A Prayer for the Persecuted (Acts 12:1–2)

About that time Herod the king laid violent hands on some who belonged to the church. He killed James the brother of John with the sword.
– Acts 12:1–2

Now, what’s so interesting about this chapter is how the rest of the chapter goes on to describe how Peter was put in prison and miraculously delivered as the church was praying for him. God sends an angel to escort Peter out of prison. It’s an amazing story. But we almost gloss over the first couple of verses where James, another follower of Jesus, the brother of John, is killed. And we’re not given any explanation why James was killed and Peter was saved. Surely the church was praying for James too, not just Peter. And yet James dies, but Peter is delivered. And as I read that, I just think about the mystery of God’s sovereignty.

We don’t have an explanation here in Acts 12 for why this happened to James and why it didn’t happen to Peter. Instead, we just have these stories of two faithful followers of Jesus who met very different fates. At least at this point. Peter would eventually be killed for following and proclaiming Jesus.

Acts 12:1–2 encourages us to depend on God through prayer.

But I guess I just want to encourage us and lead us to pray today with trust in God. We may be praying for God to bring healing in our lives or somebody else’s life today. And God may answer that prayer. Or God may not answer that prayer, at least in the way we’re asking Him to. And following Jesus means trusting Him when things go well and when things don’t. When God brings the miracle and when God doesn’t. It means to trust that He is all-wise, all-good, and always working in ways that lead to– and that’s where the whole chapter ends in verse 24– the Word of God increasing and multiplying.

As followers of Jesus, this is what we want to happen more than we even want life itself. That’s the picture in James and Peter, and I pray that it’ll be the picture in our lives.

So God help us, we pray, to trust You, to cry out to You for Your help in our live. Lord, help us to cry out to You for Your help in others’ lives, to know that You hear us. Help us remember that You’re never deaf to our prayers when we’re offering them in humility and holiness. Help us remember that You listen to our cries and You answer them according to Your power, wisdom, love, and plans, which we don’t– we confess– always understand. But God, we praise You that You are trustworthy. And God, we praise You for James’ faithfulness all the way to being killed by the sword in Acts 12.

Acts 12:1–2 encourages us to trust God when obedience feels costly.

We praise you for Peter’s faithfulness as You delivered him out of prison all the way until the day when he eventually lost his life for following and proclaiming You. And we pray that You would help us today to faithfully follow You. And God, help us to trust You with wherever that leads or whatever may happen. Whether it leads to some miraculous story of You doing this or that in our lives. Or maybe it leads to more suffering or even death for us.

God, we say that You are worthy of our trust. No matter what happens to us in this world, we praise You that this world was not the end of the story for James. It was not the end of the story for Peter, and it will not be the end of the story for us. Yes, we trust You Jesus as the One Who has conquered sin and the grave by Your sacrificial death on the cross for us, by Your resurrection from the grave.

Yes, You are worthy of all of our trust, and we pray that You’d help us to spend our lives today sharing Your love with other people, no matter what that may cost us when it comes to our reputation or down to our very lives.

A Prayer for Believers in Nigeria

We pray specifically today, oh God, for brothers and sisters who are being persecuted. I think about our brothers and sisters in Nigeria today, where so many tens and even hundreds of thousands have been persecuted and killed. God, we pray for Your mercy over the Nigerian Church. We pray for their strength. We pray for their faith. Lord, we pray for the spread of the gospel, the increase and multiplication of Your Word through them. We pray for their protection. God, we pray for their deliverance. And we pray, oh God, that Your glory, grace, and mercy would spread in Nigeria through our brothers and sisters in Christ there. We pray all these things according to Your Word in Acts 12. In Jesus’ Name, amen.