As a brief introduction, here’s an excerpt by Corrie ten Boom (God Is My Hiding Place: 40 Devotions for Refuge and Strength):
“So often we say we are willing to do what God asks, but when push comes to shove, we reason away the inconvenience. When we do this, we not only miss out on a great blessing but may rob someone of theirs. Following Jesus isn’t necessarily easy, but it is always worth it. One day we will stand in heaven, see the fruit of our obedience and have crowns to lay at His feet. May we always be quick to obey, despite not understanding all of the details.
“Prayer: Father, my heart is often willing, but my flesh usually fights for comfort, and my mind argues for understanding. I’m sorry for the times I have catered to my laziness and focused on the inconvenience more than the joy of serving You. I don’t need to understand the how’s and why’s or all of the explicit details. I simply need to follow Your leading. Like Jesus, I must follow what You’ve placed in my heart to do.”
“Who among us has not learned from his own experience that it requires another spirit than the world can give to follow Christ fully? Let this exhort you then, Christian, to petition God for the holy determination and bravery you must have to follow Christ. Without it you cannot be what you profess.” – William Gurnall, The Christian in Complete Armour, Volume 1
Note: Some of the following are my prayers, some are based on what I once read in books. But all are in my personal notes to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I’ve also include several quoted excerpts, which are attributed to their authors. Let’s get started…
First, please keep in mind that prayer is supposed to be a personal conversation with our Almighty God and Father. Jesus was clear that God hates repetitive prayer: It’s impersonal, formulaic, too “spell-like,” can be repeated by rote absentmindedly. That is not how intimate relationships are forged and deepened. Too many – and I used to be one of them – look for prayers that behave like a “magic” formula (aka magic spell, which is witchcraft and an Abomination to God, for which repentance is required!) so as to get God on their side to do what they want. We are to get on HIS side and do what He wants us to do – but from the heart and in spirit and alignment with His purposes for all of us.
Prayer is never about convincing God. It is about covenant and commitment, and obedience to His will out of love for Him. Lord God, pour out Your Spirit of prayer upon me!
Abba Father,
Help us to be committed members of Your Body: Help us BE Christian rather than “do” Christian. Grow us in spiritual maturity. Cover our sins, transgressions, and iniquities – known and unknown to us – with the precious Blood of Messiah Jesus. Fill every cell of our being with Your Kingdom righteousness. Guide our eyes, ears, mouths, hearts, minds, the work of our hands, and how we move and represent You in the world. Forgive the sins committed against us – known and unknown – all the way back to the womb.
Father, override the lies the enemy spoke over me and those I pray for. Heal our hearts, Lord, so that in Jesus’ Name, we are free of these lies, through Your grace and mercy. Help us to begin every day and every task or project from a place of rest in Messiah Jesus our Lord.
I ask that You provide to me and those I cover under the precious Blood of Messiah Jesus, a measure of Your truth and righteousness, Your holiness, Your grace, Your strength, Your soundness of mind, and the Power of God—the measure You, by Your grace, want us to have this day for the service You want us to provide, whether a task and or prayerful intercession. Help us to live and express these in each moment, to Your honor and glory. Help us to walk in the Spirit and as new creations in Messiah Jesus. Turn our fears into rejoicings and thanksgivings, and let us know the power of Your Salvation. Move us into that place where we know what true Christianity is as true followers of Messiah Jesus, and live it in joy, peace, and boldness.
Help us, Father, to shed forth the radiant purity of your Holiness to the whole world. Help us to have not only enough faith for ourselves but for one or more others as well. Help us to take every step – thought, word, and deed – with reliance on Your Word as the all-sufficient guide.
Cause Your Spirit to eject, crucify, and destroy every tendency of opposition in me and those I cover under the Blood of Messiah Jesus – any opposition at all to Your Holy Spirit. Help us to receive into our lives, Your sanctifying power to dissolve any and every condition in our nature that is adverse to You, the Living God. Help us to set forth our character of righteousness in You, our God, with such purity of holiness from You that we may be recognized everywhere as people among whom You, the Living God, dwells.
