The Secret of Praying the Scriptures

T

he Bible is one massive Prayer Book. Virtually every page contains prayer prompts. As you take time to soak in His word, not only is your meditation sweet, but you find

yourself spontaneously expressing your heart back to God in response to the text.

Praying God’s word back to Him is powerful for several rea- sons:

• God’s word itself “is living and powerful” (Hebrews 4:12), so when we pray with God’s word on our lips, we know we are praying prayers that are living and powerful.

• When the language of our prayers is shaped by the Scrip- tures, we gain confidence in knowing that we are praying according to the will of God—a confidence that means “we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him” (1 John 5:15).

• As we pray God’s word back to Him, the language of His word becomes the working language of our daily dialogue with Him. A powerful transformation begins in your soul when your everyday conversation starts to reflect God-

The Secret of Praying the Scriptures

language. Now your tongue is being ignited by the fire of heaven rather than the fire of hell (compare Acts 2:3-4 with James 3:6).

• We are equipped to pray according to the will of God in ways we would not have considered on our own. The word will tip us off to things we can pray, profoundly widening the breadth and diversity of our prayer life.

• Praying the Scriptures adds a dimension of creativity and surprise to our prayer life, which in turns makes prayer much more fascinating and enjoyable.

If you’ve never prayed the Scriptures, let me try to get you hooked. If you’ll go after what I’m about to show you, you will uncover one of the most wonderful secrets in making your secret place relationship with Jesus absolutely delightful and fruitful.

First of all, though, we need to have a proper definition of prayer. Prayer, in the true biblical sense, is the full spectrum of human expressions to God. Prayer is the all-encompassing title to describe the entire gamut of expressions we offer up to God. Therefore, prayer includes praise, thanksgiving, adoration, in- tercession, worship, supplication, shouts of joy, lifting of hands, bowing, honor, exaltation, intimate affection, repentance, sur- render, dancing, mourning, contemplation, spiritual warfare, prophesying, etc. So when the Scriptures begin to prompt your prayers, you can expect your prayers to cover a wide gamut of expressions.

Now let’s turn to a portion of Scripture and try this thing out. Let me suggest we start with a psalm because the Psalms are custom-made for this sort of thing, being that they are prayers already. I’m going to arbitrarily choose Psalm 84 (we could choose any of the 150 Psalms). Turn to Psalm 84, and I will give you some suggestions for praying each verse.

Each verse has major words in it that can be springboards for prayer. Choose a key word or a key phrase, and learn to develop that word or thought in prayer before God. Pray those themes to God, calling on other portions of Scripture that come to mind according to the same theme. Take anywhere from one to ten

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minutes on each verse, and pray the themes of that verse back to the Lord. Try it. Work your way through some of these verses right now; let’s get a feel for this thing.

“How lovely is Your tabernacle, O LORD of hosts!” (Psalm 84:1).

• Tell the Lord how many things you find to be lovely about Him.

• Since His tabernacle is your heart, give thanks for the lovely things He has been doing in you.

• His tabernacle is also the congregation of the saints; extol Him for the lovely things He is doing in His people, His bride.

• Worship the Lord as the Captain of the hosts of heaven.

(As an example, I will “pray” that verse onto this page, printing in bold the words from my prayer that are connecting to verse 1: Oh Lord, how lovely You are! Wherever You live is lovely because You are lovely! You make everything that surrounds You lovely. Oh, how I long to dwell in Your habitation, Lord. I just want to be with You, enjoying You, and being made lovely by You. I would rather be with You than anywhere else. The panorama of Your tabernacle is altogether lovely to me, too. I consider the angels, the seraphim, the living creatures, the twenty-four elders, all gathered around Your throne and fixated upon You. Little wonder—You are unsurpassed in beauty and splendor! O Lord of hosts, O mighty champion of heaven, O great warrior of glory, I bow before Your majesty and greatness today. With great joy I appear before You. Thank you for the blood of Christ that grants me this boldness to Your throneroom! How eternally blessed I am, here with You. I worship You, O mighty God!)

“My soul longs, yes, even faints for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God” (Psalm 84:2).

• Express to Him how much you yearn and long for Him. Let Him see the emotions of your soul at this very mo-

The Secret of Praying the Scriptures

ment.

• Realize that you stand in the courts of the great King; express to Him that you stand at attention before Him, totally available to Him.

• With all your heart and also, literally, with your flesh, cry out to the living God.

(As another example, here’s my prayer just now from verse 2, with the words in boldface that are triggering my prayer: Oh how I yearn for You, my God! Every part of my entire being longs for You. I long for You with my soul, my mind, my emotions, my body, my spirit, my heart, my flesh, my everything! I want You more than anything else in all of creation. If I can just have You, Lord, You will be my exceeding great reward. If You don’t reveal Yourself to me I’m going to faint with longing. I am so lovesick for You that I am faint from love. Oh how I long for You! I desire Your courts because that’s where You live. I just want to live where You live, for the rest of eternity. So here I stand, crying out to You, my God. Will You look upon my cry? Will You behold my tears? Will you consider the travail of my soul? Will You have mercy on me? You are the only God, the true and living God, and to You alone my soul rises. Oh, when will You come to me?)

