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Prayer Resource

Pray for: The Thirty One

Find out more and download this new prayer resource at:

https://ionprayer.com/2018/05/16/new-prayer-resource-the-thirty-one-largest-frontier-people-groups/

THY WORD

What comes to your mind when you hear the phrase, “Thy Word?” Many of you think of the scripture him, “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet.” others of you have memorized from childhood Psalm 119:11 that begins, “Thy word have I hid in my heart.”

This is what to talk to you about today. I am doing something right now that I would really like to encourage other people to do, starting with you. I am trying to memorize the entire New Testament, verse by verse and chapter by chapter. Here is how I am doing it. I read a chapter and memorize the first verse or verses that go together. The next day I read the same chapter over and memorize the next verses. It takes me about a week, sometimes a week and a half, to get the entire chapter memorized and go on to the next chapter. At that rate it will take me just a little over 3 years to memorize the entire New Testament.

I have been helping adults memorize scripture all of my adult life. I've even helped a few who told me beforehand it was impossible for them to memorize. Let me give you 5 Steps that will help you memorize Scripture.

1. Memorize in only one translation. Some of you have thought you would understand scripture better if you always looked at multiple translations. There is some truth to that but it never applies to Scripture memory. You might be surprised to hear me say that the easiest version to memorize is King James. It is worth an entire blog post to tell you why. And and I myself do not memorize in the King James.
2. Memorize out loud. Our educational system for some wonderful reasons teaches us to read silently. But you will never be able to memorize silently. A part of this is emphasizing certain words to stick them in your mind.
3. Repeat the verses over and over, trying to stick the words in your mind and on your lips. Repetition is the key here.
4. Think about what you are memorizing. The more you understand it the better it will stick in your mind and heart. One of the good reasons for memorizing Scripture is the amount of insight that you will get after you've memorized a verse. But if you can understand something from the start it will help.
5. Review what you've memorized. Few organizations know more about scripture Memory then The Navigators. (https://www.navigators.org/) There topical memory system, TMS, teaches those who go through the course to review a verse every day for a month.

I will be honest I am not doing this so that I will be able to witness to people with Scripture. Though I must say Scripture memory helps present the gospel. Nor am I trying to do this to use in sermons or even in my writing. My primary reason for this is for God, planting the Scriptures in my life, to transform my character. I want to be more like Christ. And this helps. This evening I spoke with a friend about this on the phone. He told me he thinks of Scripture memory like the parable Jesus told of the wise and foolish virgins. The wise virgins brought oil with them. He said verses he memorized were the oil he brings with him to meet Christ.

But let me tell you the most enjoyable thing about this. When I've memorized a passage I can meditate on it. God feeds my soul, and He feeds my mind. I see things in scripture I had never dreamed were there. And there seems to be no end to what He will show me in His word. It becomes a never ending joy!

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Requests for training believers in how to start Disciple-Making Movements are growing fast.  Numerous Discovery Bible Studies are happening in several languages and various areas of the Arabian Peninsula and spreading across international borders as people connect by Skype or travel.  It is a simple, transferrable, and easily reproducible method to introduce people to the Word of God and have them experience Him at the same time.  It can also be done even with the illiterate.  Please pray for the Word of God to spread swiftly and that believers will be protected and reproducing. Please pray that those who have tasted and seen that the LORD is good via the Scriptures, Christian media, healings, deliverances, answers to prayer, dreams and visions, etc, will actually be saved by grace through faith. 

It happened again last week – another mass shooting, this time at the Santa Fe High School in southeast Texas. Previously, this High School was perhaps best known for its role in the fight against school prayer in the 1990s. In 2000, the Supreme Court struck down the school’s long-standing tradition of prayer before football games, ruling that prayer over the stadium’s public-address system violated the separation of church and state. Ironically, last Friday, a member of the school’s football team, killed eight classmates, and two teachers, and wounded thirteen others. And once again, many in the media showed their complete lack of understanding of the role of prayer in a time of tragedy. National and local news commentators read the names of the ten victims of the shooting, and concluded with, “remember to keep these victims in your prayers,” or something similar. Forgive this old professor’s attempt to respond to a “teachable moment,” but I have been praying for the families of the victims, the students who were injured, the officer who was injured, the students who will have a hard time living with the images of last Friday morning, the families who will remember where they were when they got a message from their frightened child, for school personnel who must now finish the semester, for the shooter and his family, for the community, for the state, for politicians who always rush to the scene, and seem to get on camera, but do nothing to prevent a reoccurrence of the tragedy. I’ve even prayed for our country. While I grieve for the victims, they are now beyond the reach of my prayer. I have been praying that their death might finally cause someone, somewhere, to do something to prevent this from happening again. And maybe I should pray that the news media take a crash course in prayer. Just three months ago, I posted “Thoughts and Prayers and More” following the school shooting in Parkland, Florida. I attempted to say then, that while “sending thoughts and prayers your way” was meant for good, it was misdirected and incorrect. Prayer should only be directed to God. I also said then, and I repeat now, prayer is appropriate, needed, and good, but it is not enough. Since then, reasonable suggestions that would make mass shootings less frequent, have been made, but little to nothing has been done. A Parkland student pleaded a response to the Santa Fe shooting, “This is the 22nd shooting just this year. DO SOMETHING!” I agree and repeat my scripture from my February 26 post - “To him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin” (James 4:17).

