Practical Prayer Helps

“Call unto Me and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things which you do not know.”
(Jeremiah 33:3)

There are different translations of these words. One version renders it, “I will shew thee great and fortified things.” Another, “Great and reserved things.” Now, there are reserved and special things in Christian experience: all the developments of spiritual life are not alike easy of attainment. There are the common frames and feelings of repentance, and faith, and joy, and hope, which are enjoyed by the entire family; but there is an upper realm of rapture, of communion, and conscious union with Christ, which is far from being the common dwelling-place of believers.

We have not all the high privilege of John, to lean upon Jesus’ bosom; nor of Paul, to be caught up into the third heaven. There are heights in experimental knowledge of the things of God which the eagle’s eye of acumen and philosophic thought hath never seen: God alone can bear us there; but the chariot in which he takes us up, and the fiery steeds with which that chariot is dragged, are prevailing prayers.

Prevailing prayer is victorious over the God of mercy, “By his strength he had power with God: yea, he had power over the angel, and prevailed: he wept, and made supplication unto him: he found him in Beth-el, and there he spake with us.” Prevailing prayer takes the Christian to Carmel, and enables him to cover heaven with clouds of blessing, and earth with floods of mercy. Prevailing prayer bears the Christian aloft to Pisgah, and shows him the inheritance reserved; it elevates us to Tabor and transfigures us, till in the likeness of his Lord, as he is, so are we also in this world. If you would reach to something higher than ordinary grovelling experience, look to the Rock that is higher than you, and gaze with the eye of faith through the window of importunate prayer. When you open the window on your side, it will not be bolted on the other.

(Charles H. Spurgeon, Morning & Evening devotional, Sept. 9 reading)

The Sharif Bible Society has developed a Friday prayer guide called “Praying For Muslims (PFM)” which has been used worldwide for 24 years. At their web site are PDF files you can use each Friday until the end of the month. These pages are from the Praying for Muslims (PFM) 2014 (used with permission). You can order the full year’s worth in booklet form by emailing Pray4Ms [at] SharifBible [dot] com.

www.30-days.net/resources/friday-prayer-guide/

“A fire shall always be burning on the altar; it shall never go out.”Leviticus 6:13

“pray without ceasing,” 1 Thessalonians 5:17

“Meditation on the Word of God, upon the promises to the prayerful, upon the answers to prayer recorded in the Bible, will keep the fires burning on the altar of prayer.” – Charles A. Cook

“The kingdom of God is not idle chatter, or empty words, or even eloquent and reasoned arguments. The kingdom of God is power. When Christ in you becomes Christ through you, the power of God becomes operative in your world.” – Jennifer Kennedy Dean

“But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us” (2 Cor. 4:7).

Christian Discipleship Ministries International has made their prayer syllabus available. The course has been used effectively in many nations. You can download the Word doc on the Resources page here.

“God is in the details. He is engineering even the smallest detail in order to establish His divine purpose. Happenings that seem random, choices and decisions that seem spontaneous and uncalculated, paths that cross in seemingly serendipitous ways—all are being put in order by the Lord.”

“The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD” (Prov. 16:33).

– Jennifer Kennedy Dean

As you live moment-by-moment in His power and presence, He will speak through you to those around you. Jesus wants to speak His healing, encouraging, strengthening, eternal, life-giving words through your mouth.

“The lips of the righteous nourish many” (Prov. 10:21).

– Jennifer Kennedy Dean

By Amy Carmichael

“Now when Daniel knew that the writing [the decree of King Darius prohibiting prayer to the LORD] was signed, he went home. And in his upper room, with his windows open toward Jerusalem, he knelt down on his knees three times that day, and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as was his custom since early days.” Daniel 6:10, NKJV. [1]

Open Windows

Daniel did not have to open his windows when he wanted to commune with the Lord. Apparently they were open, as our Indian windows are, all the time. [2] Is it not a perfect picture of how we are meant to live? We do not have to spend even one minute in opening our windows, if our custom is to keep them open. To be earthly-minded, moved by self-love, self-pity, selfwill–that trend of feeling which leads to self-occupation–is to close the shutters.

Are my windows open toward Jerusalem? Is my whole being, with all its various “windows,” always open? Sometimes winds blow from one side or another and a window is blown shut. If that happens, do I know it at once?

The risen Christ declared, “I am now standing at the door and am knocking. If any one listens to My voice and opens the door (window), I will go in to be with him and will feast with him, and he shall feast with Me” (Rev. 3:20, Weymouth).

“Lord Jesus, let me know it at once. Do not let me go on with any windows shut or half-open. Lord, help me to keep my windows open continually toward Jerusalem.”

Small Windows

His windows was open in his chamber toward Jerusalem. Daniel had only to kneel down upon his knees beside one of those windows, and at once he had access to the Father. Daniel’s windows almost certainly were very small, set in a thick wall.

We often feel that the windows of our chamber are very small–we see so little, know so little of our Heavenly Jerusalem–but a bird can fly through a very small window out into the wide blue air, and if our windows be open toward Jerusalem, we shall in heart and mind thither ascend.

“Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”
Hebrews 4:16, NKJV.

Saviour, in Whom we have access with confidence,
Lead us in prayer to-day;
Here at Thy feet we lay
All our desires; do Thou
Direct us now.

O loving Comforter, help our infirmities,
That which we know not, teach;
Fashion our mortal speech
That we may know to pray
The Heavenly way.

[1] This Medo-Persian king reigned after Cyrus’ conquest of Babylon. Daniel’s bold prayer gave his enemies ground to arrest him and cast him into in the den of lions (537 B.C.). But God delivered his intercessor!

[2] Amy Carmichael and the Dohnavur Fellowship were based in Tamil Nadu near the southern tip of India.

“Thus says the Lord who made it [the land], the Lord who formed it to establish it (the Lord is His name): 3 ‘Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.’”
-Jer. 33:2,3

“Some people pray just to pray and some people pray to know God.”
-Andrew Murray

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“I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had absolutely no other place to go.”
-Abraham Lincoln