2020 has been a year like no other, with so many aspects of daily life affected by the COVID-19 pandemic – not least our participation in church. With lockdowns happening across the globe, many of us will have faced restrictions on worship for the first time in our lives.

But it’s sobering to realise that many around the world have never enjoyed the same freedoms that until a few months ago we took so much for granted.

As we mark the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church on 15 November, join us in praying this week for Christians around the world who are prevented from practising their faith – not only in part, for a short time, and for their own safety and wellbeing – but completely and indefinitely, in order to curtail their God-given freedoms. Theirs is the Real Lockdown.

Loving Lord Jesus, we pray for Christians around the world who are denied the freedom to worship you: denied the freedom to pray together, to sing hymns of adoration, to meditate on your life-giving Word.

We pray for members of your Church who continue to practise their faith despite fear: fear of violence, fear of the authorities, fear of arrest, fear of imprisonment, torture or worse.

We pray for members of our Church who love you no matter what: who sacrifice their jobs, their homes, their freedom, their lives to follow and serve you.

Lord Jesus Christ, we pray for all our suffering brothers and sisters today. That you would protect them this day. That you would fill them with your strength, hope and love this day. And that one day soon their Real Lockdown would come to an end, and they would be able to declare with boldness and conviction: ‘We have fought the good fight, and have kept the faith.’ Amen.

Get free prayer resources at csw.org.uk/idop

Descargue una copia imprimible del Diario de Oración de esta semana.