We are the Champions!

When we started our race in Christ, we were promised the victory. Lean into that incredible reality as a Christian teacher. Every race has a finish line, and you are guaranteed the victory by our God if you don’t give up.

The resurrection of Christ has already won the race for you and has claimed a place for you in the winner’s circle. Run forward knowing that you will hear the cheering of glory and receive a crown to lay at His feet (Revelations 4:10-11; James 1:12).

In the end, the race of this school year is not yours to run for personal victory or gain; it is God’s victory and for His glory. Imagine the joy of walking into your classroom everyday with full confidence, knowing that the victory is already won.

That’s what champions do!

(O Heart, Vigilant and Sincere: A Prayer Guide Written for Teachers, by Teachers Volume 1, Teachers Who Pray, Inc.)

Please join Teachers Who Pray TWP as we continue to pray intentional prayers for teachers.

Using the Adoration Confession Thanksgiving Supplication (ACTS) Prayer Model, this week’s Supplication prayer will focus on praying for a decline in dangerous, disrespectful, and disruptive behavior; safety in schools and surrounding communities, (for example, school-aged children committing carjackings).

Please join Teachers Who Pray in implementing our Prayer Power for 15 minutes (1% of your daily minutes) for teachers on the Weekly Monday Evening Prayer Call 7-7:15 pm, CT.

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Listen to the podcast here

 

Praying For Peace & Safety: Ending Disrespectful & Dangerous Behavior In Schools & Communities

Prayer Of Adoration

We will start with our Prayer of Adoration. Father, we enter your gates with thanksgiving and with your courts with praise. Tonight, we give you thanks and we give you all the glory that is to your name. Lord, you are good. Your steadfast love endures forever. Your faithfulness lasts for generations. You are perfect in all your ways and your word always proves to be true.

You are a shield for all of us who take refuge in you. Lord, for you are God and who is like you and who is a rock except our God. You are a rock of our salvation. We love you, Lord. We know that you are our strength. You are our rock, our fortress, and our deliverer. Our God, our rock in whom we take refuge, our shield and strength for our salvation. Our stronghold.

We call upon you, Lord, you who are worthy to be praised, and we are saved from our enemies. Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the Earth. You have set your glory above the heavens. Out of the mouths of babes, infants, and some of our students, you are established strength because of your foes to still the enemy and the avenger.

When we look at your heavens and the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place, who are we that you are mindful of us? Oh Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth. We will extol you, our God and King, and bless your name forever and ever. Every day we will bless you and praise your name forever and ever.

Great are you, Lord, and greatly to be praised, and your greatness is unsearchable. One generation shall commend your works to another and shall declare your mighty acts on the glorious splendor of your majesty and your wondrous works we will meditate. They shall speak of the might of your awesome deeds and we will declare your greatness. We adore you, Lord. Amen.

Prayer Of Confession

Confession. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Oh gracious God, though you overwhelm us with patience, we come with a heavy heart. As we gather this evening during Holy Week to join in prayer, we acknowledge a most painful remembrance, the suffering and crucifixion of Jesus on the cross.

Our throats become dry and our senses dull as we ponder the scriptures that speak of Jesus’ last night. Merciful God, we confess that our stamina is no stronger than the disciples who walked with Jesus. We too find it difficult to watch and pray under the best of conditions. When stress mounts, we too are prone to fall to a host of temptations.

Lord, even though our spirits are often willing and desirous of following Christ, our lives are often weak and faithfully acknowledging him in the deep challenges of our profession. Lord of life, surround and support us with your mercy and cleanse us from our sins. Lord, our God, and master, forgive us for the times we sought honor, praise, popularity, recognition, and applause for ourselves rather than for your kingdom. Forgive us for the times we have lacked hope, been discouraged, or wanted to give up.

Forgive us for the times we fail to remember that the goal of our work as a teacher is student preparation. Forgive us for the times we have tried to control circumstances that are out of our control. Lord, let us submit to your ways loosen our grip, and tighten our trust in your omnipotence. Lord, forgive us when we compare our teaching practices and classrooms and students to other teachers and become jealous.

Lord, let us submit to Your ways and loosen our grip and tighten our trust in Your omnipotence. Click To Tweet

Lord, you are our refuge and our strength. Holy Spirit, help us to reset our minds and hearts to not covet our neighboring or fellow teacher. Lord, grant us the grace to be open to the charismatic grace of teaching. Lord, grant us the grace to give the Holy Spirit the freedom to teach in and through us in ways we never planned or imagined. Lord, grant us the grace to ask forgiveness from students, parents, and colleagues who behaved inappropriately.

Lord, grant us the grace to be understanding with students who struggle. Lord, grant us the grace to notice when a student needs something that we can provide. Lord, grant us the grace to recognize your many gifts present in students, parents, and colleagues. Lord, grant us the grace to see others as you see them.

Lord, grant us the grace to be open to personal encounters with students, parents, and colleagues and to be as merciful to them as you are to us. Loving Lord, we confess our involvement in these sins. Gracious God, have mercy on us because at times we resist your message. At times we treat your direction and guidance carelessly. Yet at other times we compromise and shape our faith around our convenience.

