3 Powerful and Uplifting Prayers for God’s Love and Mercy

Inside: Grab one of these to jump-start your prayer for God’s love or when your heart is so full, you don’t know where to begin. Don’t forget to download the guide for how to power up your prayers.

I used to be an expert at feeling distant from God’s love.

For endless years, unhappiness nearly suffocated me while I pleaded with Him for a rescue that never seemed to come. During that agonizing season, I soaked my prayer journals with oceans of unhappy tears. But God stayed silent and seemed unmoved by my misery. On top of all this, my self-esteem was in tatters from my toxic relationship.

What with believing God was ignoring me, feeling abandoned and alone, and hearing from my partner day in and day out how inadequate I was, you can understand why I didn’t see how God could possibly love me.

Other super-Christians? Sure. Me? Not so much.

Still, I kept praying for God’s love and mercy. What else was I gonna do? I was fresh out of workable solutions. And somewhere deep down, I wanted to believe He still loved me, even just a little bit.

As it turns out, not quitting on my prayer for God’s love was the best decision I ever made.

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How Do I Pray for God’s Love?

When all’s well in your world and you just want to bask in His presence, it’s easy to say a prayer for God’s love.

But when you feel far from God, it’s natural to let yourself drift away from Him. After all, no one wants to keep giving attention to someone who’s ignoring them.

Worse, when you’ve failed God through disobedience and have yourself convinced that you don’t deserve His love.

But here’s what I didn’t know back then. When you feel distant from God, that’s not the time to indulge in feeling hurt, ignored, or unworthy. That’s when you need to choose to believe in His boundless love, then double down on turning to Him.

Your unfailing love, O Lord, is as vast as the heavens; your faithfulness reaches beyond the clouds.
Psalm 36:5 (NLT)

But how do you pray for God’s love when you’re at a loss for words? What do you say when you keep tossing desperate pleas heavenward, only to watch them plummet into the abyss between you and Him?

Exhale, my darling. I’ve got you.

If you’re stumped on how to say a prayer for God’s love, these 3 written-for-you prayers will jumpstart you. They’ll set you up to obliterate the distance you feel now, as you learn how you talk to God.

Remember, all you have to do is open your mouth and start. He’s listening and waiting for you.

5 Guidelines as You Pray for God’s Love

Here are a few helpful things to remember as you prepare to say a prayer for God’s love.

Prayer is a 2-way conversation with God. It’s you sharing your deepest heart with the God of all creation in your everyday language. Then you get quiet so you can listen out for and hear God’s voice in return, and look for signs God is speaking to you. You’ll notice them all over the place when you start opening your spiritual eyes and ears.
You don’t have to slavishly stick to these prayers. Use them as they are, or change them to suit you. Choose one as a daily prayer for this season, or switch them up as you need to.
You can say these prayers not only for God’s love in your life but also in others’ lives. All you need to do is modify them a little.
A Bible verse or passage precedes each prayer. It helps set the tone for the prayer. So when you go to say your prayers for God’s love, you can read these Bible verses as you enter God’s presence.
Play worship music as you get ready to say your prayer for God’s love. It can help you enter His presence in a posture of worship instead of demand.

Finally, these prayers are all scripture-based. This means your prayer for God’s love is you praying His Word back to Him. So feel free to add in other scriptures as you say your love prayer to God.

But First, How Do I Know That God Loves Me?

You’re searching for a prayer about God’s love because you’re grappling with doubt about it. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be here. So let’s clear up your confusion, then you’ll be ready to pray for God’s love.

The biggest and most obvious proof God loves you is this: He sent Jesus to die for your sins.

This is everything.

Imagine our amazing God sitting up in heaven, looking down through the ages, unspeakably grieved over your countless wrong thoughts and actions. Knowing you can never make up for them, knowing you’ll never be good enough—clean enough—to enter His holy presence. Knowing your habit of bouncing right back to choosing sin.

What should a just God do? Who could blame Him for banishing you to eternal suffering and separation from Him?

But not our loving, merciful God.

He decided to ensure your eternal safety and life with Him by offering up the perfect sacrifice for your sins.

But [you were purchased] with the precious blood of Christ (the Messiah), like that of a [sacrificial] lamb without blemish or spot.
1 Peter 1:19 (AMPC)

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, exchanged His life to give you righteousness. With this one act of selfless, saving love, you got your ticket to revel in God’s presence forever.

There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
John 15:13 (NLT)

My darling, God’s gift of Jesus’ life and the option to choose eternity with Him is proof of His love for you.

Now, let’s get to our prayers for God’s love.

Prayer for God’s Unconditional Love

When you’re struggling because of an unnerving amount of space between you and Him, you can easily wonder if God still loves you. Or maybe even wonder if He ever did. You feel like you have to work hard to be worthy of His love, then work even harder to keep it.

This happens when you box God in with your understanding of human love based on how fallible, fickle people have loved you.

It’s totally normal. But oh, girl. When you take those limits off God’s love? He’ll blow your ever-loving mind!

You see, God loves you unconditionally. And He proved it when He sacrificed His Son, Jesus Christ, on the cross for you. Back when you were still cluelessly, happily, stubbornly rolling around in your sin. Back when you didn’t know—or care—about your need for salvation.

Now, most people would not be willing to die for an upright person, though someone might perhaps be willing to die for a person who is especially good. But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.
Romans 5:7-8 (NLT)

Nothing can affect God’s unconditional love for you. Not even you doing more to show how good you are. Because His love is based on His goodness, not yours.

You see, God IS love. He’s the definition and embodiment of it. So He’ll love you unconditionally. Always.

