Category: Prayer

Prayers that marked my journey, June 16-23 2020

Every Friday I am going to share SEVEN prayers that have marked my path toward a prayer-soaked life. It’s a blessing to share these. ENJOY!

God, we agree with the prayer of King Jesus. Make us One as you are One.

In this time of transformation, empower us to be humble and to release heaven’s joy on earth.

Restore our hearts so that we will welcome others and bless them the way you do.

King Jesus, help us pray the way you did at your friend’s tomb as you called him back to life.

Open our eyes and our understanding to beauty on earth today. Our world misses so much of your glory. It is all around us but we don’t see it. Change us by helping us see you and your new creation here and now. We lift our voices today on earth and we join with heaven saying “Alleluia! The Lord our God, the Almighty, has become king!

We need grace to trust you more. You are the spring of living water. We are resilient because you are in us.

King Jesus, your authority comes from heaven. Mere human authority cannot overtake you. We pray that heaven’s authority would be revealed more and more on earth today.

Through Christ Jesus Our Lord – AMEN

Prayer is Living With God

All of Creation is God’s place. There is nowhere that God doesn’t belong. Anywhere that there is life, there is God. Discovering prayer is discovering God. Discovering God is discovering prayer. Our prayer must expand to make room for us to live. Our lives must expand to make room for our prayer. Together we are a dwelling place for God. God is a dwelling place for all of us together. Prayer is you hearing God’s voice. Prayer is God hearing your voice. Prayer is where we are shaped. Prayer is us shaping things. There is no life outside of prayer. There is no prayer outside of life. Your life is meant to be a prayer. So God make our lives a prayer and make prayer our life. Through Christ Jesus Our Lord. – AMEN

Be Yourself

“Be yourself, not your idea of what you think somebody else’s idea of yourself should be.” – Henry David Thoreau 

This quote from Thoreau inspires something deep inside of me. I am more than I imagine myself to be. I move through each day governed by motivations that I experience consciously as an after thought. They are real and powerful… these motives. 

Like the world around me, I am always interacting with forces around me. As a human being, I have the unique skill of self-awareness. God has blessed me with the capacity to make choices. 

Like you, I have a love-hate relationship with my God-designed function of choosing how I will work on my life today. The vineyard awaits me every day. Our father instructs me to work in his vineyard today and every day. Yesterday’s work may or may not feel the same as today’s. But it will be unique because this is always a new day… a day of renewal. 

Thoreau’s coaching tip to be myself, not my idea of someone else’s idea… intrigues me. It does inspire me to humble myself in the presence of God (who actually is present with us), and place “myself” under his mighty hand. He promises to lift me up in the right way and the right time. 

Prayer: God, being myself is so core to my sense of well-being. It is too much for me to leave to an afterthought. Help me to get better at surrendering every day to your amazing invitation to work creatively in your vineyard. This is your world and you have a concept of me in the midst of its pulsating life of renewal. You see me as more than any human’s idea including any of my own. Why wouldn’t I trust you? Inform my being today with your thoughts about me. Through Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.

Prayer to SEE in 2020

God, I come before you through faith in Jesus. You have taught me to believe in my heart that I have been rescued out of a dead, meaningless existence. My sins have been forgiven because of your faithfulness expressed in Jesus. I do freely and willingly confess that you are King of heaven and earth. Your kingdom is present everywhere and the increase of your government will never end.

At the beginning of a new decade, I pray that the eyes of my heart would be healed, restored and renewed. I long to see with 20/20 vision on earth as it is in heaven. King Jesus, I long for you to help me admit my blindness in any form and to receive your healing touch. In your mercy, touch my spiritual eyes so that I will see what you see, go where you send me, and say what you want me to say.

May the year 2020 mark a shift in my perception of your kingdom on earth as it is in heaven here and now. By your grace, I admit my need for gold refined in the fire, purified clothes from heaven to cover my shame, and healing ointment for my eyes. These things can only come from you. (Revelation 3:17-18)

Prepare me to serve in your overwhelming season of harvest in all nations. In a fresh way, help me see how you are manifesting the glory of your Name as you flood all creation with your Presence. I hear your knock at my door and your voice asking to come in. In the fear of the Lord, I gladly throw the door open again trusting you to come renovate, restore, and transform my life as a living temple in all that I say and do.

At the start of a new year and a new decade, this is my prayer.

Amen

Unrefined ponderings on a tired midweek morning…

Holy Spirit, reside in me, in us.

In Jesus, I am in heaven. Because Jesus is in me, heaven is on earth.
It is a “right here, right now” thing. The living, breathing, moving union of heaven and earth is overflowing with the glory of God.

Somehow to live every moment in the faith that in Christ, heaven and earth have been joined.

Transformation happens at the pace of a plant growing. And it grows up out of the mess and chaos of our lives.

We are fearfully and wonderfully made. Thank you, Jesus, for your faithful, undying, life infusing presence in us and with us especially when we think we are at our worst.

