“First of all, then, I ask that requests, prayers, petitions, and thanksgiving be made for all people.” (I Timothy 2:1 Common English Bible)
This past Sunday, the pastor teaching the Adult Sunday School class assigned those in attendance, five questions for to answer individually during the week. One of them was, “Who in your life do you need to be praying for?” That question should be like the vector you learned about in the math course, an impactful force that changes the direction of a line. In other words, that question should make us realize that in the morning, the first thing we should do is pray. However, we should amend our typical prayer content to make sure we pray for others.
You know by now that daily, when it comes to first things first, we should pray. In reference to typical prayer content, at the least we know we need to thank the Lord for letting us see another day. We know that we should express gratitude for His grace and mercy. We realize, typically, that before we end our prayers, we should petition the Lord for divine intervention, specifically request definitive help; God’s help, directly related to something we are doing through. We express repentance and seek forgiveness and cleansing. We appeal to God to lead us out of Satan’s tireless efforts to tempt us to act up or act out of the scope of Christian conduct. Again typically, normally, at the conclusion of our prayers we utter expressions of praise before saying, “In Jesus name I pray, amen.”
The question posed by the Sunday School teacher and the examination of our quite familiar and fairly typical formula that is followed in our morning prayers, should be vectors, changing our prayer content. Oh, you can include what you typically include in your prayers. By all means! But if you are not praying for others, you should start offering intercessory prayers for others. Answer the teacher’s question from a personal perspective, “Who in my life do I need to be praying for/” Good news! If you augment your prayers by beginning to pray more for others, you will not need a list. The Holy Spirit will help you pray, and you will find yourself expanding your prayers for family and friends to include those who have seemingly been forgotten. He will remind you that there are others worse off than you who need the Lord’s intervention, projecting pictures in your mind of several people who need safe passage over the streets in the city, and as they steer through certain unknown issues. Last, but not least, the Spirit will remind you to pray for our leaders at every level of government. If you spend enough time praying, you will find yourself being led to pray for parents and children. You will find yourself praying that they renew their affiliation with a local church. We can’t let our generations keep declining, drifting, and dodging the need for the Lord in their lives. Forget the “old school” vs. “new school” debate and pray that we return to the days where our lives were governed by the old-time religion.
Now, I did not get specific about who is in your life that you need to be praying for, but you know. So, pray for them too! Make sure your prayers are not all centered around you. Sometimes are prayers are too “me, me. me “centered. Have a great day! Pray for others! Pray for me too! Be blessed!
“A prayer of a righteous person, when it is brought about, can accomplish much.” (James 5:16b NASB)
Committed to the climb,
Mark L. King