Here is a flexible prayer framework
to help you hear God’s gentle prompting in prayer. Use it if it serves you or
change it to suit you.
- Worship. 1 Chron. 16:29; Psalm 95:6; John 4:4; Rom 12:1-2; Heb 10:1. Begin with worship of your Lord Jesus. It is your first responsibility. Everything of eternal value proceeds from a life of worship.
- Family. Acts 16:33-34; 1 Tim 5:4, 8. Pray for your immediate family and those in your extended family that God directs to you. Stand in the gap for them. Pray blessing on them and lift up any ongoing or unusual needs to the Father.
- Top Five Wanted. Acts 4:12; 16:30-32. The salvation of the lost is a high priority on the heart of Jesus. Make a list of five (or ten) people who need the Lord Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Ask God to send someone to share the power and love and message of Christ with them. And tell the Lord you are willing to be the answer to your own prayer.
- Christ’s Bride the Church. Colossians 1:9-14; Acts 4:23-31. Pray for the church staff, deacons, the Sunday School leaders, and your pastor. Pray for revival in the Church. Cry out for a great revival in His Church. Seek the Lord to invade our comfortable wineskins with fresh wine, fresh wind, and fresh fire from the Holy Spirit. No major revival has swept our nation with spiritual awakening since the great revivals in the Union and Confederate Armies during the War Between the States. Why does spiritual awakening not come? Leonard Ravenhill once said that it was because we are content to live without it. A.W. Tozer said we pray for revival but we don’t really want it because having revival would mean we would have to change some things in our lives.
- Your ministry. Psalm 42:1-2, 8. Your first ministry is to Jesus. Pray for the Lord to use the ministry He has given you for His Glory, whether you are a servant to children, a teacher, a deacon, an encourager, an usher, or you find your ministry in hospitality, evangelism, or care-giving for someone.
- World vision. Acts 1:8; Matt 28:18-20; Rom 10:14-15; Rev. 7:9. Pray for missionaries by name. Pray international ministries that you support in some way. Take their prayer letters and pray through the things they need. Pray for our persecuted brothers and sisters, for God to raise up workers and send them to the 5,300 unreached, unengaged people groups who have no access to the Good News of Jesus Christ.
- Nation, city, state. 1 Timothy 2:1-2. Paul told the early church to pray for the cruel, oppressive empire of Rome. Let the newspaper or the television news prompt you to pray for people and areas of influence in the nation and in our local area. Moses said the greatness of Israel as God’s presence through prayer and keeping his righteous laws (Deut 4:7-8). Pray for the Lord’s presence and righteousness in our land.
- Today. Psalm 143:8-10. Pray for your day, for those with whom you will come in contact, for those who need an encouraging word, for your supervisor and your employees, for your students and your teachers.
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