"God seeks intercessors. He longs to dispense larger blessings. He longs to reveal His power and glory as God, His saving love, and more abundantly. He seeks intercessors in larger numbers, in greater power, to prepare the way of the Lord." Andrew Murray

Did you realize that if you are involved in intercession, you are working with God to determine the future? Certain things in history will happen through our intercession if we pray the way God wants us to pray. We have authority in prayer to actually see our cities changed and to prepare the way of the Lord. In many ways history belongs to the intercessors. When we pray, things happen in the spirit realm.

I revisited a particular city in Turkey and remembered a prayer I had prayed in that very city several years before. It was as if at that moment God showed me that He had remembered my prayers, and that it was important and would have a powerful effect in that city one day.

God remembers every prayer you pray, and every one of them prayed through the power of the Holy Spirit has effect on earth. Not one prayer is forgotten. Your prayers matter to God.

How can you be the history-maker for God's purposes in your city?

“Prayer is power and strength, a power and strength that influences God, and is most salutary, widespread, and marvelous in its gracious benefits to man. Prayer influences God. The ability of God to do for man is the measure of the possibility of prayer." E. M. Bounds

Here are some ways you can pray for your city and make a difference. You may want to pray these prayers for your nation, church or neighborhood as well. Know the areas where God wants you to intercede because He will give you authority in those areas. God is seeking for intercessors. He will accomplish His will through the prayers of His people on earth.

• Pray that a spirit of intercession falls on your city - If intercessors cry out for a spirit of intercession to invade their city, people will change and prayer will increase. Christians who had never felt like praying before will begin to pray. Prayer can be activated in your city.
  
  
• Pray for corporate worship and prayer to arise in your city - Pray that the Church begins to come together in corporate worship and prayer. United worship tears down the powers of darkness in your city. Pray for state gatherings of worship and Houses of Prayer to be raised up.
  
  
• Pray for the key authority structures and spiritual leaders in your city - Pray for all pastors and government leaders. Pray for faith, wisdom and holiness in the leaders in your city. Pray that God will help them to lead His people into holy living in difficult times.
  
  
• Pray for God to reveal the lawless structures in your city - Pray that all terrorist plans and evil hidden plans will be exposed in your city and nation. Pray that unjust laws will be overturned. Pray for Godly rulers in your nation to be elected and put into place.
  
  
• Pray for the church in your city to be empowered by God - Pray for the churches to arise in prayer, godliness and spiritual strength. Pray that the Church becomes a light to the lost in your city.
  
  
• Pray for God to remove complacency in your city - Pray that the churches in your city becomes fervent and on fire for God and His ways. Pray that complacency stops and that the Church awakens to its destiny and calling in the last days.

History belongs to the intercessors. Your city needs intercessors that will cry out to Him day and night with great boldness and expectation. God is seeking for intercessors. Will you be one?

The hope for the nations is an anointed prayer movement. It is God’s people knowing the strength and the power of prayer and enforcing God’s will on earth through it. God has given us breakthrough authority to change nations. Through our prayers we can change the atmosphere over cities. Through our prayers God releases deliverance and transforms society. Let’s learn to take hold of the strength and power of prayer and pray down God’s blessings on our world.

Here is a 4-minute teaching and prayer for you called: My Petition for Strength and Power in Prayer. This is part of the Intercessors Arise International School of Prayer. 

"Millions of feeble, sickly Christians, thousands of wearied workers, could be blessed by intercession. Churches and missions sacrificing life and labor with little result often lack the power of intercession. Souls, each one worth more than worlds - worth nothing less than the price paid for them in Christ's blood - are within reach of the power that can be won by intercession. We surely have no conception of the magnitude of the work to be done by God's intercessors, or we would cry to God above everything to give us a spirit of intercession." Andrew Murray

By Debbie Przybylski
Intercessors Arise International
International House of Prayer Kansas City (IHOPKC)
www.intercessorsarise.org

A Prayer for Hearing God's Voice

“The word of the Lord came to Elijah… “I will send rain upon the earth.” That was the foundation of that persistent praying and sevenfold watching on the mountaintop. First the ear heard, then the voice persistently claimed, and the eye expectantly looked. First the voice of God, then the voice of man. That is the true order. Tremendous results always follow that combination.” S. D. Gordon

In order to pray God’s will, it is crucial that we hear His voice clearly. We all know what it is like to talk with someone who never listens. It is terribly frustrating. Likewise, God wants us to learn to listen to Him. As we spend time before Him in quiet listening we are able to pray His will more fervently and with greater expectation, hitting the target effectively. When you give God time in listening prayer, He will direct your prayers strategically, even when you don’t realize it.

