Praying Purposefully

Charles Finney, Daniel Nash, and Abel Clary understood and implemented the power of prayer.

Finney was one the voices of the Second Great Awakening (1790-1830’s). God moved through him powerfully to bring many to the Lord. Yet he knew that his preaching was not enough. He knew the importance of prayer.

Daniel Nash was a Presbyterian minister better know as Father Nash. He was a man of prayer. For the last seven years of his life he became a personal intercessor for Finney. He was later joined by Abel Clary.

Nash would go to a town a couple of weeks before Finney was scheduled to preach. He would try and find two or three people who would join him in prayer and begin to intercede.

He would pray for God to come and move in the hearts of the people preparing them to receive the word of God Finney would preach. He would pray for hours at a time, sometimes days.

There is a story of a concerned owner of a boarding house that came to Finney when he arrived in town. She spoke of how Nash had not been out of his room for three days. He had not been down to eat and she heard groaning in his room.

She decided to check in on him to make sure he was alright. All who were in the room were lying prostrate on the floor and groaning in prayer.

Nash would make a prayer list where he would pray for people every day, sometimes multiple times a day. He would choose the worst sinners in the region and pray for their salvation. His prayers brought great results.

Nash and his companions prayed until they broke through and then they continued to pray. They rarely attended any of the meetings because they were praying. God heard their prayers.

I’ve been involved in weekly prayer meetings for well over thirty years. Some of them were good and others not so good.

There was a season in our church prayer meetings when it seemed that all we did was focus on the negative. The prayers would go something like this:

Lord, the world is getting worse. There is so much darkness. People are being killed in all the wars. Drugs are on the rise. Abuse is rampant. Kids are committing suicide. Oh God, we need Your help. Etc. Etc. Etc.

I call this type of prayer “complaining prayer.” It is when we give God a list of all the evil that is going on in the world and feel overwhelmed and somewhat helpless to do anything about it. We are despairing that things are so bad and so bleak. The world is just continually getting worse and worse.

I would come into the prayer meetings feeling pretty good and go home feeling somewhat depressed. I started wanting to skip the prayer meetings so that I wouldn’t have to hear this type of prayer. I never skipped a meeting, but I wanted to.

I know that there are prayers of complaint throughout the Bible. Many of them are in the book of Psalms. So I started to look into these prayers to figure out what is going. I saw that David had quite a few Psalms of complaint.

David had terrible things going on in his life. There were may foes trying to kill him and he would complain to the Lord. I started noticing that there was a trend in how David prayed.

Then it hit me. When David poured out his emotions to the Lord he would always end it with his absolute confidence that God was going to protect him. God would not allow his feet to slip or his enemies to capture and kill him. He could lay down in sleep and peace because God would protect him.

That changed everything. I put together a sheet to hand out and encourage people to pray positively. Instead of focusing on the negative, I encouraged us to focus on the positive.

Praying the Solution

Praying with Paul

This incident got me thinking about the prayers of Paul. Many years ago I heard a teaching by Mike Bickle on Apostolic Prayer. He mentioned the many different places where the apostles would pray for the churches they were writing to.

I decided to do more research and found a pdf called “Key Apostolic Prayers and Prophetic Promises.” It is a two-page list of scriptures that the apostles prayed for believers in the church. (Click here to see the list)

These prayers are definitely praying the solution in a positive way. They are very encouraging and if you want to you can pray them for me. I am all for it.

Below I have a prayer that combines many of the passages in the list into a prayer that we can pray for those we desire to see grow in God. I believe we can pray this prayer over believers or unbelievers since we are praying the solution.

We are asking God to open a person’s eyes to give him or her wisdom and understanding about God, about His love, about His call on their life, about His power that is working in them, to mention a few.

This is exactly what I needed. I can pray this prayer in front of anyone and for anyone without any inhibition. It is what God desires for the person. It is the word of God that does not return void.

