from The Donelson Fellowship July 6, 1997 Today I would like to begin a four-part series of messages on the subject of prayer that will take us through the month of July. The reason is this—if you are like me, this is the area of your Christian life in which you feel most inadequate. When I was in college, I had a friend named Joy Thompson whose father, Cameron Thompson, had written a little book on prayer for the organization “Back to the Bible.” She gave me a copy. I read it over and over, and one of the sentences that most impressed me was this one: No one can in this life pass beyond the kindergarten of prayer. I often feel that I’m still in kindergarten in the school of prayer, and perhaps you do, too. I would like for this series of messages to not only contain biblical truth but to also offer practical suggestions and workable techniques to nudge you a few steps forward in your studies in the school of prayer. Our opening Scriptures will be from Ephesians 1, 3, and 6: For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe (Ephesians 1:15-19a). For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God (Ephesians 3:14-19). And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints. Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should (Ephesians 6:18-20). -------------- Ruth Bell Graham vividly remembers September 2, 1933. She was thirteen. Her father, a missionary surgeon in China, and her mother were sending her to boarding school in what is now Pyongyang, North Korea. For Ruth, it was a brutal parting, and she earnestly prayed she would die before morning. But dawn came, her prayers unanswered, and she gripped her bags and trudged toward the riverfront. She was leaving all that was loved and familiar: her Chinese friends, the missionaries, her parents, her home, her memories. The Nagasaki Maru carried her slowly down the Whangpoo River into the Yangtze River and on to the East China Sea.
A week later she was settling into her spartan dormitory. Waves of homesickness pounded her like a churning surf. Ruth kept busy by day, but evenings were harder, and she would bury her head in her pillow and cry herself to sleep, night after night, week after week. She fell ill, and in the infirmary she read through the Psalms, finding comfort in Psalm 27:10 — Even if my father and mother should desert me, you will take care of me.
Still, the hurt and fear and doubt persisted. Finally, in desperation, she went to her sister Rosa, also enrolled in Pyongyang. “I don’t know what to tell you to do,” Rosa replied matter-of-factly, “unless you take some verse and put your own name in it. See if that helps.” Ruth picked up her Bible and turned to a favorite chapter, Isaiah 53, and put her name in it: “He was wounded and crushed because of Ruth’s sins; by taking our punishment, he made Ruth completely well.”
Her heart leaped, and the healing began.
I’ve discovered a variation of that put-your-name-in-it technique, and I would like to share it with you today. Romans 8 says that one of our weaknesses in praying is that we often do not know exactly what we ought to pray for. In other words, we do not always know exactly what to request of God because we do not always know God’s specific will. But the essence of God’s will is revealed in God’s word, and for the last several years I have devoted a segment of my prayer time each day to praying Scripture. That is, to pray, using the very words of Scripture. I take a verse and put someone’s name in it, or your own. And I have come to believe that these are the most powerful prayers that I offer God. I can pray with the confidence that I am praying for myself or for others according to God’s will. Ephesians For example, in Ephesians there are three prayer items. In the first two, the Apostle Paul is praying for the Ephesians. In the last, he is requesting they pray for him. Why not take the prayer in chapter one, and offer it for a friend—perhaps (if you are married) for your husband or wife. Let’s say your husband’s name in Manford. Your prayer would sound something like this: Lord, I keep asking you, the God of my Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, to give Manford the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that he may know your better. I pray also that the eyes of his heart may be enlightened in order that he may know the hope to which you have called him and the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints. We have many husbands here today. What would happen if we seriously prayed the Ephesians 3 prayer into the life of our wives, earnestly praying this for them each day during the month of July: Dear Lord, I pray today for Rosemarie, that out of your glorious riches you may strengthen her with power through your spirit in her inner being, so that Christ may dwell in her heart through faith. And I pray that she, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know that love that surpasses knowledge—that she may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. I wonder how many marriages would be improved, how much stress would be relieved, how many arguments would be avoided, how much strength and maturity would be gained if husbands and wives retreated for a few moments each day to pray earnest scriptural prayers for their spouses. How should we pray for our missionaries? For pastors? For Sunday School teachers? Why not try the wording of Ephesians 6: Lord, whenever he opens his mouth, may words be given him so that he will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel. Philippians And let’s keep right on going. Turn the page from Ephesians 6, and you are in Philippians 1. In verse 9, we have the prayer that Paul prayed for the church in the city of Philippi. I wonder if anyone in our entire church has ever thought about taking this prayer and really claiming it before the Throne of Grace for the Donelson Fellowship: Almighty Father in heaven, bless our church, and may our love abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that we may be able to discern what is best and remain pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God. How a prayer like that would be a lubricating oil on all our ministries! Not only that, but here in Philippians are many prayers you can pray for yourself. What are you currently asking God for