Cause us, Your people, to increase and overflow in love toward each other, toward everyone, and especially toward You. Give us inner strength to be blameless, by reason of our holiness, when we stand before You, God our Father, at the coming of our Lord Messiah Jesus. Help us to live and promote positive righteousness rather than negative obedience to You and Your beloved Torah, which translates as “the loving instruction of the Father.” Breathe the Eternity of You into us forever, until all our nature is submerged in You, God, buried up in You, infilled with You, and revealing You, the Living God Almighty.
Father, give us the strength our Lord Jesus needed to obey you in all things and through a loving relationship with you, even unto death – and resurrection – holding in our hearts, as Jesus did in His, Your promise of the joy set before us. Hallelujah! Help us to be willing to give up everything for the Christlike joy of Your presence every day. Grant us this great mercy, Lord – that You allow us and enable us to enter into Your will and abide there. Make knowing and doing Your will in our lives a blessed certainty. Remove all aspects of cowardice of faith and standing for You from all who need this. You are our Life.
Abba Father, cleanse my nature with the indwelling Spirit of Messiah Jesus so as to transform my mind and nature into the mind and nature of my Lord Messiah Jesus. I ask You to sanctify me and others (which only You know who they are). We need Your help, the help of our Lord Jesus, and of Your Holy Spirit, so that we may be obedient unto death to you, our All-in-All. Fill us with the spirit of dominion you’ve always intended us to have and use, to carry out Messiah Jesus’ ministry as the early Church did. Help us be obedient instruments of Yours, and destroy any obedience to the world, the flesh, and the Opposer still within us.
Make me single-minded in Your regard. I also ask this for all I cover under the Blood of Messiah Jesus. Give me the grace I need to be fully Yours, according to Your plans for me. Let Your Holy Spirit of conviction and (gentle) correction show me all my disobedience and lead me in humble confession to the cleansing You provide.
Through our Lord Messiah Jesus, You have freed us from the Adversary and his minions. Help us to know and live our identity in and through Messiah Jesus so we serve You without fear of any but our reverent fear of You, and do so in holiness and righteousness before You all our days. Give me and those called by Your Name, the faith of Abraham, the complete unquestioning trust he had in You. Give us the enthusiastic, passionate, unquestioning trust young David had in You. Help us to be shrewd as a serpent yet gentle as a dove.
Father, cause me to magnify You through my soul, thoughts, words, actions, love, wisdom, discernment, knowledge, understanding, trust in You, reverent love-filled fear and awe of You, my joyful obedience to Your will, my rejoicing in You – may every moment of my life magnify You.
Help me bind the enemy’s ability to project or broadcast into my mind. I loose Your Word and Your Armor to cover and shelter me. I bind the Adversary’s ability to bring forth false information or to hide the truth – Your truth – from me. I ask for Your wisdom and discernment in this matter. I plead the Blood of Messiah Jesus over any and every open door in my life. Through the Blood of Messiah Jesus, I bind, rebuke, and renounce every gatekeeper and watcher, and send them to feet of Messiah Jesus, to be dealt with. In Jesus’ Holy Name, I rebuke and renounce any commitment or contract formed with the Enemy, by myself or through my ancestral generations, whether known or unknown to me, whether during waking hours or when I’m asleep.
In Jesus’ Name, I loose the power of Almighty God within me to insure that Satan and his minions cannot show any false visions to me. I loose only what Almighty God allows as what informs me, according to His Kingdom, Truth, and will for me. The precious Blood of the Lamb of God destroys and washes away – cleanses, purifies, sanctifies – every effect of Satan’s lies told to me, about me. I ask this same renewal for my family by blood and by marriage, my friends, acquaintances, and neighbors throughout my city and state, for all God’s Remnant, and for all who can still be saved.
