The other day, something came across to me online that captivated my heart. It was a prayer posted on Facebook by Brian Simmons. I want to share it with you today as I feel it would be a great prayer for each of us to pray often.
Father, plant me more deeply in your love. Let my roots reach into the hidden streams of your presence until nothing can move me from you. Anchor my soul to your mercy and teach me to live from heaven’s perspective. Remove everything in me that does not look like love.
Redeem every painful chapter of my story. Turn what was meant for evil into something beautiful for your glory. Make my life increasingly fruitful until others can taste your goodness through me.
And let the fragrance of Jesus rest upon my life. Through every blessing and every trial, may I carry the unmistakable aroma of Christ wherever I go.
I say goodbye to what is behind me and welcome the greater expanse you have prepared.
Make me rooted, fruitful, and fragrant.
Roots are so important. For this reason, the Bible tells us to let our roots grow down deep into God. It is what we are rooted in that will hold us steady in life. As our roots grow down deep enough, the storms of life won’t move us.
And now, just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to follow him. Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness. (Col 2:6-7 NLT)
Additionally, being fruitful is vital in our Christian walk. If we walk as Jesus walked, we will bear much fruit.
I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples. (Jn 15:5-8)
For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; (Col 1:9-10)
And finally, we are to be the fragrance of Christ. Oh, how I love that thought.
Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place. For we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. To the one we are the aroma of death leading to death, and to the other the aroma of life leading to life. And who is sufficient for these things? (2 Cor 2:14-16)
We are to be the very fragrance of Christ, rising up to God! I love how the New Living Translation describes it.
But thank God! He has made us his captives and continues to lead us along in Christ’s triumphal procession. Now he uses us to spread the knowledge of Christ everywhere, like a sweet perfume. Our lives are a Christ-like fragrance rising up to God. But this fragrance is perceived differently by those who are being saved and by those who are perishing. To those who are perishing, we are a dreadful smell of death and doom. But to those who are being saved, we are a life-giving perfume. And who is adequate for such a task as this? (NLT)
It is my prayer for each of us that God will cause us to be deeply rooted, extremely fruitful and a wonderful fragrance of Christ that arises to God, Himself – I just love this prayer.
