He is rightly instructed and His God teaches him.
This also comes from the Lord of hosts. He is wonderful in counsel and excellent in wisdom.
– Isaiah 28:26, 29
The reason I want to pray according to both these verses is because of the pictures of God we see in them as God relates to us. Verse 26 says, “God instructs us. God teaches us. The Lord is our instructor. God is our teacher.” And then verse 29, “From the Lord of hosts comes counsel. That is wonderful. He’s wonderful and counsel, God counsels us and he’s excellent in wisdom. He gives us wisdom.”
Isaiah 28:26, 29 teaches us four ways in which God relates to us.
So just think about these four ways based on these two verses that God relates to you today, and obviously, he does so many things in our lives, but these four just meditate on for a moment, and then let’s pray according to it.
He instructs us. Look to God as your instructor today, the one who instructs you on how to live and where to go, and what to do. He’s our instructor and our teacher. He teaches us truth. God teaches us knowledge. He teaches us wisdom, which now to jump down to verse 29, he’s wonderful and counselor, he’s a counselor for you today, God wants to be your counselor.
You just think of all the different ways that might play out in our hurts and our pains to have a counselor to go to pour out our heart to and to be helped by that person, this is God for us today. He’s our counselor and when we don’t know what to do or we’re confused about which direction to go, what decision to make, he is wonderful in counsel. He will give us counsel, he’ll instruct us and teach us and counsel us and give us wisdom.
In all of this, his instruction, his teaching and his counsel are dripping with perfect wisdom. He’s excellent in wisdom. So let’s pray for all these things from God today. God, we pray according to your word in Isaiah 28:26, 29. We pray for your instruction in our lives and for your teaching in our lives and our minds and our hearts.
Isaiah 28:26, 29 encourages us to seek God’s counsel.
God, we pray. Please instruct us today in what is right and good and pleasing to you and helpful for others.
Instruct us in how to live today, we pray. Teach us. Teach us who you are. We want to know you more. Teach us knowledge about you, teach us knowledge about ourselves. Help us to understand who we are and our identity as your children, our identity in Christ. Teach us. Teach us about the world. How to understand the world rightly, how to see and perceive things around us rightly. God, teach us in the way we should go and how we should live.
Teach us how to live today. We pray to you as our instructor, our teacher. God, we pray for your counsel. You are wonderful in counsel. God, we pray that our first inclination before we go to anyone else for counsel, that we would come to you for counsel. Lord help our first impulse always be to pray first before we ask someone else.
God, forgive me for all the times I seek someone else’s counsel for first praying, just asking you to direct guide my thoughts. We praise you as our counselor and we praise you for your excellence and wisdom, and we pray that all your instruction and all your teaching and all your counsel that you would make us wise as you are wise. Oh God, we pray for all these things in our lives and we praise you for your generosity with your instruction, your generosity with truth and knowledge that you teach us.
Prayer for the Bandoumu People
We praise you for your generosity with your counsel and your wisdom that you don’t keep that to yourself, that you with all perfect wisdom, promise to share that with us as we ask for it. Oh God, we pray for people who don’t know you in all these ways. We pray that you’d help us to lead others to you. Help us to reflect in our lives and our encouragement to others, your instruction, your teaching, your counsel, your wisdom.
And God, we pray that all the peoples of the world would be reached with the good news of you, their savior, Lord, instructor, teacher, and counselor. God, we pray specifically today for the Bandoumu people of Gabon, the small people group, 6,000 of them unreached by the good news of your love. God instruct the Bandoumu, teach the Bandoumu, counsel the Bandoumu that they might know you. They might relate to you in all these ways, through you, Jesus.
God, we pray. Help us as your church to get the gospel by your grace. Instruct us and teach us and counsel us in how to spread the gospel to the Bandoumu people of Gabon that they might be reached with the good news of your love, and they might know you in all these ways that we’ve just prayed to you. In Jesus’ name, we pray all these things according to your word in Isaiah 28:26, 29. Oh God, we love you being our instructor, our teacher, and our counselor with all your wisdom. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
