O God,

We are so grateful to know that when we pray, our thoughts and words mingle with the incense in the golden bowls around your throne, and you delight in them. You answer us. You bend down to right wrong and rescue your children. You touch us with your comfort.

We are blessed to be known by the name of your Son Christ – Christians. We are grateful that you answer prayer and offer help. We your children will never cease praying for one another. We will continue to intercede and ask for blessings for our biological families, our loved ones and friends, our spiritual brothers and sisters in our nation and the world.

Please fill each of us with the knowledge of your will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding. Strengthen us with all power according to your glorious might. Teach us to be joyful and thankful even as we endure troubles and learn patience -- because you have delivered us from the kingdom of darkness and qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light; because you forgive our sins and remove all our guilt.

We wait for you, Jesus, and pray this in your name. Amen.

Supporting verses:

“We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. . . . And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” Colossians 1:3,4, 9 –14

“And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer, and he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of the saints on the golden altar before the throne, and the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel . . . and there were peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake.” Revelation 8:3--5