Seven Spiritual Prayers To Pray For Myself And Others (2)

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a list of 7 prayers to pray for yourself and others. The list came from Jim Mayes, an old friend who is the Director of the Buckeye Central-Erie Baptist Association. Jim recently spoke at a half day of prayer for our staff. Now, I've just learned that the prayer list originally came from Mike Wilson, pastor of Lincoln Heights Baptist Church in Mansfield, Ohio.

Mike wrote to me: "I wanted to tell you that after I emailed you, for kicks I went to your blog (it had been a couple weeks since I had been there last) and to my joyful surprise I read your blog entry for last Thursday. It was the prayer stuff (7 Spiritual Prayers to Pray for Yourself and Others) that I developed several years ago for my church when I realized that their praying sounded more like an organ recital (God bless my kidneys, and my liver, and my heart, and my...) instead of yearning for God to do the amazing in their lives.

"We gave each a copy, walked through it, asked them to put it in their Bible, and lasked them to let it inspire them to pray for things that make eternal difference. It is only about half original, the rest is inspiration from something I read from John Piper.

"I am glad you found it helpful enough to use it and post it. Several years ago I circulated it to any of my friends who thought it might be helpful. Jim Mayes uses it at prayer events that he does and Jim told me he did a prayer event at your church recently."

So, I gladly give Mike the credit for composing these 7 prayers. And I am gladly re-posting the list here.

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1. God, turn my heart and my affections to You and away from self-centeredness. Make me to want You – to be hungry for You and Your Word (Matthew 6:33, Psalm 119:36.)

2. God, give me a holy fear of You. May I have a reverential awe of Your presence, power, splendor, majesty, holiness, and righteousness and a knee-knocking fear of Your jealousy, justice, judgment, discipline and correction (Psalm 2:11, Psalm 33:8, Psalm 86:11).

3. God, help me to understand Your Word – to know what it says (2 Timothy 2:15, Psalm 119:18, 27, 34).

4. God, enlighten my heart so Biblical truth will affect me deep within. Make a difference in my life – that I would feel the weight and impact of it’s message (Ephesians 1:18, 19a.)

5. God, make me satisfied in You. Turn my heart so You truly are my treasure (Psalm 90:14).

6. God, give me inner strength. Give me true spiritual inner power to hold to convictions, do the right thing and so “no” when my flesh screams “yes” (Joshua 1:6, Joshua 10:2, Ephesians 3:14-16).

7. God, cause me to produce good works. Empower me with power that is beyond my ability (Galatians 6:10, Colossians 1:9, 10, 2 Thessalonians 2:16,17).