Praying the Prayers of the Bible

I like reading through the Word of God and discovering how many recorded prayers there are and then looking how I could pray them today.  

I ask - what effect would these have on life today if we approached it this way?

For instance, Ezra, Nehemiah and Daniel all prayed prayers of confession for their nation.  They did not exclude themselves from the confession but included themselves in it.  In other words - they took responsibility for the condition of their community as well as the sins of their community.  

Ezra 9:6-7 (NIV) ⁶ and prayed: "O my God, I am too ashamed and disgraced to lift up my face to you, my God, because our sins are higher than our heads and our guilt has reached to the heavens. ⁷ From the days of our forefathers until now, our guilt has been great. Because of our sins, we and our kings and our priests have been subjected to the sword and captivity, to pillage and humiliation at the hand of foreign kings, as it is today.

Nehemiah 1:6-7 (NIV) ⁶ let your ear be attentive and your eyes open to hear the prayer your servant is praying before you day and night for your servants, the people of Israel. I confess the sins we Israelites, including myself and my father's house, have committed against you. ⁷ We have acted very wickedly toward you. We have not obeyed the commands, decrees and laws you gave your servant Moses.

Daniel 9:4-11 (NIV) ⁴ I prayed to the LORD my God and confessed: "O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with all who love him and obey his commands, ⁵ we have sinned and done wrong. We have been wicked and have rebelled; we have turned away from your commands and laws. ⁶ We have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes and our fathers, and to all the people of the land. ⁷ "Lord, you are righteous, but this day we are covered with shame--the men of Judah and people of Jerusalem and all Israel, both near and far, in all the countries where you have scattered us because of our unfaithfulness to you. ⁸ O LORD, we and our kings, our princes and our fathers are covered with shame because we have sinned against you. ⁹ The Lord our God is merciful and forgiving, even though we have rebelled against him; ¹⁰ we have not obeyed the LORD our God or kept the laws he gave us through his servants the prophets. ¹¹ All Israel has transgressed your law and turned away, refusing to obey you. "Therefore the curses and sworn judgments written in the Law of Moses, the servant of God, have been poured out on us, because we have sinned against you.

We can learn so much from prayers like this and the many others in Scripture. 

I enjoy Wednesday nights in my office looking at these kinds of prayers and asking how we can pray them together for our families, our church, our community, our city, our state and our country. At 6:45 PM we meet to briefly talk and then to pray together.  Just pray. 

• No lists
• No agenda except to read a prayer, talk about it and pray it.

Pray is the process of fighting the daily battles of a war already won!

Is This In Your Nature?

Watch this video first.  Click below and let it open in a new window then come back here.

Are Your Eyes Open and Your Heart Willing To Act?

Sometimes I think that I am so caught up in my own world, my own agenda, my own friends and my own thoughts that I miss what God wants me to do.  
Not so with my wife!

• We will sit in a restaurant and she will see an older man or woman sitting alone and wonder what their story is. Then she bats her beautiful eyes as she asks if we can anonymously pay for their dinner.  How do you refuse that sort of generosity (or those eyes)?
• We will be leaving Aldi's and she walks the cart over to someone just arriving and gives them the cart (and the quarter) and says, "Have a great day - I just wanted to pass a blessing on to you."
• We will be leaving a parking lot and she will see someone struggling to get something in the trunk of their car and ask me to help them.  
• She will see someone digging in their purse for a few coins at a checkout counter and will offer to help them with her grocery money.
• She wants me to pay for the people behind us at toll booths just because its fun to bless someone without them knowing it is coming.

All of the things in that video - are in my wife's nature.  

Why can't we all be that way?

Why can't each of us walk around with our eyes open and our heart willing to see the need and meet the need?

I love the heart that my wife has for seeing needs and willingly, immediately, without hesitation meeting that need - sometimes at great sacrifice to her own desires and needs.
What if we actually lived out each day the love that we claim to have toward God by "loving our neighbors as we love ourselves"? Matt 22:37-40
What would this world look like then? 

Read It Yourself... For Crying Out Loud!

