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Written by Keith Kirkwood
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Thursday, 14 March 2013 11:53 |
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“I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people—for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Savior.” —1 Timothy 2:1–3, NIV
As I continue to join with thousands of others across America to pray for God to forgive our sins and heal our land (2 Chron. 7:14), I came across a prayer guide published by the Billy Graham Association to aid in praying for our nation. I decided to reprint it here with minor edits. This prayer guide is excellent in helping us stay focused and Biblically based in our prayers.
We are admonished to pray respectfully for leaders. “Show proper respect to everyone, … fear God, honor the emperor” (1 Peter 2:17). Pray with the clear understanding that government authority is established by God. “Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God” (Romans 13:1). Pray in faith knowing that God’s Word says, “The king’s heart is like channels of water in the hand of the Lord; He turns it wherever He wishes” (Proverbs 21:1, NASB).
When we pray using words and thoughts from Scripture we can pray with total confidence that our prayers are being heard (1 Jn. 5:14-15). Pray through these prayer points using the names you have listed in the section below. You can look up the scriptures provided and say, “Your Word declares……”Praying God’s Word is powerful because we know it is His will and it is always fruitful and will accomplish the purpose for which He sent it (Isa. 55:11).
• Help our president [or any leader at any level] to accept wise counsel. Proverbs 11:14; 15:22
• Teach [name] to trust in You. Psalm 21:7
• Protect [name] from the influence of the evil one. 2 Thessalonians 3:3
• Give [name] discretion, foresight, and understanding in making decisions. 1 Chronicles 22:12
• Generously answer his/her prayer for wisdom. James 1:5
• Pour out Your Spirit on his/her leadership. Proverbs 1:23
• Deliver [name] from opinions contrary to Your Word. Psalm 119:105
• Protect [name] from harm, and bless and protect his/her family. Psalm 21:11; Ezra 6:10
• Enable [name] to carry out his/her duties with humility toward You and toward others. 1 Peter 5:5
• Bless [name] with strength, endurance, and stamina. 1 Chronicles 16:11; Isaiah 40:31
• Equip [name] to act according to Your will and to make choices pleasing to You. Hebrews 13:20–21
• Give [name] the courage to do the right thing even when urged to do the wrong thing. Proverbs 2:11–15
• Give [name] a tender heart of compassion toward those he/she leads and serves. Colossians 3:12
Each day, pick one category and pray for one or two individuals in that category.
President __________________________________________________________________________
Cabinet members __________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Senators ___________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Congressional representatives _____________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Supreme Court ____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Military leaders ____________________________________________________________________
Governor __________________________________________________________________________
State legislators ___________________________________________________________________
Mayor _____________________________________________________________________________
Police chief, sheriff ________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Others _____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________________
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Written by Keith Kirkwood
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Wednesday, 13 March 2013 13:47 |
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I have recently become involved in an initiative called 7:14Movement. It is a prayer initiative designed to unite those God designates as “my people, called by my name” in following the admonition to “humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land” (2 Chron. 7:14). You can join the growing legions who pray daily for spiritual renewal in America by going to 714movement.org and signing up.
Last time I wrote about a 12-step prayer guide developed by Dick Eastman in his book, The Hour That Changes The World. I left off with step five, Watching. Here are the remaining seven steps.
STEP SIX: Intercession. Intercession is prayer for people other than yourself. It focuses on the needs of others rather than yourself. Our prayers do not directly save people, but it opens the hearts of people to be able to receive the Gospel and Christ's love. In intercession we pray that the Holy Spirit convict and convince them of the reality of Christ and His vicarious work on their behalf. We also should ask the Lord of the Harvest to send out laborers into the harvest; pray for open doors and divine appointments, and that the our fruit will remain.
