May the Lord lead your hearts into a full understanding and expression of the love of God and the patient endurance that comes from Christ. 2 THESSALONIANS 3:5 (NLT)

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The acrostic SPIRE$ helps me know how to pray for myself and others. 

* S stands for Spiritual

* P stands for Physical

* I stands for Intellectual

* R stands for Relational

* E stands for Emotional

* $ stands for Money

This simple tool provides a place to start in prayer. The Apostle Paul’s prayer adds muscle to this outline. He asked our Father in heaven to lead their hearts into a “full understanding and expression of the love of God.”

He asked God to lead his friends. This is always a good prayer. This is something God wants to do and says so frequently from Genesis to Revelation. This is a prayer we need day by day and moment by moment. A simple one-breath prayer like, “Please lead me,” or “Show me the way I should go,” can change our direction and destination. It can realign us with God’s preferred path for us.

Paul asked God to lead his friends into a full understanding of God’s love. This is a height and a depth no one will ever exhaust. God’s love is limitless. It endures from generation to generation. It never fails. This is an ocean we can swim in forever.

Paul asked God to lead his friends into a full expression of God’s love. Those who understand and experience the beauty and wonder of God’s everlasting, all-surrounding love should not focus on containing God’s love, but instead, let it flow through them in all places at all times. 

Paul asked God to give his friends “the patient endurance that comes from Christ.” He who endured all things, even death on a cross, shows us that no matter how dark and frightening is the night, there is a morning after. God’s new day for our lives is always worth the wait. 

Enrich your prayer life by praying down the bones of the SPIRE$ acrostic. Add muscle by praying for God’s leadership in all things at all times, an ever-deeper understanding and expression of God’s love, and for patient endurance at all times and all kinds of challenges. 

Who do you know who needs this kind of prayer today? Let us pray.

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I will pray for God’s leadership, a deeper understanding of his love, a fuller expression of that love in all I am and all I do, and for patient endurance in moments of challenge and seasons of difficulty. 

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Our Father, plunge me more deeply into the depths of your love. Empower me for maximum expression of this love, your defining characteristic. Give me patient endurance in all things at all times. Lead me into this life of amazing grace. Amen.