Prayer: For Enemies

For a few weeks we have been featuring material from Teach Us to Pray  ©1995 by Discipleship Publications International and edited by Tom and Sheila Jones. This week’s post is excerpted and adapted from a chapter by John Porter, the lead evangelist for the South Florida Church in Miami/Ft. Lauderdale.

“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. . . .” (Matthew 5:44).

Opposition to us as disciples may take the form of critical brothers, angry family members, deceptive journalists, or even, as Jesus himself could attest to, murderers.  But whoever the enemies may be, the words of Jesus are still the same:  “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44).

As disciples of Jesus Christ, we are called to be glaringly different from those around us.  Living in a “religious” part of the world where people are apparently “good” can make this challenging at times. Ironically, it is our enemies who afford us the opportunity to glorify God by shining like stars in the universe (Philippians 2:15).  Perhaps in no other area can a Christian so obviously distinguish himself from the religious “do-gooders.”  To forgive, love and pray for our enemies is behavior described in the Bible as “perfect” (Matthew 5:48) that is, like God.  To be “like God” is to go completely “against the grain” of our sinful human nature.  Only someone who loves God earnestly and has an eternal perspective on life is able to surrender himself to this depth of love.

Prayer: For Others

For a few weeks we are featuring material from Teach Us to Pray  ©1995 by Discipleship Publications International and edited by Tom and Sheila Jones. This week’s post is excerpted and adapted from a chapter by Lavonia Drabot who is a women’s ministry leader in Charlotte NC.

And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up.  If he has sinned he will be forgiven.  Therefore, confess your sins to each another and pray for each another so that you may be healed.  The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective (James 5:15-16).

In the dark.  On their knees.  Silently and aloud.  People have prayed for each of us-both before and after we became Christians.  God worked in those prayers to soften our hearts and expose our sin, to lead us to repentance.  Once we were forgiven and healed, we began to pray for others.  The cycle of intercessory prayer.  The multiplying principle.  Each one passes on the blessing he has received.  To intercede or pray on someone else’s behalf is a privilege.  We approach the God of the universe and he hears us.  Our prayers are sacrifices which are pleasing to him (Hebrews 13:15).

Prayer: In our Weakness

For a few weeks we are featuring material from Teach Us to Pray  ©1995 by Discipleship Publications International and edited by Tom and Sheila Jones. This week’s post is excerpted and adapted from a chapter by my good friend and fellow teacher, Steve Brown. His comments were written one year after he had a sudden onset of paralysis on one side of his body.

After six weeks in the hospital, the doctors decided that my paralysis was due to multiple sclerosis (MS).  It was a shocking introduction to weakness, and the beginning of a struggle to understand what God was doing and what he wanted me to learn. I had become weak.  And I thought of Paul's words in 2 Corinthians 12: “For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

Prayer: For Boldness and Courage

For a few weeks we are featuring material from Teach Us to Pray  ©1995 by Discipleship Publications International and edited by Tom and Sheila Jones. This week’s post is excerpted and adapted from a chapter by Guillermo Adame who is lead evangelist for the San Diego Church of Christ.

“For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline” (2 Timothy 1:7).

“Wow!  You want me to be on the Bombay mission team?”  Those words went through my head as I tried to remain calm back in July 1986.  Feelings of excitement mixed with uncertainty filled my body.  But it was fear that gripped me.  Why?  God had been preparing me for six years to “go anywhere, do anything."  God had taught me so much about not being fearful and timid.  But this was different!  India was going to turn my whole life upside down.  Everything was going to be new.  New friends, new culture, new country.  I needed to pray.

Prayer: For Character Change

For a few weeks we are featuring material from Teach Us to Pray  ©1995 by Discipleship Publications International and edited by Tom and Sheila Jones. This week’s post is excerpted and adapted from a chapter by Jeanie Shaw who is a women’s ministry leader in Boston.

                Surely you desire truth in the inner parts; you teach me wisdom in the inmost place (Psalm 51:6).

As I write this article I look at a piece of torn, battered paper that is like an old friend to me.  It is a page from my prayer list that is prayed through over and over again.  I purposely did not type it up to look fancy, because I wanted its simplicity to remind me that before God, my character is exposed.  I must look at the inner parts, the inmost places.

Prayer: For Our Daily Bread

For a few weeks we are featuring material from Teach Us to Pray  ©1995 by Discipleship Publications International and edited by Tom and Sheila Jones. This week’s post is excerpted and adapted from a chapter by Terry Adame who is now women’s ministry leader in San Diego, California.

“Give us today our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11).

“And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? (Matthew 6:28-30)

Every one of us has daily needs—needs that so easily can become worries and anxieties if we are not trusting and relying on God through prayer.  First, Jesus teaches us to pray, “Give us today our daily bread.”  Then he calls us to trust that God will meet all these needs.

Alone and in Private

For a few weeks we are featuring material from Teach Us to Pray  ©1995 by Discipleship Publications International and edited by Tom and Sheila Jones. This week’s post is excerpted and adapted from a chapter by Kim Strondak who is now a disciple of Jesus in Portland, ME.

As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God.

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?     (Psalm 42:1-2).

Memories of an early morning prayer walk at Loon Mountain remind me of the power of private prayer.  At 5:00 a.m. I gazed up at the stars and the moon in the cool out-of-doors.  The mountains engulfed me in their majesty as I sat perched on a large boulder, waiting to pray with a sister.  But she didn’t show.  God knew that I needed   time alone with him.