PRAYING GOD’S WORD
Last week I
talked about how Jesus prayed. Did He
pray God’s Word? When Jesus was dying on
the cross He said in Matthew 27:46, About
three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema
sabachthani? (which means My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?) He was
quoting from the Psalm 22:1 My God, My
God, why have You forsaken me? Why are You
so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish? (NIV)
“The German martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer
reminds us that when we pray Scripture, we are praying with Jesus: All
prayers of the Bible are such prayers which we pray together with Jesus Christ,
in which he accompanies us, and through which he brings us into the presence of
God. Otherwise there are no true prayers, for only in and with Jesus Christ can
we truly pray. If we want to read and to pray the prayers of the Bible and
especially the Psalms, therefore, we must not ask first what they have to do
with us, but what they have to do with Jesus Christ.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Eberhard Bethge, Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg
Fortress, 1970). Article
drawn from articles in the NIV Lifehacks Bible ebook
Let the word of Christ dwell in you
richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns
and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. Colossians
3:16 (NIV)
By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, their starry host by the breath of
his mouth. He gathers the waters of the sea into jars; he puts the deep into storehouses. Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the people of the world revere him. For he spoke, and it came to be; he
commanded, and it stood firm. Psalm
33:6-9 (NIV)
“Every word of God is flawless; he is
a shield to those who take refuge in him.
Proverbs 30:5 (NIV)
By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, their starry host by the breath of
his mouth. He gathers
the waters of the sea into jars; he puts the deep into
storehouses. Let all
the earth fear the Lord; let all the people of the world revere him. For he spoke, and it came to be; he
commanded, and it stood firm. Psalm
33:6-9 (NIV)
Nothing
Has Changed
Proverbs 4:22, God says
His Words are LIFE to those who find them and HEALTH to their whole body.
Normal, everyday, natural words written on paper cannot produce life and health
but God’s words can.
In Revelations 19:13, it says
that Jesus’ name is called the “Word
of God.” Psalm
107:20 says that God “sent
His word and healed them.”
It is no surprise that Jesus healed many people during his three-year ministry
on earth and continues to do so today.
The
Word Changes Us
All
Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and
training in righteousness. 2 Timothy
3:16 (NIV)
Our Words
The words we
speak have power. Our words can be bring
life or death. The tongue has the power of life and death
and those who love it will eat its fruit.
Proverbs 18:21 (NIV)
Your word is a lamp for my feet,
a light on my path. Psalm 119:105 (NIV)
His Will
This is the
confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his
will, he hears us. I John 5:14 (NIV)
Faith and Patience
For we live by faith, not by
sight. II Corinthians 5:7 (NIV)
And without faith it is
impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he
exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. Hebrews 11:6 (NIV)
He replied, “Because you
have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard
seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will
move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”
Matthew 17:20 (NIV)
“Again, truly I tell you that if
two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them
by my Father in heaven. Matthew 18:19 (NIV)
Consider it
pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because
you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be
mature and complete, not lacking anything. James 1:2-4 (NIV) Thy Word is a Lamp Unto My Feet: Scripture
Prayer By Cindy VanderHaar June 20, 2012
Persistance—The Parable of The
Persistent Widow
Then Jesus told his disciples a parable
to show them that they should always pray and not give up. He
said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared
what people thought. And there was a widow in that town who
kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’
“For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself,
‘Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, 5 yet
because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so
that she won’t eventually come and attack me!’”
And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. And
will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day
and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will
see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes,
will he find faith on the earth?” Luke
18:1-8 (NIV)
One of the most famous Psalms besides Psalm 23 is Psalm 91:
Psalm
91
1 Whoever
dwells in the shelter of the Most High
will
rest in the shadow of the Almighty.[a]
2 I will say of the Lord, “He is my
refuge and my fortress,
my
God, in whom I trust.”
3 Surely he
will save you
from
the fowler’s snare
and
from the deadly pestilence.
4 He will cover you with his feathers,
and
under his wings you will find refuge;
his
faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.
5 You will not fear the terror of night,
nor
the arrow that flies by day,
6 nor the pestilence that stalks in the
darkness,
nor
the plague that destroys at midday.
7 A thousand may fall at your side,
ten
thousand at your right hand,
but
it will not come near you.
8 You will only observe with your eyes
and
see the punishment of the wicked.
9 If you say,
“The Lord is my
refuge,”
and
you make the Most High your dwelling,
10 no harm will overtake you,
no
disaster will come near your tent.
11 For he will command his angels concerning
you
to
guard you in all your ways;
12 they will lift you up in their hands,
so
that you will not strike your foot against a stone.
13 You will tread on the lion and the cobra;
you
will trample the great lion and the serpent.
14 “Because he[b] loves me,”
says the Lord, “I will
rescue him;
I
will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.
15 He will call on me, and I will answer him;
I will
be with him in trouble,
I
will deliver him and honor him.
16 With long life I will satisfy him
and
show him my salvation.”
Miraculous stories of God’s protection
speaking God’s word as found in Psalm 91
(Psalm 91:
God’s Shield of Protection by sogreatlyloved article, February 20,2018)
There are
awe-inspiring testimonies of miraculous deliverance from acute danger in time
of war. It has been recorded that during World War 1 (1914-1918), L.T.C.
