On May 29, 2020, Dr. Ligon Duncan, Chancellor & CEO of Reformed Theological Seminary, prayed for the 2020 graduates of the seminary. We’d like to share the Chancellor’s prayer with you and ask that you join us in praying for our graduates as they go out into ministry.
Heavenly Father, through your Son, our Lord, Jesus Christ, you have given these, our graduates, your word. They are not of the world, just as Jesus is not of the world, because of this, they will often know the rejection and opposition of the world.
I pray for them, as your Son did, not that you would take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. And that as they minister in and to the world, for the life of the world, they would not be of the world.
Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.
Father, as you sent your Son into the world, so your Son has sent them into the world.
As he consecrated himself that they might be sanctified in truth, may they consecrate themselves that many disciples may be sanctified in truth.
Grant them a unity and oneness of spirit, a sense of believing and loving solidarity with other Christians and Christian ministers, that their Christian unity might reflect the oneness of heart and life in the Father and the Son, so that the world may know that the Father sent his beloved Son, and that he loves his people even as he loves his Son.
In the end, when their journey is done, Father, grant your Son’s desire that they, because you have given them to Jesus, may be with Jesus, and see his glory, a glory that you have given him and which will be manifested to all, because you loved your Son before the foundation of the world.
O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, your Son knows you, and these graduates, our friends, and now colleagues in ministry, as Jesus’ disciples, they know that you have sent your Son.
Jesus has made known to them your name, and will continue to make it known, that the love with which the Father has loved him may be in them, and Christ in them, the hope the glory.
By the grace of your Holy Spirit, may they spend all their days in trust in, witness to, and praise of you, the one true and living God, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
(Based on John 17:14-26).
