Jan 02, 2026 Steadfast in Prayer in 2026 – Words of Grace Blog – January 2, 2026
Here we are again at the beginning of a new year, calling ourselves to prayer. It seems this has been an annual call since we began as a congregation over 30 years ago. Why this repeated exhortation to seek and beseech the Lord?
This is an annual call because we are creatures of time. We mark time in segments of days, weeks, and years, with each one giving us the opportunity to end with reflection and begin with anticipation. God gives us time to look back to confess our sins, remember his mercy, and give him thanks. In the present, we look into the future and pray with hope, making requests and trusting he will provide. Each New Year is a time for this kind of backward and forward looking with a renewed commitment to pray.
This is a call to prayer because God is sovereign and all things come from him. To pray is the most reasonable thing we can do. The way of grace is not resignation to an impersonal fate and prayerless life, it is resurrection to a vibrant prayer life because the personal and sovereign God is our heavenly father who loves to respond to our prayers. We ask God for our needs because he provides. We ask him for people to be saved because he graciously saves. Our sovereign God has ordained prayer as the way he works among us. Our new life in Christ is joining his work by praying.
This is a congregational call because God wants his people to pray together. If the Lord loves to hear a single child of his pray in the prayer closet, how much more does he take pleasure in hearing his unified family seeking him in a gathering of faith, hope, and love. Where his church is together for prayer, there he is in their midst.
And so again, at the beginning of 2026, we call and commit ourselves to prayer.
This Sunday morning at Grace Community Church we will gather around the Word of God in Colossians 4 to hear the call to be steadfast, watchful, grateful, and interceding in prayer. Then we will gather that evening at 5:00 in the Chapel for a New Year’s prayer service. Bring your joys, burdens, needs, and opportunities and pray with us. Come and be prayed for.
-Scott