from January 6, 2013 prayer update

A key personal goal for me in 2013 is significant growth in the area of prayer. I am asking God for consistency and fervency, to extensively claim Biblical promises, and to meaningfully connect with Him. Prayer for myself, my family, and for the nations.

“(Prayer) lays its hand on Almighty God and moves Him to do what He would not otherwise do if prayer was not offered. It bring things to pass which would never otherwise occur. … Prayer is a wonderful power placed by Almighty God in the hands of His saints, which may be used to accomplish great purposes and to achieve unusual results. … The only limits on prayer are the promises of God and His ability to fulfill those promises. … Prayer moves the hand that moves the world.”
E.M. Bounds

Below are some of my favorite passages and promises about prayer that I am claiming and looking to God to make real in and through my life.

“Ask of Me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession.” -- Psalm 2:8

“Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.” -- Psalm 37:4

“Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek Me and find Me, when you seek Me with all your heart.” -- Jeremiah 19:12-13

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seek finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.” -- Matthew 7:7-8

“Then He said to His disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.” -- Matthew 9:37-38

“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in Me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. Whatever you ask in My name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.” -- John 14:13-14

“I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in Me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. … If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” -- John 15:5, 7

“You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in My name, He may give it to you.” -- John 15:16

“At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison” -- Colossians 4:3-4

“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” -- I Thessalonians 5:16-18

“First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all the people” -- I Timothy 2:1

“You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.” -- James 4:3

“Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.” -- James 5:16

from February 20, 2011 prayer update

I am teaching the book of Ephesians in one of the adult Bible fellowships in my home church this spring. This week we studied Paul’s second prayer for the Ephesian believers at the end of chapter 3. The prayer ends with a benediction in verses 20-21, both for the first half of the book and for the prayer. “Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.”

I see four key ideas in this benediction. First, it is imperative that we see God as powerful. Theologically we know this to be true. But practically we often see God as impotent. We doubt that He is really in control of or involved in the mess we see in the world we live in and the mess our lives sometimes are.

Second, we need to pray big, audacious prayers. We need to tap into all our creativity and innovation, and ask God to do some wildly significant things. We need to claim the promises of Scripture, and ask Him for outrageous things.

Third, we need to not only see God as powerful, but see His power at work in us, His body, His Church. We are not all, but certainly part, of how God will answer our prayers. He will share His power freely with us as we prove faithful to use it to further His mission in the world, and not our own.

And finally, our prayers need to focus on the glory of God. Not some self-focused desire or personal agenda. We need to become consumed with what will advance God’s reputation and God’s mission in the world. Not what will add to my or someone else’s personal peace and affluence.

So what should you and I pray?

A great place to start is with the hundreds of unconditional promises found in Scripture. But guided by the framework that God laid out for Abraham in Genesis 12:1-3. “Blessed to be a blessing.” Not asking God to bless us as an end in itself (prosperity gospel). But asking God to allow us to join with Him in His mission and use us as vehicles for blessing the nations.

A second suggestion is to begin to take advantage of some great daily prayer tools to pray for those at the very center of God’s mission in the world today – those with little or no access to the gospel, the world’s least reached peoples. Check out Joshua Project’s unreached people of the day (www.unreachedoftheday.org) or the USCWM’s global prayer digest (www.globalprayerdigest.org).

Let’s start to pray some big, hairy, audacious prayers and see what God does in response.