Australia’s Largest Christian News Site

Jesus is the light of the world. God is the Father of lights. We are called to reflect His light. Let us pray that God fills our eyes with His light and makes us a light to the world in these dark times.

Waiting to hear the Father’s heart concerning His word for His children is very exciting. It fills you with a reverential awe. The Father has continued to reveal His light in the image of his glorious Son to His children — those of us facing apparent darkness and oppression.

The word of God to the church is from Psalm 27:1, which declares, “The Lord is my light and my salvation—whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life—of whom shall I be afraid?” The Lord is asking us, “What do you see: the light or the darkness?”

The organ in our body that perceives light is the human eye. In Matthew 6:22-23, Jesus says, “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!”

A Prayer For Light in Our Eyes

Put your hand to your eyes and decree, “Jesus, flood my eyes and my whole body today with Your Light and heal all my past and present soul-wounds. Let the excellence of Your Spirit now create in me an excellence of soul, spirit and body. Jesus I receive Your healing now and I am filled with your glory!

Jesus addresses what hinders us from seeing clearly. In Matthew 7:3-5, he asks,

Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

There are many things that can cloud our eyes. Consider the list Proverbs 6:16-19 provides:

There are six things the Lord hates,
seven that are detestable to him:
haughty eyes,
a lying tongue,
hands that shed innocent blood,
a heart that devises wicked schemes,
feet that are quick to rush into evil,
a false witness who pours out lies
and a person who stirs up conflict in the community.

A Prayer of Repentance

Father we humble ourselves before You. We repent of the proud look and the haughty spirit with which we have reacted at times. Forgive us when we have used our tongues to lie rather than to speak the truth.

Father, our hands have shed innocent blood when we have not been proactive to protect the lives of the unborn and the innocent. Our heart is wicked and many times has gone astray from Your ways of righteousness.

Father, forgive us when our feet have run to mischief; to do evil in Your eyes. Forgive us when we have given false witness and spoken lies that grieved the Spirit of truth You have given us. Forgive us when we have knowingly and unknowingly sown discord among our brothers and sisters.

Create in us a clean heart and renew a right spirit within us. Do not cast us away from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from us. Restore to us the joy of Your salvation and uphold us with Your generous spirit.

A Prayer to Overcome the Enemy’s Strategy

The devil has a three prong strategy since the days of the garden. We are alerted to it in 1 John 2:16 — “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life”. Eve desired to eat the forbidden fruit (the lust of the flesh). She looked at the fruit and lusted after it (the lust of the eyes). And she gave in to the devil’s temptation when he questioned God’s word: “Will you really die if you eat the fruit?” (the pride of life).

Father, we repent of the lust of the flesh. We repent of every form of fornication, sexual immorality, pornography and adultery. Deliver us from all seducing spirits that lure our hearts away from You and Your commandments. Father, sanctify and purify our hearts that we may be holy just as You are holy.

Father, we repent of the lust of the eyes. We truly repent for the times we have looked at material goods and possessions in this world and made idols of them. We ask Your forgiveness and now turn our eyes to Jesus, the Lover of our souls. Restore us to our first love.

Father, we repent of the pride of life. Father, forgive us for taking pride in our possessions without acknowledging Your goodness and blessing. Forgive us when we have hoarded material things and not shared with those in need. Father, give us more of Your generous spirit to the needy world around us and especially to the persecuted church in these times of great trial.

The Father of Lights

Our Father in heaven is the ‘Father of Lights’ in whom there is no shadow of turning (James 1:17). Therefore, we are the sons of Light and the sons of the day. We walk in the light as He is in the light. We have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sins (1 John 1).

The promise is given in 1 John 1:9 that, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” Jesus also told us in John 8:12, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

Jesus is the Word of God. His Word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. In the midst of the surrounding darkness, God is decreeing a charge of His light through His spiritual Anzacs. He is declaring, arise and shine Australia and the great South Lands of the Holy Spirit, for your light has come. As Isaiah 60:1-3 says,

The glory of the Lord rises upon you.
See, darkness covers the earth
and thick darkness is over the peoples,
but the Lord rises upon you
and his glory appears over you.
Nations will come to your light,
and kings to the brightness of your dawn.

We decree: We — the Ecclesia of Australia, the South Pacific and Israel — are “a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that [we] may declare the praises of him who called [us] out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once [we] were not a people, but now [we] are the people of God; once [we] had not received mercy, but now [we] have received mercy.”

Amen.

Image by Tommy van Kessel at Unsplash.