Cleanse and renew us with your consistent love and life of Jesus our Savior and Lord. Those who went ahead and those who followed shouted, Hosanna save us! Hosanna saved us! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.

In him, we have redemption through his blood the forgiveness of sins in accordance with the riches of God’s grace. Most Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we adore you profoundly. You are an external exchange of love and you have destined our students and us to share in this exchange. You have entrusted your precious ones to our care. Guide us to teach them as you would teach them.

Help us to recognize and foster their gifts of nature and grace. Strengthen us when we are weary and discouraged. Send us your inspiration to say yes, as Jesus did on the cross, and to bring us peace as we strive to do your will with and for the students each day. Please grant us your mercy now and forever, amen.

Prayer Of Thanksgiving

Prayer of Thanksgiving, Lord and Savior our Redeemer and Deliverer, we thank you because we have been guaranteed victory by your atonement for our sins on the cross. We thank you because we can face tomorrow and every new day because you rose from the dead. You live, Lord Jesus, you have risen, and you are alive, hallelujah. Whatever our challenge, wherever we are.

We can make it through because you are the one true God who makes us who we are, your children. Today, Father, we thank you that we live in a country where education is a right and not just a privilege. We thank you for that you are the one who gives us the strength and courage to help others and promote justice and peace in our schools.

We thank you, Sovereign Lord that you see us when we are frustrated in our circumstances and resort to complaining and faithlessness but you, God, you meet us in our anxiety about our students, our athletes, our classroom situations, and Lord God, you meet us where we are at with mercy and with grace.

You help us to turn from ourselves and toward concern for others and toward trust in you, Lord God. Thank you. Father, we thank you for those in our school who serve you, counselors and social workers, student mentors, community partners and churches, police officers and public servants, and security officers.

Lord, we thank you for them and we ask that you continue to work through these servants to help students and to be your fragrance and your light in the darkness of this world, Lord. Thank you for making them conduits of peace at our schools and Jesus, we thank you for allowing us to be your co-laborers in our schools.

Keep us and bless us as we walk with you, Lord, through our school corridors, on sports fields, Lord, in locker rooms, Lord, in our community, Lord. Continue to use us, Lord. Continue to show us where to go, who to speak to, and what to say, Lord God. Thank you for being with us every single day. Lord, we love you and we pray this in your holy name, Lord Jesus, Son of the living God. Hallelujah. Amen.

Prayer Of Supplication

Prayer of Supplication. Philippians 4, 6. “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.” Father God, thank you for this chance to speak boldly to you. We choose to cast our cares, and anxieties on you, for we know that you care for us. Father God, we come to you, you’re thrown today, making our requests and needs known.

We thank you in advance for answering our prayers and doing so in your good, mattress, and perfect timing. God, we come to you lifting requests, the desire for decreased behavioral issues. Lord, nothing is too hard for you. You caused the blind to see, the deaf to hear, the lame to walk. You have restored life to people, healed others, and protected us at all times. As we lift behavioral concerns to you, we thank you that our prayers are already answered, Father.

Help us to do what you have called us to do and be who you have called us to be in these situations. Please help us to not allow them to turn our hearts, minds, and faith away from you. We pray for decreased and disrespectful, unsafe, and irresponsible behavior. We pray that students, parents, teachers, administrators, and all stakeholders will work together and work on one accord to help students reach the levels that we believe they will.

Help us to do what You have called us to do and be who You have called us to be. Click To Tweet

Help our unbelief in you and help us to be mindful about what we say or think in these situations, as we know that the power of life and death lies in our tongues. Father God, we pray for safety in schools and surrounding communities. We know that you are a protector, but so many people do not see you as such. We pray ahead for protection over the schools where we serve and teach, over the school community, and a community of every one of our students, current, former, and future.

We praise you for keeping us as well, God, and that you have allowed us to see another day and given us a chance to praise you and seek your will. We know it is your will that every need be supplied because of this, we can come and boldly ask you and thank you for protecting our communities. We bind violence, assault, crime, car theft, and every other thing that is not in your will for us. We praise you in advance for putting it into students participating in dangerous, unsafe, unlawful, immoral behavior, Father God.

Send people to be good role models, God, who have a heart to serve you and have a heart to lead the next generation, Father God, so that they have role models to look up to. Help us to not become so focused on where a location is that we side with the world and with the culture, that’s just how things are here. God, you make every place much better than it was before you arrived. As their children, help us to do this. Help us to speak life and do what you have called us to do.

Help us to see problems and not ignore them. But pray them and speak life and to only act when you are telling us to act and in a way that you are telling us to act Lord. I thank you for decreasing lawlessness and civil behavior and allowing more people to come to you as the day of Christ’s return draws closer. In Jesus name, amen.

Ephesians 1:18-19, “I ask that the eyes of your heart be enlightened so that you may know the hope of His calling to riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints and his incomparably great power for us who believe.”

 

Important Links 

• Taizé – Jesus, Remember Me – YouTube