Let’s pray about it.

God’s Unconditional Love Prayer

Lord God, there’s no God like you in heaven or on earth. You, who faithfully keep your promises when I walk with you. You, who always stands ready to receive me when I turn back in repentance from sin.

Lord, I sometimes listen to my deceitful heart and I’m tempted to think you don’t love me. Then I remember this: You revealed Your unfailing, encompassing love by sending Your one and only Son into the world.

You gave Him up as a sacrifice for my sins so I could come alive through Him. And now I’ll live with You in eternity because of Your great love and His great sacrifice.

Father God, You loved me before I surrendered my life to You. Back then, You gave up Your Son for sinful me. You already gave me the best Gift so, to the depths of my soul, I know You’ll keep giving me every good gift.

Your love can’t be contained, Lord. Not now, not ever, not by any conceivable—or inconceivable—thing. And because I’m wrapped in Your love forever, I can overcome anything. Including my doubt and fear.

I love You back, Lord. And as I immerse myself in your precious, powerful love for me, I offer up my life to You. Use me to love others the way You love me.

I pray in Jesus’ precious, saving name. Amen.

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Prayer for God’s Love And Mercy

An essential part of God’s love is His mercy. They’re twined so closely together, they’re inseparable. You see, God’s unreasonable, unending love for you is the reason why He’s so merciful.

Tell the truth now: knowing what goes through your mind on a daily basis and the stuff you do in secret, if you were God wouldn’t you have turned your back on yourself by now? Heck, you already do abandon yourself most of the time.

But not our loving, merciful God.

Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us!
Ephesians 2:4-5 (MSG)

Because God loves you, He’s merciful. And because He’s merciful, He’s given you the choice to wipe the slate clean and accept the gift of eternal life, even though you don’t—and can never—deserve it.

So let’s pray about God’s merciful love.

God’s Love Prayer

Oh God, my unhappiness is pressing in on me. I feel like I’m about to break under the weight of my wrong decisions. And my life feels like evaporating water on parched, cracked ground.

But all I’ve done is ask You to take away my unhappiness. I haven’t looked inside at my wrongdoing. I haven’t let You search me or create a clean heart in me. I’ve kept silent about my sin, ignoring it completely.

So I’m righting my wrongs now. Because I know when I stop hiding from my wrongdoing—when I lay my sin bare before You—You’re merciful to forgive me, to deal kindly with me, to deploy faithful, loving rescue to come save me.

And because of your faithful, unfailing love, I boldly approach Your throne of grace when I shouldn’t even be able to. But I do it so I can receive Your mercy and grace.

On my knees in front of Your throne, I confess my sin to You, Lord, and I turn away from it. Please forgive me and deal with me kindly, as I know You’re ready to do whenever I call on You.

Lord, You’re good to everyone because Your compassion rests on all You’ve made. So I rise now, renewed by the knowledge of Your unending mercies—new every morning because of Your great faithfulness.

Thank You for Your love and mercy, Father, as I pray by the blood of Jesus, which washes me white as snow. Amen.

Prayer Thanking God for His Love

When you allow Him to, God will love you like a consuming fire. Burning away your impurities and wrong motives left and right. Leaving behind pure gold that shines so brightly, it blinds those privileged enough to bask in it.

When you let God love you this way, you change everything and everyone you come in contact with. Gratitude flows from your mouth in prayer and invades every area of your life. You’re so grateful, you can’t stop telling everybody about it.

I’m thanking you, God, from a full heart, I’m writing the book on your wonders. I’m whistling, laughing, and jumping for joy; I’m singing your song, High God.
Psalm 9:1 (MSG)

Let’s praise and thank God for His consuming love.

Powerful Gratitude Prayer

Heavenly Father, my heart is so full right now, I barely know how to express my feelings. It’s Your love, Lord. I’m so grateful for it, I almost don’t know what to do with myself.

When I was drowning, You rescued me. When I was confused, You gave me wisdom. When I was almost defeated, You gave me victory. And when I felt unworthy, You lifted and empowered me with Your love.

I enter Your gates with thanksgiving and Your courts with praise, Lord. I thank You and bless Your name. You’re so good, I still don’t fully understand the magnitude of Your goodness. And You’re so faithful that Your love will never end. I shout in praise to You, and I’ll sing forever about Your name, Lord Most High.

I praise and thank You, faithful God, because You’ve made everlasting wisdom and power available to me. I praise and thank You, Almighty God, because You reveal mysteries to me when I ask. And I continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to You and confess Your name to anyone who’ll listen. Even to those who won’t.

Lord, continue to empower me with Your Holy Spirit as I do my part to spread the word about Your love. For Your fame and glory, because I know it pleases You, and because I just can’t help myself! Amen.

Your Turn to Pray

Back when I was soaking my prayer journal with desperate tears because of what I thought was God’s unrequited love, I didn’t know this truth: You never have to feel far from God’s love because God never moves.

He’s always nearby, waiting for you to reach out to Him. Waiting for you to enter His presence, talk to Him about what’s on your mind and heart, and enfold you in His love.

These days, I’m no longer an expert at feeling distant from God’s love. Instead, I’ve become a pro at feeling close to Him.

Sure, my prayer journals are still soaked with oceans of tears. But now, they’re tears of joy, thanksgiving, and awe over our amazing God’s saving grace and love for me.

As for your God’s love prayer, I suggest you stop and offer up one right now.

Whether it’s a prayer thanking God for His love or one asking Him to open your eyes so you can see His mighty love in action. He wants to hear from you and overwhelm you with His boundless love.

All you have to do is open your heart and your arms and receive it.

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