“He that dwells with God in Christ Jesus is the man whose steps are enlarged in intercession.” Charles H. Spurgeon.

I came across this sentence in the book A 12-Month Guide to Better Prayer. I’ve started working through this book/study, and am currently in Chapter 2, which emphasizes how important it is to your prayer life to abide or remain in Christ. I’m intrigued by that term and have been praying about how I might do this. The term abiding comes from the Greek word meno, which can mean “to sojourn, tarry, not to depart, to continue, to be present.” All of these things take time, don’t they?

Now, I’m a big believer in “arrow” prayers. I generally pray throughout my day as the Holy Spirit brings people and causes to my heart. But I’m being convicted of the importance of spending time with Jesus each day whenI am silent, just listening to Him and waiting on Him. This takes time—time that I don’t always get up early enough to spend.

I usually read my Bible and pray from my prayer list in the morning, but contemplative waiting and listening often get short shrift in my rush to get out the door to work. But if I want to be effective in my prayers, then I need to take the time to hear from the heart of the One who answers prayers. After all, bearing fruit—including fruitful prayers—involves being grafted into the vine.

So, one of my resolutions this year is to take at least 10 minutes each day before I begin praying to be quiet before the Lord and then see how that affects my prayers. Maybe I’ll be directed to pray in a certain way. Perhaps He’ll bring people to mind that hadn’t been on my radar. Or maybe, I’ll just be mindful of the silence. Either way, I’m looking forward to seeing how this time will change my prayers and me. I’ll keep you updated.

How about you? How are you going to “enlarge your steps in intercession” this year? Are you going to change anything related to your prayer life in 2013? If you’d like, you can share your ideas below.

Blessings for the New Year and pray on!

A 12-Month Guide to Better Prayer, published by Barbour Publishing, Inc. Used by permission.

Image courtesy of [David Castillo Dominici] / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

As I woke up the morning after the election, admittedly feeling despondent about the results, my Bible opened up to Psalm 133, and these were the words that greeted me:

 How good and pleasant it is

when brothers live together in unity!

It is like precious oil poured on the head,

running down on the beard, 

running down on Aaron’s beard, down upon the collar of his robes.

It is as if the dew of Hermon

were falling on  Mount Zion.

For there the LORD bestows his blessing,

even life forevermore. NIV

One thing we are not right now in America, is unified. With just slightly more than half of our country voting one way, and the rest another, we are a fractious, quarreling, divisive group, who have re-elected a President who must somehow put all of us Humpty-Dumpty people back together again.

Whether you are happy or sad about the election results, a few thoughts stand out to me in the midst of it all.

1.  God is not calling us to capitulate on our values and beliefs. He is calling us to pray. I am even more convinced of the need for prayer in America. We can follow Nehemiah’s example of prayer in Nehemiah 1:1-9 as he confessed and prayed for forgiveness for Israel before he began his task of rebuilding the wall. We have many problems facing us and much rebuilding that needs to be done on our country’s “walls.” We are facing trillions of dollars in debt, a “fiscal cliff” in January, illegal immigration, new health care, attacks on our embassies, continuing job losses, and social issues like same-sex marriage and abortion, just to name a few things.  God reminds us in 2 Chronicles 7:14 that if we humble ourselves and pray and seek Him that He will hear us and heal our land. Let’s pray for God’s intervention in these areas.
2.  We can pray that our witness for Christ will shine brightly during these times. We need to each be growing our relationship with our Savior, being conformed to His likeness, and then praying for the boldness and the leading of the Holy Spirit to reach out to others as God opens up the opportunities. God’s plan does not necessarily include a comfy, safe life for each of us. We need to be courageous in our faith–as wise as serpents and as gentle as doves.
3. Pray specifically for President Obama and Congress. As we intercede for godly wisdom, courage, bi-partisanship, biblical morals, honesty, protection, and God’s blessing on our nation, God can move to bring down the barriers that divide us. He is powerful and can do immeasurably more than we ask or think (Ephesians 3:20).
4. Pray that God will raise up godly leaders for our nation. It’s not too early to begin praying for 2016!

Getting Practical

Let’s join together in a powerful prayer effort for our country. I’ve put together a few suggestions on ways to incorporate this.

Monthly themes

We can take a theme and pray it for an entire month.

• January–Debt, budget,
• February–Bi-partisanship
• March–Health care
• April–Jobs
• May–Biblical morals, revival, same-sex marriage
• June–Foreign policy
• July–Protection of life and the unborn
• August–Immigration
• September–Schools and teachers
• October–Religious freedom
• November–Godly leaders
• December–Military

Weekly Themes

If you prefer to pray for all of these every week, you could split them up the following way:

• Monday–Pray for debt, budget, and bi-partisanship
• Tuesday–Pray for health care and jobs
• Wednesday–Pray for biblical morals, revival, salvation, same-sex marriage and foreign policy
• Thursday–Pray for protection of life and the unborn and immigration
• Friday–Pray for schools and teachers and religious freedom
• Saturday–Pray for godly leaders and our military
• Sunday–Pray for President Obama

What are your feelings about praying for our nation? Please share any ways that you like to pray for America in the comments section.

Pray on!

Image courtesy of [Stuart Miles] / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Have you ever wanted to stop praying for a person or situation because it seemed futile?

I’ve been there and was actually feeling a bit discouraged today when I stumbled across this video on intercession. I was so inspired by its message that I had to share it with you.

This video uses the scripture from Ezekiel 22:30  as a basis for its message: “So I sought for a man among them who would make a wall, and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found no one.”

When we pray for others or for a situation, we are standing in the gap between that person or that situation and God. Can you see the importance of plugging that gap with your prayers? It is of such importance that God was going to use the prayers of ONE man to not destroy a land, but he could find no one praying. How sad is that!

What gaps are you plugging today? Who are you holding up in mercy before Jesus? What situation are you interceding for in your family, your neighborhood, your country, the world?

After watching this, I am encouraged to keep on praying for those people and situations that seem hopeless. I see how the prayers of one man, woman, or child can make a difference. Watch the video. Keep on praying.

Pray on!

I just wanted to mobilize people to pray for the people, businesses, churches, schools, and ministries in Colorado Springs, Colorado that are in the path of the huge wildfire burning out of control. Many people have already lost their homes, and thousands have been evacuated, including the campus of the Air Force Academy.

Compassion International, Bibles for the World, HCJB Global, Global Action, Biblica, and Focus on the Family are just a few of the many ministeries located in Colorado Springs that may be in the path of the fire. Click on Mission Network News to view a link they have done on this story.

If you would like, you can add your prayer for Colorado Springs to this blog by leaving it in a comment below. We can pray for protection for families, homes, and fire fighters, for God to intervene, for rain, and for the wind to die down.

Pray on!

I found this Lent poem on another blog and really liked it and thought if fit with our Lent devotional series. Here’s the poem and the link to the blog.

Image: Evgeni Dinev / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

A LISTENING
by Ann Weems

Going through Lent
is a listening.
When we listen
to the word,
we hear
where we are so
blatantly
unliving.
If we listen to the word
and hallow it
into our lives,
we hear
how we can so
abundantly
live again.

https://dwellingintheword.wordpress.com/

Welcome to Day 37 of our Lenten Devotional! We continue our study on spiritual housecleaning with today’s post on the Prayer of Examen. This is a perfect time to explore this discipline developed by St. Ignatius. Juct click below for today’s post.

*When you click on the Lent Day 37 , Examen link below, you will taken to a pdf with more information on it. The Examen exercise link on the pdf page no longer works. Please use this link (Examen Exercise) instead after you read the pdf. Thank you!

Lent Day 37, Examen