I once heard an illustration that I now regularly use... it goes something like this: 

A man walks into the most amazing FREE buffet in the world and is greeted by the maitre de' (at a buffet, yes) who introduces the man to his own "buffet guide".  This guide's sole responsibility is to make sure that the guests see everything available and get the best and choicest of the foods on the buffet.  Mind you, this buffet is a killer buffet! (and it is all FREE!)

Nothing like it in the world.  

Fresh Maine lobster each day, King crab legs, prime rib and luscious steaks.  Amazing vegetables and salads prepared by the best chefs. Incredible desserts that would knock the socks off of any Iron Chef you encounter!  

The guide shows you around and then fills your plate(s) with the best fare that you select!  He then walks you to your table where you sit with linen tablecloths and napkins, beautiful goblets from which to drink and hefty true silverware!

You cannot believe what you are experiencing!  This is so "over the top, knock your socks off" spectacular that you realize that you will come back here as often as possible!  

As you sit down and your plate(s) are placed before you the most incredible thing happens.  Your "buffet guide" removes the Lobster tail from the shell for you and slices it into bite-sized pieces.  He then proceeds to place a bit in his mouth, chew it fully and then remove it from his mouth with his spoon and offer the spoon to you to eat.  Are you appalled?  Would you eat it?  Certainly it can still hold some nourishment, right? Well of course but that is so unacceptable that most Americans (even though it was FREE) would never think of eating food that was "processed" by someone else!

However, when it comes to our own spiritual nourishment - the reading of God's Word - for some reason that is the only meal we get each week (and sometimes not even weekly).  We get someone else's processed spiritual food from the Word of God!  King David of the Old Testament felt this way about God's Word...

Psalm 119:97-105 (NIV)
⁹⁷ Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long.
⁹⁸ Your commands make me wiser than my enemies, for they are ever with me.
⁹⁹ I have more insight than all my teachers, for I meditate on your statutes.
¹⁰⁰ I have more understanding than the elders, for I obey your precepts.
¹⁰¹ I have kept my feet from every evil path so that I might obey your word.
¹⁰² I have not departed from your laws, for you yourself have taught me.
¹⁰³ How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!
¹⁰⁴ I gain understanding from your precepts; therefore I hate every wrong path.
¹⁰⁵ Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.

I love verse 103... The Message says it this way:

Psalm 119:103 (MSG)
¹⁰³ Your words are so choice, so tasty; I prefer them to the best home cooking.

Why don't you begin feeding yourself today?  Begin "chewing" your own food!  Begin letting its savory flavor melt in your mouth and linger in your memory of something that is flavorful and will keep you on the right path!  Did I say it is FREE?  You have before you a FREE buffet of life altering principles and values that you can feast upon yourself and will be so satisfying to your soul!

I find that I have to intentionally work at this in my life - because I preach each week I spend hours reading, researching and preparing lessons to teach.  Yet there are times, if I am not careful, that even when I am doing that it sometimes seems like I am the "buffet guide" - I am chewing it up and spitting it out for others without really being nourished myself.
Every time I open the Word to read, I pray first, "God, speak to me through your Word today - do not let me forget that You are speaking to me as I prepare to share with others." 

Will you do the same - will you commit to a daily "meal" (not a snack) - of God's Word?

Try this:

For the next five days read Galatians all the way through each day.  If you have a Study Bible, use the first day to read about the book - its setting, audience, author, purpose, etc and then read it through. Keep a notepad and write out the significant points that you see each time through.  Make a list of words or phrases that you need to ask about or research.  Make notes about what it is saying to you.

The next week - pick another short book and try the same process with that book.  Here is a proposed list to get you through the next few months!

Bible Reading List:

• Galatians
• Ephesians
• Esther
• Philippians
• Colossians
• Malachi
• 1 Timothy
• 2 Timothy
• Haggai
• 1 Thessalonians
• 2 Thessalonians
• Habbakuk
• Titus and Philemon together
• 1 John
• Ruth
• 2 and 3 John and Jude together
• James
• Lamentations

Once you get this habit down you can start on the longer books and break them up into two or three sections and spread them over a two week time frame!

In just four months you will have read over half of the New Testament and have a great working knowledge of what God desires for you and you will have a great set of principles from the Old Testament under your belt also!

As I recently said to my own family of believers, "Read it for yourself, for crying out loud!"