Whittensley was a Regimental Commander in the British Army. Every morning his
regiment recited the 91st Psalm, declaring aloud their faith that God would
protect them from danger. This regiment went over the wall on a number of
occasions during the course of the war, facing furious enemy fire and almost certain
death. Thousands of men were killed on their left and right sides, but not a
single one of the soldiers in this regiment was wounded. It was reported that
the German bullets seemed to bounce off Regimental Commander L.T.C.
Whittensley’s men.
A
Miraculous Escape from Certain Death in World War 11
An awe-inspiring event took place during
World War 11 (1939-1945) at Dunkirk, France. It was reported by war
correspondent, C.B. Morelock, that more than four hundred men were trapped on a
beach without any shelter from the enemy whatsoever. Sixty German aircraft flew
very low directly over the men, firing machine guns, and bombing the trapped
soldiers. The men were lying face downwards on the sand, packed closely
together. They were facing certain death. All the four hundred men were not
only reciting Psalm 91, but shouting
it at the top of their voices, proclaiming in faith that God would keep them
all safe from the deadly fire of the enemy. Not a single man was even
scratched! Navy personnel who rescued the survivors from that Dunkirk beach
reported hearing them still shouting the Psalm when they came to their rescue.
The Word of God, spoken in faith by our mouth, is as powerful as the written
Word of God. Our God always backs His Word when it is spoken out loud in faith.
It is in this way that our faith is released, and God honors that.
Hurricane Andrew Hits
Florida
On 24 August, 1992, Hurricane Andrew made
landfall Near Homestead, Florida. It developed into a category 5 Hurricane with
wind speeds reaching 175 mph. It is the second costliest tropical cyclone in
United States history.
Only
One Family Escaped the Destruction Unscathed
This testimony is astounding. As Hurricane
Andrew wreaked havoc, demolishing everything in its path, the entire property
of one family remained intact. Every single house over a vast area around them
was either razed to the ground or seriously damaged. Garden sheds were tossed
high in the air like match boxes, trees were uprooted and fences destroyed.
Nothing escaped the fury of Hurricane Andrew’s 175 mph winds — apart from one
house — to the utter astonishment of the insurers who soon visited every
resident in the area. What could be the reason for this, they wondered? There
must surely be an explanation. There was!
As Hurricane Andrew roared through the area,
sounding like a freight train, sweeping everything out of its way, one house
remained unharmed. Not a pane of glass was broken, not even a plant was disturbed.
The garden shed was untouched and the fence remained intact. Why was that? It
was unheard of, given the catastrophic force of this fearsome hurricane. Del
and Pat Hicks had prepared well; food and water was ready; they had already
weathered four hurricanes. As the storm roared all around them, Del and Pat
Hicks knew the authority that they had in the name of Jesus. They remembered
how Moses had been instructed by the Lord that the blood of the lamb had to be
applied to the doorposts of every Israelite home when the Angel of death
devastated the land of Egypt, so they applied the blood of Jesus and quoted the
wonderful promises of total protection in Psalm 91.
Earlier, Pat had walked through their yard
laying hands on the trees, declaring that they were now under the shadow of the
Almighty, and touching the shed and the walls of the house, placing every
single thing under the protection of God. Fourteen family members gathered in
their home. They could hear things crashing into the house. At one point it seemed
that the house was about to break in two and the roof be blown away. They all
laid hands on the walls, commanding them to stand strong and continue
supporting the roof.
In the morning they saw that, although their
shed door had been blown open, everything was still there. They had suffered no
damage at all. Their property immediately became like a tourist attraction.
Everyone in the area was dumbfounded! This family home alone was unscathed in a
forty mile disaster zone. What a glorious testimony to the unfailing efficacy
of confessing out loud the power-packed promises of Psalm 91! How God was
glorified! May we all learn to follow their unwavering example of confessing
out loud their faith in the Word of God!
The Angels were working overtime to protect
this family who leaned entirely upon their God!
Specific
scriptures for specific needs:
Healing:
Heal me, Lord, and I will be healed; save me
and I will be saved, for you are the one I praise. Jeremiah 17:14 (NIV)
He sent out his word and healed them;
he rescued them from the grave. Psalm 107:20 (NIV)
He heals the brokenhearted and binds
up their wounds. Psalm 147:3
But he was
pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the
punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are
healed. Isaiah 53:5 (NIV)
Anxiety and Depression
So do not fear, for I am with
you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you;
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
Isaiah 41:10 (NIV)
Cast all
your anxiety on him because he cares for you.
I Peter 5:7 (NIV)
Financial Blessing and Provision
Give, and it
will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running
over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be
measured to you.” Luke 6:38 (NIV)
Bring the
whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in
this,” says the Lord Almighty,
“and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much
blessing that there will not be room enough to store it. Malachi 3:10 (NIV)
These are
just a few. You can always look up
scriptures for specific needs either in your Bible or on the internet.
This is the
second in a series about Prayer. I do
not propose to be an expert on prayer. I
am always learning each and every day.
Prayer is very personal. As long
as we truly seek to pray and ask God to guide us in our prayers, He will be
more than happy to help us. It is an
ongoing process. Actually, prayer is a
way of life. I will talk more about
personal prayer and the role of prayer in our lives in my next segment.
Praying the
scriptures is a very powerful tool. We
know that Jesus did it and many others in the Bible. We can speak the Word of God to give us
faith, when we need it; give us protection when we are afraid; give us
consolation when we are anxious; give us healing when we are sick; pour
blessings upon us and give us hope.