Prayer from Expelling Darkness by Russ Dizdar:
“I ask the Lord Jesus in the presence of my Almighty God – O Lord of heaven and earth, forgive our sin, forgive our fear, forgive our lack of obedience, forgive our quenching the Spirit and fire of God. Please forgive us for allowing the world to dumb us down. Forgive us for letting the enemy cripple us.
“Lord Jesus, I ask You to refill me with the Power of the Holy Spirit, unleash Your grace on me. I surrender to You and commit to launch out in faith and obey all the Scripture. I will not wait on anyone. I will not allow any excuses to delay me. I stand here, Lord Jesus, before You and the Throne of God. I stand here at this moment of final history. I stand here to give my life to You. Nothing is more important, nothing deserves more devotion!
“O Holy Spirit, come with fire and consume, purify, and fill me with the very fire of Pentecost! I will use my life, home, money, and vehicle for your mission. I will fight to defy the power of darkness. I will unleash all the grace You have given me … to the end! Psalm 23! O Lord, Psalm 23! O for the faith-filled courage of Nehemiah! (Neh. 4).”
Lord Jesus, Father, sanctify my secret fear that I’ll have to give up too much and have to become too different and entirely devoted to You. Father, I cannot let this hold me back, and I cannot crucify it at the Cross without Your help. Open my eyes, Lord, and bring me to the knowledge of what Your will is for me. Daily obedience to all You will of me is possible to me. In Your strength I surrender myself to You, God, for it.
Help me, Lord, to embrace that it is not the strength of my resolve or effort, but only the unceasing presence of Christ Jesus and the unceasing teaching of the Spirit of all grace and power that is my portion. Christ Jesus, You’re the Obedient One Who lives in me and You Who secures my obedience, which provides a life of love and joy in Your fellowship.
To close this prayerful interval out, and especially because we are to be a temple for the Holy Spirit to dwell in, I invite you to consider along with me, these excerpts from God Is Faithful: A Daily Invitation into the Father Heart of God by David Wilkerson…
“For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it—lest, after he has laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish’ (Luke 14:28-30).
“Jesus spoke these words near the close of His ministry on earth. He was warning His followers that good intentions would not be enough to see them through hard times. In short, many would not have what it took to finish the race.
“It is tragic to start out fully intending to lay hold of Christ and grow into a mature disciple—and slowly drift away, becoming cold and indifferent to Him. There is no such thing as standing still. You are either changing daily into Christ’s image, or you are changing back into your old carnal ways.”
Jesus counted the cost and found saving all who would receive this most precious gift from the Father and Him worth giving His all, even unto death. Do we value this Blessed Gift we don’t deserve, even a fraction as much? Let’s wrap this up with more of the Wilkerson excerpt…
“What a joy when we meet those who are finishing the race—growing in the wisdom and knowledge of Christ, becoming more distant from this world and becoming increasingly heavenly minded. The older they get, the hungrier they are for more of Christ. For them, to die is gain—with the ultimate prize to be called into His presence to sit at His side forever. It is not heaven they seek but Christ in glory!
“May it be so with all who would follow Jesus—that we finish the race full of faith.”
And let us keep in our hearts, minds, and spirits – and ask Holy Spirit to help us with this: “The salvation of the lost should concern us more than our own earthly existence.” – Corrie ten Boom … HOWEVER, CONSIDERING THE PROPHETIC SPIRIT OF THE AGE WE FIND OURSELVES IN, INCLUDING OR ESPECIALLY WITH FAMILY AND OTHERS, let us also consider what powerful, timely message Jamie Walden offers about the spirit of the age and what God says in His Word about people succumbing to that spirit: (1080) PERPLEXITES PT.2: LET THEM GO! – YouTube
May the peace, grace, mercy, protection, and provision of Almighty God be with you, your loved ones, and those you care about—all according to Almighty God’s perfect will for each of you. In Jesus’ Holy and beloved Name, I pray this with thanksgiving and praise of our Almighty God and Father. Amen.
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