in your life? A new job? More money? Guidance about a decision? Healing of illness? All of those things are important items of prayer, and we should certainly bring those things to God’s throne. But when was the last time you took a passage like the one in Philippians 2 and claimed it as a prayer request before God. Look at verse 3: Lord, help me to do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but enable me in humility to consider others better than myself. Help me to look not only to my own interests, but also to the interests of others. May my attitude today be the same as that of Christ Jesus. And of course, those of us who are parents can do nothing for our children any greater than praying for them along the lines of Scripture. Look at the passage that begins at verse 14: Dear Lord, I pray for Tommy. Help him to do everything without complaining or arguing, so that he may become blameless and pure, a child of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation. For the last several years, I have chosen a small handful of passages to pray regularly for my girls. I have written them down in my prayer journal, and I consistently pray for them along these lines. For one of my daughters, I choose the great promise in Proverbs 3: Lord, may she trust you with all of her heart, not leaning on her own understanding. In all her ways may she acknowledge you, and so direct her in all her paths. With another of my girls, I choose Psalm 1: Heavenly Father, may she not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the seat of mockers, but may her delight be in the word of the Lord. And may she meditate on it day and night. Make her like your tree, planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. May whatever she does prospers. And with my third daughter, I selected the twenty-third Psalm: Lord, be her beloved shepherd, meeting all of her needs. Lead her in the green pastures of your word and beside the still waters of your Spirit. Ever restore her soul... May goodness and mercy follow her all the days of her life, and may she dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Four Suggestions This is a habit that I call “Prayer-a-phrasing” Scripture. In very practical terms, just how can you do this? I’ll give you four different suggestions. You will probably not want to try all of them at once, but perhaps one or two of them will work for you. First, you might want to keep a prayer journal in which you actually write out a prayer from Scripture each day for someone you love. This is my general practice. Each day I take a different passage of Scripture and write out a prayer to the Lord for someone based on that passage. Second, you might just want to use the margin of your Bible for the same thing. For example, suppose you get up in the morning, pour yourself a cup of coffee, and go out to the patio for your morning devotions. In your reading you come to Psalm 1 or Ephesians 1 or Philippians 1. You quietly read that passage aloud, converted it to a prayer for your husband or wife or child or friend. Underline the passage and note in the margin: July 7—Manford. Or: July 7—Rosemarie. In the course of a year, how many prayers you could formulate from the words of Scripture! Here’s a third suggestion. Memorize a passage, and spend a week or two praying that section of Scripture into the lives of everyone you know. Right now, I’m working on memorizing the first seven verses of Ephesians 5. Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children; and live a life of love.... Every morning for a month on my way to work, I could pray through that passage for someone different. Memorized Scripture is the finest fodder for prayer the Christian can ever discover. And a final suggestion. You can expand this habit to the hymnbook. Many Christians through the years have kept their hymnbooks and their Bibles side-by-side for use in their daily devotions. I remember once I was very worried about someone—a Christian I loved who had drifted away from the Lord. I took that old hymn “Revive Us Again” and make it into a prayer for this person. Whenever I would begin to worry about him, I would sing Lord, revive him again. Fill his heart with your love. May his soul be rekindled with fire from above. So there are many ways of doing it. But the important thing is to begin and cultivate this habit. It is perhaps the most powerful spiritual disciple that God offers his children. Several years ago, as some of you know, my wife and I took in a troubled young man with a long history of drug and alcohol abuse. We loved him dearly, but after six months of apparent progress, he relapsed. The next six months were a nightmare, but he finally consented to let us enroll him in a long-term drug rehabilitation program. He entered just before his birthday and I told him that for his birthday I would pray for him for an hour.
When the time came, I wondered for a moment how I could pray so long for one person. Waiting until the evening, I rose after everyone was in bed, went to the living room, and knelt by the sofa. With an open Bible before me, I started in Genesis and thumbed through page after page. Before me were well-worn chapters, underlined verses, highlighted passages. One-by-one I converted them into prayers for my young friend. I have seldom prayed with such a feeling of authority and power, and the hour passed quickly.
Meanwhile in the rehabilitation center, Mark turned the corner. I can almost date the moment when the change occurred in his life to the very evening when I was on my knees with my Bible open before me. So if you are worried about someone today, or about yourself... If you are finding your stomach knotting, your head pounding, and your teeth clenched, remember this. The best remedy for a knotted stomach or a pounding head is the bent knee. Ruth Graham once said, “God loves to be reminded of his promises. He never rebukes us for asking too much.”
So find some verses, and put your name—or someone else’s name—in them. Discover the secret of praying Scripture, for God loves to be reminded of his word. He invites us to approach his throne boldly — on the basis of his word and through the shed blood of Jesus Christ — to obtain mercy and to find grace to help in time of need.
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