now measured in terms of being a servant rather than owning the estate. Being first is no longer calculated by how many slaves we own but rather by how many people we serve. You have changed the value and price tags for everything.
- Death is defeated but not yet annihilated. Decay will be no more, but not yet. Send us forth as your people, Jesus, into the valley of the shadow of death with a glimpse of the first sunrise in the new heaven and new earth. It’s supposed to feel like hurt and hope at the same time.
- Because the gospel is true, I’ll seek to live to your glory today, neither by sight nor by my feelings but by the faith you’ve given me to trust and love you. It’s not my grasp of you but your grasp of me in the gospel that matters the most.
- May an increase in our joy propel us into expanded servanthood. May it be the fire we need for doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with our God. May the oil of your joy encourage and refresh us lest we grow weary in the battle.
- Gracious Father, I begin this day with a desire to live much less of a driven life and much more of a called life. In essence, I want to live with less fear and more freedom, less by frenzy and more by faith, with fewer obsessions and with much more adoration of you, the God of all peace.
- It’s not difficult to see that my drivenness and busyness are rooted in fear—the fear of not being enough and having enough, the fear of losing face and losing control, the fear of missing the mark and missing out.
- Jesus, I praise you for taking the guilt of our sin and the shame of our brokenness on the cross. You became sin for us that in you we might become the righteousness of God. Because of you, judgment day holds no terror.
- Jesus, help each of us see and accept changes as part of a far better story than we could ever hope to write. You are making all things new, right now—right before our very eyes, if we have eyes to see and a heart to accept.
- Father, whether or not we actually get to experience a full-bore revival, help us to accept one another just as Jesus has already accepted each of us. This brings you great praise. The gospel we already have is all the gospel we actually need.
- There is no greater state of blessedness than simply to be in Christ. And in those moments of insanity when I’m tempted to think otherwise, bring me back to gospel sanity.
- May the love you’ve lavished on me in Jesus, and the love you have given me for Jesus, really work in me. May the gospel prove its resurrection power in turning me further from my idols to serve you, the only true and loving God.
- It’s so good to remember today that the gospel calls us to hope, not to hype; to believe, not to make believe; to intercession, not to presumption.
- Now, all day long, every minute of every day, Jesus, you constantly show me mercy. You do not give me what I deserve, but instead you give me more grace.
- Even as you are a God of mercy, you are also a God of justice. We can trust you for both. You do all things well, in your timing, for your glory and for our good.
- Lord Jesus, I want and I need your power to rest on me and to settle my restless heart. I’ll not pray about next week or even tomorrow. Just give me the manna of gospel kindness for this one day.
- In this next season of our lives, show us, Jesus, how to seek your kingdom first, above everything else. Rather than spending more money on ourselves, where would you have us invest our time, talent, and treasure; our energy, tears, and laughter?
- Jesus, I pray for my friends, and I pray for myself. Protect us from the evil one, and rescue us from ourselves. Give hope to the hopeless, conviction to the foolish, nourishment to the famished, grace to the betrayed, and godly sorrow to the betrayers.
- What a freeing paradox, Father: the more we come alive to the riches of the gospel, the less we obsess about our own lives. We don’t end up thinking more of ourselves or less of ourselves. We just think of ourselves less often. How liberating!
- Hasten the day when we will finally and fully love one another as you love us, Jesus. Until that day, keep us groaning and growing in grace. Grant us quick repentances when we love poorly. May the world recognize us as your disciples by the way we love one another.
- Jesus, you are the fulfillment of all the covenant promises God has made. Because of your faithfulness, from the cradle to the cross, we live in the embrace of the Father of mercies, whose mercies are new every morning. Great is his faithfulness!
- Father, my prayer today is for all of us, no matter what yesterday was like. For even our best days are in need of the gospel, and none of our worst days are beyond the reach of the gospel.