Teach us to see in every moment at least a hint of your kingdom flowing on earth as it is in heaven.

Amen

Say yes again

Dwelling on the open door of reconciliation that stands open forever because of God… Jesus came as the voice of God from heaven to earth. God has spoken clearly to us through the Son. And as he speaks, the invitation is always to receive reconciliation with him and with each other. The wild, captivating beauty of His Bride radiates with reconciling love. The power of our unity in Jesus is unprecedented. There is never a day or even a moment when heaven is not open for you and me to receive (eat and drink) eternal life in Him on earth as it is in heaven. Take a minute where you are and say yes again.

You are a blessing!

Big Prayers for France

It has been strange, epic, and haunting to watch the video footage of Notre Dame in flames and then to follow the endless commentary and see the photos of the wreckage. Tonight, I have been reminded that you and I have been appointed to be prophets to the nations as we are his people in Christ living on the earth today.

We are here to pray prophetically for God’s kingdom to come in every nation. Our intercession in Jesus’ name matters. There is something rising in me challenging me to “live a life worthy of the calling I have received” in this moment. In my conversations about what has happened in France and with the Notre Dame Cathedral, I want to let my conversation be seasoned with the salt of God’s grace and presence. I want to prophesy and pray things that are soaked with the expectation of an unprecedented move of God in France.

Most of all I am asking God not to let my mouth be filled with my words or opinions. It is time for us to expand our faith to pray big, generous prayers of grace and decree in Jesus’ name, the greatest move of God in France and every nation that the world has ever seen. He has appointed that we would be here at this time to pray his prayers and release his living word.

You are a blessing!

The Prophetic is Anchored in Love

A few days ago, I posted this prayer online, “Father, keep changing my heart with the love you have for Jesus so that your voice fills my voice and your words fill my mouth.” It was inspired by the prayer of Jesus in John 17:20-26. For the past decade, the Holy Spirit has taken me into deep connection with God through my surrender in agreement with his prayer.

Jesus is praying for the love that our Father has for him to be in us. Over the years, this prayer has become an anchor for my life. Recently, a “prayer warrior” friend of mine gave me an anchor pendant that now hangs on my desk lamp. She explained to me that she asked the Lord to show her someone she could bless with this gift as a sign that they are an anchor for others. I was so honored that she was led to give it to me.

The credit for any anchoring dynamic to my life goes to Jesus’ intercession for me and the fact that I have been invited into his relationship with the Father. My ability to bring glory to God in any way comes from being rooted by his grace into their unity. Any fruit that is prophetic in any way comes from being driven deep into the love shared by the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The prophetic, for me, is perceiving, receiving, and sharing the living word of the Lord. It comes from revelation… God reveals his truth to those whose spiritual perception has been opened to see and hear. As powerful and life-altering as the prophetic is, it is contained and fueled by love.

But, it has not been human love that has unlocked and empowered the prophetic for me. It hasn’t been a type of love that I could figure out or strategize or attain. It is a gift that I had to ask for and wait for according to God’s response.

In his faithful way, the Father has changed my heart by giving me his love for Jesus, the Son. It has become a deep desire of my heart to move in the type of prophetic that shakes the world around me through a relationship with God… one person at a time… starting with me and with you.

Will you join me in ongoing prayer for the Lord to keep changing our hearts with his love?

You are a blessing!

God’s power all over us

I was leading a prophetic prayer session a few nights ago. A good friend in our prayer family shared a vision. She was seeing us standing in a narrow space between two walls. All of us had a hand on each wall and ready to push the walls apart.

She sensed that the Lord was inviting us to push the walls back in order to create space for his presence to rush in. The walls represented sin and/or evil mindsets with which we had grown way too familiar. It was time to name them, call them out and expel them in the power and authority of Jesus’ name.

One of the prominent evil strongholds that I saw was powerlessness. As our prayers began to heat up, we knew that we were moving with the Spirit of the Lord. The phrase, “having the appearance of godliness but denying its power” came to mind. 2 Timothy 3:5 speaks about us when we are powerless… “They may pretend to have a respect for God, but in reality they want nothing to do with God’s power. Stay away from people like these!” (TPT)

This morning as I was waking up, the Holy Spirit was stirring me to think about operating in the power of God. After I grabbed my coffee, I looked at 2 Corinthians 13:4. It talks about Jesus being “robed in God’s power”. You and I were put into Christ by God when we through faith received our adoption into his family. That means we are also covered in the awesome mantl/robe of his power.

I am praying today for the oil that cycles through the engine of the Church on earth. May God transform it into the fresh, golden oil from heaven instead of the sludge of recycled powerlessness. Most of us need a reawakening to the disrespect we show toward Jesus when we neglect his power. If we see it, our hearts will begin to break for change.

This is a new year and a new day. In Christ, you are robed in the power of God. That is a great honor and privilege. Don’t let selfish or lazy thinking cause you to take it for granted. You are better than that as a member of his household.

You are a blessing!