STEP SEVEN: Petition. Here is where we pray for specific personal needs or desires. We should ask God to give us wisdom in our praying so that we might understand what our true needs are as opposed to our desires. While it is not wrong to petition God for our desires, it is easy for us to become self-absorbed in our praying which indicates an attitude of selfishness. Therefore, we should seek to remain sensitive to the heart and the will of God so that our prayers are from a pure heart, motivated by a desire for the will of God. According to 1 John 5:14, if we are confident that our prayers are in His will, we can also be confident that He will hear us when we pray.
STEP EIGHT: Thanksgiving. Praise focuses on who God is; thanksgiving focuses on what He has done. Don’t rush through this portion of your prayer. Allow your mind to wander over the events of the past days or weeks in search of things for which you can thank God. Thank Him for past blessings, new blessings, and blessings that are yet to come.
STEP NINE: Singing. Both the thanksgiving and the praise portions of your prayer lend themselves to singing. This is “making melody in your heart to the Lord” (Eph. 5:19). This may be in your mother tongue or with “other” tongues. Singing not only glorifies God, it is a weapon against your spiritual enemy because it magnifies God over the acts and power of Satan. It is also spiritually edifying to “sing a new song” unto the Lord, especially in your private devotional times.
STEP TEN: Meditate. Often when I sing unto the Lord, magnify the Lord through song, a theme or significant thought or a certain scripture will develop in my mind. Meditation is our “Selah” moment in prayer. It is a time to reflect, cogitate, ruminate, ponder on God’s Word, God’s works, or on the nature and attributes of God Himself. The NKJV of Philippians 4:8 says we should “meditate on these things,” i.e. things that are true, noble, just, pure, lovely, of good report, virtuous, and praiseworthy. David declared, “My soul shall be satisfied as [with] marrow and fatness; and my mouth shall praise [thee] with joyful lips: When I remember thee upon my bed, [and] meditate on thee in the [night] watches” (Ps. 63:5, 6).
STEP ELEVEN: Listening. Our prayers need to become two-sided so that it becomes a conversation instead of a discourse. Approach this time with faith and confidence that God will truly speak to you. Act on this faith by keeping pen and paper with you to write down the words and impressions you receive in your prayer time. Dr. Paul Yonggi Cho said the secret to his success is that he prays and he obeys.
STEP TWELVE: Worship. Prayer should ultimately take us to worship. Worship is to express our view of God’s great worth; to express in words or song the value He holds in our life and our love for Him personally. Worship traditionally has involved sacrifice or offering. As we come to the conclusion of our prayer time, the natural conclusion should be to surrender ourselves to him. This is the final or crowning act of placing God on the throne of your heart. This is where you declare, “Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen” (Mt. 6:13).
Our prayers not only change us, they change the world we live in. Spending time each day in prayer is crucial if we hope to see our families changed, our churches revived, and our nation healed. You will have to purposefully resist interruptions that will come without fail. Satan recognizes the power of prayer and will fight you on every front to prevent you from your appointed time with God each day. Resist him and he will flee from you (Ja. 4:7).
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Written by Keith Kirkwood
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Monday, 11 March 2013 11:09 |
Dick Eastman is the president of an organization with headquarters in Colorado Springs, CO called Every Home For Christ. He has written a book, The Hour That Changes The World, in which he provides a outline for prayer with which anyone can pray effectively for an hour each day. It is the ideal 12 step program. Spending just five minutes on each step results in an hour of purposeful praying that will elevate your relationship with God and enhance the effectiveness of your prayers.
STEP ONE: Praise. When Jesus’ gave us the model for prayer in Matthew 6:9-11, the first thing he told us to do was to begin with praise. “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.” In its most basic form praise is an act of recognizing and acknowledging God for who he is. Praise, in our praying, is simply articulating the nature, attributes and character of God.
STEP TWO: Waiting. David wrote, “I wait quietly before God, for my victory comes from him” (Ps. 62:1 NLT). Psalm 46:10 says, "Be still, and know that I am God! I will be honored by every nation. I will be honored throughout the world." Waiting on God is an act of surrender – soul surrender. Take a few minutes to calm your thoughts, surrender your emotions and your will to God. It is a sacred time of holy reverence before a holy God whose Lordship you have just declared through the acknowledgement of his nature and his divine attributes (Ps. 139:23-24). It is here you will begin to hear God speak to you.
