Prayer

Grace Prayer Network We have recently started an email prayer network that already has members across the country joining together to pray for specific issues and needs. Listed below is the initial email outlining the intent of this network:

I hesitate to put any restrictions or boundaries on this vehicle designed to build an army of prayer warriors, but I also know that this could easily turn into an opportunity for people to list every little ache and pain they experience. So please allow me to stumble through some random thoughts about prayer in general, and then I will submit a very loose structure for what I envision the Lord is desiring from this venture.

If you were to do an in depth study of the prayers recorded in the Bible, along with Jesus’ teaching on prayer to His disciples, you would find them to be very balanced. Most begin with praise and worship and reverence to God. There is typically a portion devoted to repentance of personal sins and many times there is also a segment asking forgiveness of the sins of the people too. Many times there is an element of “reminding” God of His promises - in other words, praying Scripture back to God. God’s attributes are recited back to Him in most prayers in the Bible. And then there is a segment devoted to petition and request (Read Nehemiah 1:4-11, Daniel 9:1-19, Matthew 6:9-13 to get a sampling of what biblical prayers consist of).

Most Christians have either never been taught the principles of prayer or they are simply too wrapped up in their own little world to achieve biblical balance in their prayer time. I have on more than one occasion asked my congregation to simply try to pray for five minutes without asking for anything - just to help them develop the habit of finding balance in their time with God. The typical prayer of most Christians is a list of personal requests, which can unfortunately be very self-centered at times. And while the Bible teaches us to let our requests be made known unto God, we desperately need to expand our horizons beyond what is going on in our life only. A good practice to help lead you in this direction is to always submit a request to God for someone else’s needs before each personal request. If you have a long list of personal requests you will need to make sure you also have a long list of requests on the behalf of others.

Make sure you praise and worship God to open your prayers. Sing a worship song or read a Psalm to Him as you begin. If your mind is buzzing with all the activities of the day, take a moment to kneel down and simply be silent. Allow God the opportunity to calm your mind. Envision our Lord sitting high and exalted on His throne as the prophet saw in Isaiah 6:1-3. Let your mind dwell on the beauty of our Lord and the magnificence of heaven to help clear your thoughts of the things of this world.

After you have come to the point of being able to focus completely on God, and you have exalted Him with your opening words and thoughts, then move to repentance. Ask the Lord to forgive you of any sins you are aware of, and also the known sins of others in your family, your local church, and the world-wide church (all Christians). Ask Him to reveal any hidden sins or sins you have never truly repented of in your past (Psalm 19:12-14). Then ask for help in correcting any sinful habits or patterns you struggle with.

Recite any promises of Scripture that relate to your current situation and then let your requests be made know unto Him. As I mentioned earlier, make a habit of praying for someone else’s need first and then pray for one of your own. As you are praying for the physical and emotional needs of others and yourself, do not forget to pray for spiritual needs. Paul made a habit of this in his epistles. It was a rare occasion to find Paul praying about physical needs, but almost every prayer of his has requests for spiritual strengthening and enlightenment. When was the last time you asked the Lord to strengthen a person’s spiritual life when they were in the midst of a physical problem of sickness or disease? Many times sickness and disease are just the symptoms of a spiritual need.

Well, there are obviously multitudes of volumes of books that have been written on the topic of prayer. I have just listed a few thoughts that have been helpful in my life. I am sure many of you could teach me on this subject better than I could teach you. I say all of that to say this: While all requests for prayer are important to God, and while I do not wish to limit what you wish to submit to this network, and while I do not want to cause you to hesitate submitting a request, I also know that if this thing grows like I believe it will, we could see many who initially want to participate start dropping out if this gets inundated with requests for aunt Emily’s hangnail and nephew Joe’s athletes foot. I don’t want to minimize praying for these type of concerns but for a network like this to function, we will need to be a little more selective.

A church I attended for many years had a growing prayer list at the Wednesday night service. Every little thing was on it until it became so cumbersome it was almost unreadable. When we took the time to actually go through the list we found over half of it was filled with names of people nobody could identify or had any clue if the request was still even needed.

So again, not to minimize “minor” requests and not to judge what is minor or not, the success of being able to keep people involved in this will partially be dependent upon the nature of the requests submitted.

Please feel free to pass this email on to those on your distribution list who you think are prayer warriors. Don’t assume I already have them on my list. I did not send this to every Christian on my list. If you are receiving this email it is because I know you fairly well personally or through somewhat regular emails back and forth. If any wish to be added to the distribution and are committed to praying for the requests that get sent out, please send me an email asking to be added to the Grace Prayer Network. And start forwarding your requests (If you can remember, put Grace Prayer Network somewhere in the subject line of your email).

If you would like to be a part of this network or would like to submit a request, please send an email to Pastor Al at PastorAl@gracesp.org.

Pastor Al

"I pray that you may be able to comprehend the breadth, and length, and height, and depth of the love of Christ"