A Prayer You Can Pray

Here it is. Check it out and see what you think:

A Prayer to Demolish Strongholds
For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful

Father, I thank you for _____. I pray that You would give her a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge You.(1) I ask that You would open the eyes of her heart and enlighten her to know the hope of Your calling and the riches of the glory of Your inheritance in the saints.(2)

God, I thank you for the freedom You are giving _______ as You are transforming her from glory to glory into Your image through the power of the Holy Spirit.(3) I thank You for transforming her by the renewing of her mind.(4)

In the name of Jesus, I cast down every lofty thing in _____ mind that would exalt itself against a true knowledge of You(5) and replace it with increasing knowledge of Yourself.(6) May every stronghold of the false speculations of man be destroyed(7) and be replaced by the truth of the gospel that manifests the power of Your salvation.(8)

I pray that ____ would take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ(9) and be anxious for nothing but instead pray with thanksgiving to You.(10) May her mind dwell and think upon whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, and is excellent and worthy of praise.(11)

I ask that _____ be strengthened with power through the Holy Spirit in her inner man so she might be rooted and grounded in love.(12) May she comprehend what is the breadth, and length, and height, and depth(13) and be filled up to the fullness of You.(14)

I pray that she would take up Your full armor (the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, and the sword of the Spirit) to stand against the schemes of the devil.(15)

May she be strong in You and in the power of Your might.(16) May she know the surpassing greatness of Your power according to the working of the strength of Your might(17) and so be strengthened with all power according to Your glorious might.(18)

May she experience the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge.(19) and be filled with the knowledge of Your will all spiritual wisdom and knowledge.(20) May her love abound more and more in real knowledge and discernment, so she might approve those things that are excellent.(21)

May Christ dwell in her heart by faith(22) so she might experience Your peace that passes all understanding.(23) I pray that she might walk in a manner worthy of the Lord:(24) sincere and blameless,(25) pleasing You in all respects,(26) bearing fruit for every good work,(27) attaining steadfastness and patience,(28) proving Your good, acceptable, and perfect will for her life.(29)

(1) Eph. 1:17, (2) Eph. 1:18, (3) 2 Cor. 3:17-18, (4) Rom. 12:2, (5) 2 Cor. 10:3, (6) Col. 1:10, (7) 2 Cor. 10:3, (8) Rom. 1:16, (9) 2Cor. 10:3, (10) Phil. 4:6, (11) Phil. 4:8, (12) Eph. 3:17, (13) Eph. 3:18, (14) Eph. 3:19,   (15) Eph. 6:11-17, (16) Eph. 6:10, (17) Eph. 1:19, (18) Col. 1:11, (19) Eph. 3:19, (20) Col. 1:9, (21) Phil.1:9-10, (22) Eph. 3:17, (23) Phil. 4:7, (24) Col. 1:10, (25) Phil. 1:10, (26) Col. 1:10, (27) Col. 1:10, (28) Col. 1:11, (29) Rom. 12:2

Be Led by the Spirit

I want to give you some ideas about how you can use this prayer. The first is that you be led by the Spirit in using it. Reading through this prayer will do little if it is not accompanied with faith and the power of the Holy Spirit.

Prayer is not a magical thing where if we repeat this prayer enough times it will come true. Prayer is uniting your heart with God and interceding for others to come to a knowledge of the truth.

We are asking God that the people we are praying for will experience the fullness that Christ has made available to them. We are seeking to break any fortresses or any other barriers that stand in the way of their growth in Christ.

Some people teach that if you pray a prayer more than once it is unbelief. I disagree.

Jesus taught us to persevere in prayer. We are to pray until we know that we have received the answer. Once we have received the confirmation from God in our hearts that it is finished, we can begin to thank Him for the answer.

Many times as we are praying God will say, “It is finished.” We can then rejoice and wait confidently for what He has promised He will do. Sometimes it may take years for the promise to manifest.

God is faithful. He will do what He says. He may not do it as fast as we would like, but He will do it.

I’ll give you the Reader’s Digest version of the story about my son, Joshua. When he was a teenager he rebelled against the Lord. This caused great tension in our family.

Both Suzette and I were praying (in separate rooms) “complaining prayers” that focused on all the bad stuff he was doing. We brought up to God the stress that was being placed upon our family. I even considered quitting the ministry because if I could not manage my own household and keep my own son in submission, how could I care for God’s church? (1 Timothy 3:4-5).

That day God showed up to both Suzette and me as we were “prayer complaining” and brought correction to us. He spoke to Suzette and said, “What do I have against your son?”

She felt the rebuke of the Lord and instantly knew that the complaining was over. We could no longer pray this way to the Lord for our son. He then gave both of us an assurance that He had heard our prayers (even though they were misdirected) and that it was finished. Josh would serve the Lord.

We instantly changed from prayer complaining to thanking Jesus for the answer to our prayers even though our son's actions did not change. It took ten years for him to return to the Lord. Today, Josh is the worship leader at our church.

Next week we’ll look at the power of praying in the Spirit.

P.S. Is there someone you are praying for to come to a knowledge of the Lord? List their name below and let us join you in believing for their salvation.