“Even the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young—even Your altars, O LORD of hosts, my King and my God” (Psalm 84:3).

• Tell Him how much you want to be with Him, continu- ally—to the point of being envious of a bird that can make its home in the altars of God.

• Tell Him that your heart finds its home in Him.

• Worship Him as your King.

(I’m not going to write out any more examples of my own prayers, I’m sure you get the idea. Express your own heart to your God based upon the words of verse 3.)

Blessed are those who dwell in Your house; they will still be prais-

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ing You. Selah” (Psalm 84:4).

• Thank Him for the blessing under which you live, because you live continually in His presence.

• Articulate the purpose of your heart to continually offer up sacrifices of praise to Him. It’s not just something you do; it’s who you are.

• Take some “Selah” moments to praise Him freely and spontaneously.

“Blessed is the man whose strength is in You, whose heart is set on pilgrimage” (Psalm 84:5).

• Remind Him of how weak you are and how dependent you are upon Him for every ounce of strength.

• Tell Him again that you’re a pilgrim; you’re just passing through this land, in search of a heavenly city whose maker is God.

• Thank Him for the pathway He’s showing you in this pilgrimage. It hasn’t always been the path you wanted, but it’s been for the good.

“As they pass through the Valley of Baca, they make it a spring; the rain also covers it with pools” (Psalm 84:6).

• Even though they’re rarely enjoyable, thank Him for the valleys of life. Tell Him about your present valleys.

• Baca means “Weeping”; allow your heart to flow forth to Him, even unto tears.

• Confess your faith in His leadership, that He is enabling you to turn the darkness of your valley into a place of springs and pools—the key to your valley becoming a garden.

“They go from strength to strength; each one appears before God in Zion” (Psalm 84:7).

• The valley may be a place of weakness, but thank God that He is leading you through the valley to the next mountain of strength.

• Rejoice that God is going to turn the darkness of your valley into a face-to-face encounter with His glory.

The Secret of Praying the Scriptures

“O LORD God of hosts, hear my prayer; give ear, O God of Jacob! Selah” (Psalm 84:8).

• Pour out your heart to Him. Tell Him how desperately you long for Him to hear you.

• Worship the God who, even as He was faithful to Jacob, will also be faithful to you. He will defend and save you!

• Recount to the Lord how He defended Jacob, and ask Him for the same blessings.

“O God, behold our shield, and look upon the face of Your anointed” (Psalm 84:9).

• The shield may be a reference to loss of reputation because of unanswered prayers; cry out to God to restore your fortunes and vindicate you.

• Realizing that you have an anointing from above, beseech God to look upon you and have mercy on you.

“For a day in Your courts is better than a thousand. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness” (Psalm 84:10).

• This is a great verse to help you express how much you love Him. One day in His outer courts is more delightful and exhilarating than a thousand days elsewhere.

• Tell Him that your heart is not set on high and lofty things; you are happy with just being a doorkeeper for Him.

• Call upon His mercy, that you might live in His presence forever, and never fall back to the ranks of the wicked.

“For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD will give grace and glory; no good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly” (Psalm 84:11).

• As your sun, tell Him how He is the light of your life, your radiance, your source of warmth, the one who lights your path.

• Worship your shield—the Lord your protector.

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• Receive His grace and glory right now.

• Declare your ownership of the truth of His goodness; He will never withhold His goodness from you because you walk uprightly.

• Tell Him you love Him so much that you labor, in accor- dance with His grace, to walk uprightly in all things.

“O LORD of hosts, blessed is the man who trusts in You!” (Psalm 84:12).

• Thank Him that this verse describes you!

• Tell Him how much you trust Him.

• Worship the Lord of the warring hosts of heaven, for he is releasing His blessings to you.

As you pray the Scriptures, don’t be afraid of repetition. The repetition of meaningful words and phrases works powerfully to lodge them in your spirit, and causes truth to have its full impact in your heart and mind. We want God’s word to enter our hearts, grab our attention with its impact, enlarge and expand our hearts with passionate longing, enter into the fabric of our speech and actions, and bear fruit unto eternal life.

I hope you exercise yourself in praying the Scriptures until you’re sold! Once you come alive to this secret, you will want to take your Bible to every place of prayer. You’ll take it to your secret place; you’ll take it to your home group; you’ll take it to corporate prayer meetings. You’ll even find yourself praying the word while driving your car!

What a mighty gift God has given in His word. He has given us a way to bypass the self-centered, human-based, pity-filled praying toward which our souls want to gravitate. We can step into His mind, His thoughts, His expressions, His priorities, and pray according to His will from His word in the power of the Holy Spirit. Awesome!

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Дата добавления: 2015-10-23