STEP THREE: Confession. In both the Old Testament and the New Testament, “confess” means “to agree with.” As you wait quietly in the presence of God, your mind and thoughts surrendered to him in quiet worship and praise, the Holy Spirit can speak to your heart, and help you to see areas of your life that are out of order or, perhaps, in outright sin. In confession, then, you humbly agree with God as he confronts you with areas of conviction or sin. First John 1:9 assures us, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us [our] sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
STEP FOUR: Reading. Charles Spurgeon said, “Every promise of scripture is a writing of God, which may be pleaded before him with this reasonable request, ‘Do as thou hast said.’” We are assured that God cannot lie (Num. 23:19), that his Word will not return void (Isa. 55:11), and that he has magnified his Word above his name (Ps. 138:2). Praying the scriptures can build your faith because “faith comes by hearing…the word of God” (Rom. 10:17). There is no more effective praying than praying the unfailing Word of God in faith. “"[Is] not My word like a fire?" says the LORD, "And like a hammer [that] breaks the rock in pieces?” (Jer. 23:29)
STEP FIVE: Watching. Watchman Nee said, “We must not only be watchful in keeping the time of prayer, but also be watchful during the time of prayer so that we may really pray.” This watching is an act of mental awareness. As you pray the Word of God, take the time to meditate on it, rehearse it - allow God the Holy Spirit time to reveal those truths to you and direct you in praying through them properly and effectively. Remember, prayer is not just speaking. It is intimate communion with, and meaningful conversation with, your Heavenly Father.
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Written by Keith Kirkwood
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Thursday, 28 February 2013 15:48 |
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Last night as I sat in our weekly MAGU class for men, Game Plan for Life, they played a video interview with Don Merideth (no not the football player some of you remember). As Don talked about the marriage relationship and how God designed the husband and wife relationship to work, I became extremely excited. I have been exposed to a lot of teaching on the family and marriage but I have never heard anyone teach it the way I do.
It has been hard for me to find material, i.e. commentary, exegesis, etc. that spoke to the concept of marriage and family in a way that augmented or supplemented my own study. Finally, here was a guy saying the things I have seen in the scriptures for years concerning God’s original plan for marriage!
Don pointed out three purposes for marriage taken from Genesis 1:26-28. Verse 26 says, in the KJV, “And God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.’”
The first purpose of marriage is in the first statement in verse 26: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness:…” The first purpose of marriage is to Reflect. In verse 27 it says, “So God created man in his [own] image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” This is important because God “them” to image His likeness in the created realm, i.e. to reflect his likeness, nature, authority, and presence in the earth.
God’s plan for man was that he reflect His image in the earth. But wait! God literally created mankind as one thing in two parts: male and female. Man was incomplete until God “took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man” (Gen. 2:21-22). Verse 24 says, “and they shall be one flesh.”
How could mankind image the likeness of the one God who was eternally existent in three persons: the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit? Only by existing in more than one part. “So God created man in his [own] image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them” (Gen 1:27 KJV).
The only way mankind could truly reflect the likeness of God in the created realm was by a plurality of persons becoming one. When a man and his wife live in the presence (or before the face of) God, walking in humble obedience to Him and moving in perfect accord, they are then able to image the likeness of God in the earth. The man is not dominating the woman; the woman is not dominating the man. She is humbly and willfully submitted to the man and the man is humbly and willfully sacrificing himself for the woman. The husband sets aside, sacrifices, his own rights and privileges so that the needs of his wife are met.
There is no greater expression of divine love than that of a husband and wife whose lives are melded into oneness in the synthesizing presence of God, each truly having the other’s interests at heart and supplying what the other lacks.
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