This 4 1/2 minute pray and teaching will help you to pray and hear God's voice. It is called: A Prayer for Hearing God's Voice. 

This is from the Intercessors Arise International School of Prayer. 

By Debbie Przybylski
Intercessors Arise International
International House of Prayer Kansas City (IHOPKC)
www.intercessorsarise.org

A Prayer to Keep God in the Center

“The biggest battle we each might fight is to stay focused on God long enough to learn to abide in His presence. Before we can redeem the world, we must redeem our time. And we would think that with all the time saving conveniences we have in life, that this would be easy but it is not." Francis Frangipane 

A focused life is not scattered in many directions because of the distractions. A focused life always moves to the center even in the busiest times because it is like a magnet attracted to Jesus, knowing that He alone is the one who makes everything work when priorities are in order. 

We used to live in Virginia Beach so we learned a lot about hurricanes. A few years ago we had a hurricane called Ernesto that swept through the area. Ernesto was not a very forceful hurricane, yet many trees fell because of the strength of the winds. Many people lost one or more trees during that hurricane. It left Virginia Beach in a huge mess with trees and branches lying everywhere.
 
The stability of the trees depended on how deep the roots went below the surface. Shallow roots could not stand the force of even a small hurricane. In Virginia Beach in mild weather you could never tell how deep a tree’s roots extended, but in a hurricane the truth was exposed. Shallow roots meant a big downfall. The roots just could not sustain the tree.

Likewise, right now God is developing our prayer life and the depth of our personal relationship with Him. He wants us to be stable and strong in difficult times as we keep Him in the center of our life.

This 4 1/2 minute prayer will help you to keep God in the center of your life. It is called: A Prayer to Keep God in the Center.

This is from the Intercessors Arise International School of Prayer. 

Blessings,

Debbie Przybylski
Intercessors Arise International
International House of Prayer Kansas City (IHOPKC)
www.intercessorsarise.org

Have you ever expressed this cry from the book of Job in the Old Testament?

“Oh that my words were written!

Oh that they were inscribed in a book!
Oh that with an iron pen and lead
   they were engraved in the rock forever!
For I know that my Redeemer lives,
   and at the last he will stand upon the earth.
And after my skin has been thus destroyed,
   yet in my flesh I shall see God,
whom I shall see for myself,
   and my eyes shall behold, and not another.
   My heart faints within me!

JOB 19:23-27

Job’s longing to be published pumps from his very heart.

Words Formed in His Longing

This cry of Job could have been spoken by most writers. “Oh that my words were written!” “Oh that what I have to communicate were engraved in stone!” Are you driven by such a longing? You need such a driving desire to go through the difficulties and discouragements of writing.

Words Formed in His Suffering

What Job had to say was brought forth by overwhelming suffering. It must have been difficult for Job to understand how crucial his suffering was in the plan of God. I once heard Tim Keller say Job could not have understood that his experience and his words would still be seriously discussed by people five thousand years later.

Make no mistake, what Job discovered and was driven to say, was magnified by his suffering. God never explained to Job what readers of his book are told in the first chapter. But through his suffering Job still speaks to hearts of people to this day.

Words Formed in His Hope

In His suffering and the accusations of his friends Job became even more certain of his hope. His hope was not impersonal. He believed in his Redeemer. At this point Job still had no sense of the redemption or even the nearness of God. But he spoke with assurance about the personal Redeemer who would and will again stand upon this earth.

This week we drove along a Nevada highway where the cattle were free-ranged. And we saw no less than three animal carcasses on the side of the road. They were all partially consumed by scavengers. Job had boils all over his body and felt like his own final decay had begun. He knew he would die, although it did not happen as quickly as he probably assumed. But he knew that even after his flesh was destroyed he would rise again and see his Redeemer face to face.

Words Formed in His Assurance

Job cried out, “I know that my redeemer lives.” I sometimes hate to admit it, but I need a certain assurance, even arrogance to write what I have to say for publication. As a Christian writer much of what I write needs to come from assurance about God. Job's assurance came through suffering as it often does. In his book, The Problem of Pain, C.S. Lewis called pain God's megaphone.

