Matt 5:33–37 prayer
33“Again, you have heard that the ancients were told, ‘You shall not make false vows, but shall fulfill your vows to the Lord.’ 34“But I say to you, make no oath at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, 35or by the earth, for it is the footstool of His feet, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. 36“Nor shall you make an oath by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. 37“But let your statement be, ‘Yes, yes’ or ‘No, no’; anything beyond these is of evil.
I will pick study this passage tomorrow; I want to focus on prayer today.
Interactive Prayer:
Father, give me the ability to love You and love others more each and every day. Make me a person who is known by love. Make us a church that is known by love. Father, give me the ability to discipline myself for the purpose of godliness. Give me the desire, determination and discipline to be a man of God. Give me the ability to go to the next level in my walk with You. I feel like I’m close, but I worry too much. I’m tired of worrying so much. I think I worry too much because I put too much of the responsibility on me and not on You. Father, increase my faith. Help me to believe in Your ability to change me. Help me believe in Your ability to work through me. Father, I believe so much more is possible. I don’t want “mega-church” success; I want see a true movement of God in our city and country. Father, I don’t want Highpoint’s success to be the result of hard work only; I want it to be the result of the wind of the Holy Spirit. Father, I want to see Your Spirit bring about true godly sorrow in the lives of our people. I want to see people truly repent of their sin. I don’t want to create or lead a consumer church. I want to lead a Christ-focused, people driven church. I don’t want our success to be attendance; I want our success to be mission. I want to see our people living missional lives in the home, in the workplace, in the city and through the church.
Father, as I read “The Forgotten Ways,” I ask for Your forgiveness for unintentionally creating a church of consumerism. The last thing I want to create is a church of consumerism. Please forgive me for not being the church on mission first. If we do mission first, ministry will follow; but if we do ministry first, mission won’t always follow. Father, give me understanding and vision about the next ten years of this church. Give me the ability to see and understand the DNA of movements from Your perspective. Give me the wisdom to contextualize the Chinese church in our culture. Father, I pray for the ability to inspire our people and cause them to rise to vision of the mission of discipleship. Father, give us the leaders we need to disciple people. Give us leaders, time and resources needed to build healthy connect groups. Give our people a passion for serving inside and outside the church. Father, the Christian life is meant to be so much more than we are experiencing. Call us and equip us to be soldiers for Christ.
Father, anoint my teaching. Give me the ability to speak in the power and demonstration of the Spirit. I pray that You will anoint me and give our people ears to hear and eyes to see. Father, help our people to see that You don’t care about traditions; you care about obeying the commands of God. Give us the ability as a church to respect tradition but never let it get in the way of obedience. Give us the wisdom and clarity to always focus on function instead of form, substance instead of style and relationship instead of religion. Father, give us the ability to educate previous traditions. Give us the ability to respect the past but not be bound by the past. Give us the ability to build bridges and help people cross the necessary bridges. Father, give us the ability to truly be a church that plants churches. Give us the ability to be a church that starts multiple campuses. Give us the ability to truly ignite a spontaneous explosive movement of the gospel in and through this city. Give us the privilege of being a catalyst for the gospel for this century and beyond.
Father, help us help churches shift their focus from the minors to the majors. Give us the ability to help people from spiritual dishonesty to spiritual honesty. I pray that our church will be convicted of spiritual dishonesty. Give us the courage to confess it and repent of it. Father, I pray that our people will do an excellent job of taking care of their families (immediate and extended). Father, make us a people who are generous to our families and to Your mission. Father, protect us from making spiritual excuses for our disobedience.
Father, forgive us for the ways that we honor You with our lips but not with our hearts. Forgive us for being casual and passive toward worship. Forgive us for being late to worship. Forgive us for worshipping on Sunday but not presenting our lives as a living and holy sacrifice that is pleasing to God. Forgive us for not feeding on the Word of God daily. Forgive us for loving the world more than we love You. Forgive for having gods of our own making and calling them Jesus. Father, cause the seeds of the Word of God to come to harvest in our lives and bring about a godly sorrow that leads to repentance with regret that leads to salvation. Father, there are so many people who need to abandon their religion and be born again.
Father, I pray for a significant response time. Give us the privilege of seeing You work in people’s hearts in a visible way. I pray for the Holy Spirit to blow through our church with the strength of the storms of this weekend. I pray for the winds of the Holy Spirit to overwhelm us and break through our pride and resistance. Father, we don’t even know how far off center we are from what it truly means to follow You. Give us the ability to see Your holiness and to see our sinfulness in response to Your holiness. Father, I don’t think everything can happen in a service, but I do believe more can and should happen than is happening right now. Father, I don’t believe You’ve changed throughout history. If You were the God of revivals throughout history then you are still the God of revivals today. Father, if You are doing the miraculous in China today then You can do the miraculous in Memphis. Father, heal Ed Mort from terminal cancer. Father, heal Karin’s dad from cancer, heal Amanda’s dad from cancer, bring Chuck home sooner, and reveal Yourself to Jeff as the Messiah.
Father, I pray that You will be the passion of our souls. I pray that we will truly love You with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. I pray that we will love our neighbors as ourselves. I pray that we will go into all the world and make disciples. Father, nothing else matters. Give us the ability to focus on our hearts and to ask You to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Father, show us how ugly our hearts are for the purpose of forgiveness and repentance. I pray that the Holy Spirit will convict us of the evil thoughts, murder/anger, adultery/lust, fornications, thefts, false witnesses/lying and slandering. Father, I’m not trying to be difficult, but I just believe for the majority that these things exists in our hearts more than the fruits of the Spirit. Please convict us for the purpose of confession and repentance. Father, give me the ability to communicate this tomorrow. Give me the ability to communicate with the balance of compassion without compromise. Father, protect me from offending people, but cause the truth to offend people. It isn’t a sin to offend someone. We need to be offended in order to do something. Father, offend us for the purpose of mending us.
Father, our only hope is for You to redeem and renew our hearts. Please do that for Your glory. I pray that You will cause the storms to pass so people will come to church. I pray for Your Spirit to move in people’s lives to come to worship You tomorrow, to hear and respond to Your Word and to love and serve others. Father, give us a breakthrough day tomorrow.
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