Praying For Housing For Those In Need And Our Home With God

 In any election campaign different issues emerge as key issues.  While we’ve had a problem with affordable housing for a long time, that issue is suddenly on the lips of every politician with a variety of approaches to dealing with it. 

Lord God of all, we pray for our neighbors in need of safe and affordable housing.  We pray for families to find loving homes to live in, whether owned or rented.  We pray for safe walls around them, a roof over their heads, and love in their hearts for you and one another.  Many have been searching for a while and we pray they would find that home they need quickly.

We also pray for families who are in danger of home foreclosure or mourning the loss of their homes. Provide for them today, Lord. Show them Your heart in the middle of what must seem like unfair circumstances. 

Help us all to work to build communities that create space for all people to live, not just for the wealthy. Amen.

This issue also has had me thinking about our home with God and God’s home with us.

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? 

1 Corinthians 6:19

Lord, we pray today that our lives would be a clean and holy place that welcomes Your power and presence.  We affirm that on our own we are nothing but filled with Your Spirit we are an expression of Your greatness and Your love. 

As you come to him, the living Stone – rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him –you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.  1 Peter 2:4-5

We are continually amazed that You have chosen us and brought us together with You, through the Lord Jesus, to be a spiritual house doing wonderful spiritual work.  It’s Your power and Your grace working in and through us but to be a part of anything that demonstrates Your great goodness is such a privilege.

You clearly told us how we could be at home with You and You with us:

Jesus replied, ‘Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. John 14:23

Help us to live every moment of today in response to Your love, following quickly and completely Your will as Your Spirit reveals it to us.  Help us to obey without hesitation or restrain because You are good and there is nothing better than being with You and having You be at home with us. Give us everything we need to live this out in faith so that whether we “feel you” with us or not, we will stand strong in the reality that You are there and we are united with You.  Nothing can separate us from your love.

I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.  Ephesians 3:16-17

And then we are grateful for Your promise that when we die we will go to an eternal home with You that’s been prepared and awaits us.  While we don’t fully know what life beyond this life will look like we are comforted and encouraged with the words that Jesus left us as He prepared to go back to heaven.

My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.  John 14:2-3

We look forward to that day when we will enter into our eternal home.  With great joy and gratitude we affirm today:

Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.  Psalm 23:6

Let’s have a great day living with God as He lives with us.