“And it came to pass, as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, that one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught also his disciples.’ So he said to them, ‘when you pray, say: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come.
Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us day by day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And do not lead us into temptation but deliver us from the evil one’ ” (Luke 11:1-4, KJV.)
Fully convinced that it is not only necessary to stir up people to pray but also to help them to know what to pray about, we have written the next two books in this series. The books are, Practical Helps for Praying Believers, Volume One, How to Pray for Yourself; and Volume Two,How to Pray for Your Local Assembly. Below is a chapter from Volume One on the part, “Praying for Your Family.” Pray through them and see if they help you to be more fulfilled as you pray for your mate. Praise the Lord!
PRAYING FOR A WIFE
-
Thanksgiving to the Lord for her salvation and for all the ways and all the areas of her life in which she has grown spiritually. The different ways and areas should be mentioned to the Lord in detail.
-
Pray for her total deliverance from all sin. Bring to the Lord those areas in which she is still bound by sin. Name each sin to the Lord. Ask the Lord to open her eyes to see:
-
that it is sin,
-
to hate it,
-
to desire deliverance,
-
to seek deliverance,
-
to repent,
-
to be delivered,
-
to remain delivered.
-
-
Pray for her total deliverance from the self-life. Expose to the Lord, all the ways in which the self-life is manifested in her life: self-justification, withdrawal, moods, harshness, indiscipline and so on. Ask the Lord to open her eyes to those things and that she should see them as manifestations of self, hate them, seek deliverance from the Lord, receive deliverance from the Lord and remain delivered.
-
Pray that she should be delivered from laziness that is manifested in:
-
too much sleep,
-
procrastination,
-
unaccomplished projects.
-
-
Pray that she should become a hardworking woman by applying herself to the diligent use of time by:
-
working out a schedule for the week,
-
working out a schedule for each day,
-
abiding by the schedule as much as possible,
-
giving accounts by the writing of all failures.
-
-
Pray that she should grow in the School of Prayer by:
-
learning to contact God,
-
learning to maintain the contact,
-
learning to hear Him,
-
learning to speak to Him,
-
learning to commune with Him,
-
learning to present requests,
-
learning to receive answers,
-
learning to enjoy His presence,
-
learning to walk with Him after the prayer session.
-
-
Pray that she should grow in the School of Obedience by:
-
learning to be totally consecrated daily, hourly, and every second,
-
learning to hear God’s voice,
-
learning to believe that it is God speaking,
-
making a radical commitment to obey,
-
being meticulous in recording all that God has said,
-
working out the way in which obedience is going to be manifested in each situation,
-
rendering instantaneous obedience in all things to the Lord,
-
putting aside all other commitments that were made before and that will stand in the way of obedience,
-
asking and receiving from the Lord a spirit of rejoicing in obedience.
-
-
Pray that her commitment to the Word of God should be deep and radical and that she should commit herself to:
-
read it (about ten chapters a day),
-
study it,
-
meditate on it,
-
memorize it,
-
obey it,
-
teach it to others.
-
-
Pray that her times of Dynamic Encounters with God (Quiet Time) should be:
-
regular (each morning or at least six times a week),
-
deep and thorough,
-
times of meeting God and not just the analysis of His Word,
-
times that give a sense of direction and purpose to the day,
-
times that enable her to carry a sense of God’s presence and glory into all of the day.
-
-
Pray that she should be deeply committed to the redemption of time and that:
-
she should see time as one of the most precious gifts of God,
-
she should see time as a perishable gift, that every minute not well used is lost for ever,
-
she should see that she will give account on Judgment Day for the way she has used each second, minute, hour, day, week, month and year.
-
-
Pray that God’s call on her life should become increasingly obvious; so that she should see clearly that one thing to which God has called her, Pray that if she has not yet received the goal God has for her life, she should seek it, find it and give all of herself to it. Pray that she should organise her life in such a way that her hourly, daily, weekly and monthly goals are all a real part of the one goal God has for her.
-
Pray that she should grow in Christian character. Make a list of the areas in which the fruit of the Spirit is underdeveloped in her life and bring each up to the Lord for rapid transformation. Pray that she should hate these flaws and be totally determined to have all of them eliminated as soon as possible.
-
Pray that she should be delivered from all covetousness and love of the world and that this deliverance should be manifested by the following disappearing from her life:
-
a spirit of comparison,
-
love of vanity,
-
love of what others have,
-
dissatisfaction with what she has,
-
a desire for worldly position and honours, promotions, appointments, diplomas, and so on,
-
the lack of total satisfaction with what she has,
-
a spirit of ingratitude and the tendency to keep things that are not really needed.
-
-
Pray that she should seek the Lord with her whole heart by going on regular:
-
three-hour retreats,
-
six-hour retreats,
-
twelve-hour retreats,
-
twenty-four-hour retreats,
-
many day retreats.
And that her hunger for the Lord should be deep and insatiable. Pray that she should be fully satisfied in the Lord.
-
-
Pray that she should see the world for what it is: a judged system that will soon be removed, that her eyes should be fixed on heaven and that she should labour to invest everything there as soon as possible. Pray that she should live in hourly and daily expectation of the Lord and that her total person should be ready to meet Him in the air.
Thank the Lord for the time of prayer and believe Him for answers to all the requests you have made to Him.
