Thoughts for Life: #120 How To Pray For a Person

Dr. Wesley L. Duewel- God will place on your heart many people for whom you will want to pray daily. For these, you can intercede briefly as you hold them before the Lord in loving petition that God will meet their needs. Blessed is the person who blesses many others through regular and systematic prayer.

When God desires to transform the spiritual condition of a person from sin to salvation, or from self-centered living to obedient living, however, He may call on you to carry a special prayer burden which may require more intensive prayer. (Google image, Praying for someone)

This person may be someone close to you—a relative or friend—or some national or would leader or government figure. The subject of this prayer assignment may be influential in the field of education, business, sports, the judiciary, the news media, or the military. Those who serve as role models need to be undergirded b prayer as well as those who move in less public circles.

How should you pray for such individuals? The following are suggestions which may be used for prolonged prayer or adapted to periods of shorter intercession:

1. Again, begin by focusing on God Himself. (a) Thank God for His good will toward all people; His love for the world. (b) Thank God for His intensely personal love for this person. (c) Thank God for His plan for the life of this person. (d) Thank God that Jesus' death on the cross was intended for this person, too.

(c) Thank God for the Holy Spirit's presence and activities for this one: His eyes constantly beholding him, his work, and his needs. (Gen. 16:13; 2 Chron. 16:9; Zech. 4:10; Rev. 5:6); His instant availability. (f) Visualize Jesus standing by the person with His arms outstretched in love and saying, "Here am I! Here am I!" (Isa. 65:1-2). (g) Visualize Jesus' tears of loving longing for the person (Matt. 23:37). (h) Thank God for the availability of God's messenger angels to help bring answers to your prayer (Heb. 1:14).

2. Thank God for this person. Begin praying for the person by thanking God for him. Never yield to the temptation of criticizing the object of our concern. Don't point out how difficult, how stubborn, how wayward the person is. It is Satan's role to accuse. He not only accuses our brothers in Christ (Job 1:-11; 2:1-5; Zech. 3:1; Rev. 12:10), he injects his accusations to intensify interpersonal friction.

Satan will do anything to discourage our prayers for others. If he cannot stop us, he will try to short-circuit our prayer by making us petulant, critical, and negative. Such a spirit hinders our love, destroys our faith, and cancels our spirit of praise.

Don't expect answers to prayers prayed in a spirit of negative criticism. (a) Thank God for this person's potential, abilities, and skills. (b) Thank God for the good qualities that you can recall. (c) Thank God that you know the Holy Spirit is already at work even though His work may not yet be visible to the eye. (d) Thank God for the answer you believe will come in God's own timing.

3. Intercede for the person. (a) Ask God to guide you in praying for this person and to increase your concern. (b) Ask God to block and frustrate Satan's plans against the person. (c) Ask God to bless the person and to manifest His goodness in such ways that there can be no doubt that it is God's goodness and not coincidence or chance.

(d) Ask God to strengthen every good personality trait, every good desire, and every right decision of the person. (e) Ask God to make the person open and receptive to God's voice and sensitive to his own personal sin and need. (f) Ask God to release the person from any prejudice, to break any chain of sin, evil habit, or satanic power with which Satan may have bound him.

(g) Ask God to surround the person with His holy presence, to remind him of God's many past mercies, to prove His merciful intervention in new and powerful ways, and to melt away all hesitation with His great love. (h) Ask God to use any means He deems best to dissolve any resistance to His Spirit. Ask Him to use any of God's children, any circumstance in life, or any ministry of His holy angels.

(Chapter 32, p. 242-244, italics added for emphasis)

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Let's pray-

Father, we need to realize that You place certain people on our hearts that You want us to pray for. May we be faithful to follow Your directives, so they'll be blessed on a regular basis.

When there's someone You want to transform their spiritual condition from sin to salvation, or from self-centered living to obedient living, may we be available to carry a special prayer burden for them.

It may be someone close to us, a relative or friend, some national or world leader or government figure, so we ask for Your guidance in praying for them in a special intercessory prayer effort.

We ask to be reminded to focus on You first, for Your good will toward all people: Your love for the world. Dr. Duewel gives several suggestions to guide us in our praying for folks You lay on our hearts to support in prayer. Our giving thanks for your intervention in the lives of these persons is a big factor, as You are already working to perform You will in and through them.

Father, we ask for Your help to uphold those You've placed on our hearts for on-going prayer support. In the name of Jesus; the One who died and rose for us all, providing Salvation for our souls, we ask this. Amen.

[Actually, I've used this above list for several young men to pray daily for, since reading this a while ago].

Today's Bible verses-

Romans 12:16 "Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited."

Hebrews 10;25 "[Do not give up] meeting together as some are in the habit of doing, but [encourage] one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching."

James 5:16 " Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective."

Quotes for today-

 ~ Ron Dunn-  "I tell you what the beginning of revival is, in a real measure; when the things that break god's heart begin to break our heart. When the things that God mourns over and weeps over and the things that God is concerned about become our concerns. Our problem is that the things that  break God's heart aren't breaking ours.

   When I come to the place where I loathe those things that nailed Jesus to that cross and I gladly acknowledge my own iniquity and I come to Him in heartfelt confession and repentance, that's when real revival starts—in our own heart and in the life of your church and out into the life of your city."  [p. 40, March DECISION magazine]

~ Dane Ortlund- "One thing to get straight right from the start is that when the Bible speaks of the heart, whether Old Testament or New, it is not speaking of our emotional life only but of the central animating center of all we do. It is what gets us out of bed in the morning and what we daydream about as we drift off to sleep. It is our motivating headquarters.

The heart, in biblical terms is not part of who we are but the center of who we are. Our heart is what defines and directs us. That is why Solomon tells us to "keep [the] heart with all vigilance, for from it flows the springs of life' (Prov. 4:23). The heart is a matter of life. It is what makes us the human being each of us is. The heart drives all we do. It is who we are." [pp. 18, 19 of GENTLE and LOWLY].

Words of wisdom-

~ Are you in for a spirit-lifting adventure? Face your biggest problem with God’s help. Has He ever failed to make a way where there seemed to be no way? No? Well then, take on today’s challenge with renewed hope and faith. He won’t let you down now, either. He is Faithful to those who have faith!