Day 17
LIST
Reminder: Fasting can sensitize our hearts to receive more in prayer. Are you ready to go for it? Have you planned a fast into your schedule? Grace to you!
Let’s talk about using a prayer list, which is a selfcrafted list of things we aim to pray for each day.
Some believers find more traction in their prayer life when they use a prayer list. Why? Because it can provide focus, make your prayer time more productive, and help you identify answered prayer. When you see how God is answering, your confidence in prayer skyrockets.
During the next few months, I recommend you use a prayer list to help jump start your prayer life. Test drive it for a year and see if it’s for you.
A list is not constricting but empowering. It helps to prime our prayer pump, so to speak, especially when our mind is foggy or scattered. We don’t serve the list as though we’re obligated to finish it every day; rather, the list serves us as a tool to make our prayer time more effectual. We’re always free to deviate from it as our heart desires.
Prayer has many expressions, as Paul indicated:
Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints. (Eph 6:18)
The idea behind all prayer is all kinds of prayer. There are many ways to pray, including supplication (petition), thanksgiving, praise, intercession, adoration, meditation, etc. A well-designed prayer list will provide for all kinds of prayer.
Would you like to create your own prayer request list right now? If so, grab your notepad and let me offer some suggestions.
You may want to title this something like, My Request List. Divide it into three categories: Personal, People, and Circumstances.
◆ Personal: Jesus prayed for Himself (John 17:15), and so may you. Itemize the specific ways you want to pray for yourself. For example, your list might include some of the following elements: your spiritual health, physical health, soul, mind, career, finances, life purpose, ministry function, family role, etc.
◆ People: Pray for individuals by name or title. First, consider listing several categories of people such as family, friends, church leaders, government officials, police, military personnel, prisoners, the sick, the poor, missionaries, etc. Second, consider having three people on your list (on a rotating basis) whom you aim to name daily before the Lord.
✦ Circumstances: Pray for situations that need the Lord’s intervention. List the various kinds of circumstances you want to keep on your radar, such as your city, Jerusalem, nations, churches, ministries, denominations, news headlines, orphans, wars, terrorism, persecuted believers, human trafficking, racism, etc.
Always take your list to your secret place. Print or write it in a way that is easy to carry, use, and update. Expect to be regularly adding and removing specific names and needs.1
One way to pray through your list might be to pray a“verse of the day” over every item. For example, the following verse would work well for that:
1 For more practical tips on using a prayer list, I recommend Mike Bickle’s book, Growing In Prayer.
That you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. (Col 1:10)
Let’s choose to pray from the phrase being fruitful in every good work. Start with yourself, and ask the Lord to make you fruitful in every good work. Then, go to your People category and pray the same phrase over everyone in that category. Finally, progress to your Circumstances category, and ask regarding every need listed there that those involved be fruitful in every good work.
To be fruitful in every good work—what a wonderful thing to ask regarding every person on your list! And that’s just one phrase from one verse. Tomorrow you could pray that you may walk worthy of the Lord over everyone on your list.
PRAY. Let’s ask the Lord for at least one answered prayer before this 20-day Reset is over.
Have a marvelous day in our Lord Jesus!
RESET: 20 Ways to a Consistent Prayer Life Copyright © 2018 by Bob Sorge Published by Oasis House
Reproduced with permission.
For information on all Bob’s books, go to www.oasishouse.com