“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”

It is important for a writer to understand that God not only speaks to you in your suffering, but he will speak to others through your suffering.

Words Formed in His Grace

Job's friends were convinced that Job's suffering came to him because of some secret sin. When Job denied this, they countered with the truth that no man can be righteous before God. It is not surprising to me that the strongest source of this information came from a demon spirit. Job 4:15 reads,

“A Spirit glided past my face;

the hair of my flesh stood up.”

And verses 17 through 19 repeat just what we would expect from the one the Book of Revelation calls the Accuser of our brothers.

“Can mortal man be in the right before God? Can a man be pure before his maker? Even in his servants he puts no trust, and his angels he charges with error. How much more those who dwell and houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, who are crushed like a moth?”

Job does not deny this reality. Instead he tells them he believes in the grace that God will provide through his Redeemer, who is Our Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ. We are made right with God because of His great grace.

Words Formed in His Presence

Job speaks as one who doesn't feel the presence of God. Yet he affirms his conviction that the day will come when he will see him face to face. 1 Corinthians 13:12 repeats this same promise.

“Now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.”

By the end of the book God speaks clearly to Job. And Job repents of his pride in dust and ashes.

But even here Job is overwhelmed, and says his heart faints.

Words Formed in His Purpose

Generally in the Bible the word, heart, refers to the center of one's whole being. But this place the word that is translated, heart, is a word for reins like the reins of a horse. When he says, “My heart faints within me,” he is saying, “The direction of my life is overwhelmed by this.” He is saying again, “Oh that my words were inscribed in a book.” He's driven by the purpose that is welling up in him.

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Have you heard about a Photo Prayer Journal for your grandchildren? Today I would like to share with you about the Photo Prayer Journal. A number of years ago I developed a Photo Prayer Journal, finding it very meaningful as I was praying for my grandchildren. Many grandmothers have shared with me they found the Photo Prater Journal a great resource and enjoyed using it to pray for them.

A photo prayer journal is a working document to help grandparents pray intentionally for their grandchildren, whether they live far away or nearby. The photo prayer journal will make praying more meaningful. You will feel more connected when you see the pictures of your grandchildren as you are praying for them. I made my photo prayer journal in a three ring binder with a divider for each grandchild, that way I could redo it each year when they start a new school year.

Instructions for Photo Prayer Journal Profile Sheet

On the profile sheet, place your grandchild’s picture in the designated spot and complete the profile with his/her information.

Grandchild’s Profile

(Place your grandchild’s

picture here.)

Profile Sheet For ____________________

Date_______________

Name:

Address:

Telephone #: Cell #

E-mail address:

Birthday: Age:

Grade in school: School:

Teacher:

Church:

Friends:

Favorite activities:

Character strengths:

(You may have other ideas to add to the profile.)

Instructions for Prayer Concern Sheet

Make a page to record the date, praises, prayer concerns, and the hopes and dreams for your grandchild on which you want to focus your prayers. If desired, choose a scripture from the “Scriptures to Pray for Grandchildren” or the list of "Prayer Suggestions for the Various Life’s Stages” or other suggestions from the book, Grandparenting with a Purpose: Effective Ways to Pray for your Grandchildren. Record your concerns about their safety, health, physical, mental, emotional, spiritual growth, strength to resist temptations and the deception of the world.

Suggestions

Use your creativity and make the Photo Prayer Journal to meet your needs, these are suggestions to get you started. I use the photo prayer journal only once or twice a week, however, it does make me feel more connected with the grandchildren.

If convenient, take your grandchildren out for a meal or ice cream to ask them for the information needed to fill out the profile sheets, and tell them why you are doing it. You may also ask them the questions on the telephone, through e-mail, or however, you find it convenient. If you are making the journal on the computer, use Print Shop or another program to enhance the pages, inserting your digital pictures, and making as many pages as you need.

I have had a number of grandmothers tell me how they have enjoyed their Photo Prayer Journals. Some grandmothers have told me that they will give the Photo Prayer Journal to their grandchildren when they become adults.

You may find more creative ideas to help you with your praying for your grandchildren in the book Grandparenting with a Purpose: Effective Ways to Pray for your Grandchildrenavailable on this website.

FREE RESOURCES ON THIS WEBSITE

I have developed several FREE Resources to Pray for your grandchildren you can download and print to help you pray intentionally for your grandchildren and their parents. I have also included a couple of eBooks for you to download.

On this website, you will also find a list of free downloads with many helpful suggestions to intentionally pray for your grandchildren.

Click on the 3 bars on the upper left side of this page FREE RESOURCES.

By Lillian Penner, Co-Prayer director, Christian Grandparenting Network

info@grandparentingwithapurpose.com