I Ask Jesus For 7 Things
This post is for Joe who encouraged me to start writing again. Actually, God was encouraging me. He just used Joe to get me started.
My daily prayers often (but not always) begin sometime between 3 and 4 AM (I can do this because I am retired. Most can't). I don’t know why, but almost every morning I wake about then and feel the Lord asking me to get up and meet with Him. I suppose my assignment is to pray during the night watch. I know around 3 AM demonic powers are most active, so maybe I am called to stand in the gap for those I am praying for.
During this time, I come to Jesus with thanksgiving and gratitude. I listen a lot. I repent. Then I begin interceding for people He has put in my life beginning with my wife and family, moving into prayers for friends and their families and ministries. Then I pray for healing of the many people Jesus has brought to me through my ministry. These prayers are followed by prayers for my church. I generally finish this prayer time with prayers for America, including asking the Lord to rebuke the power of witchcraft; the spirits of Jezebel, religion, and death, which are active over our country; and for revival.
During this time, the Holy Spirit directs me to Scripture and gives me instructions. Sometimes He asks me, “What do you want?” (apart from the prayer requests I just mentioned).
This prayer time usually takes around 2 hours.
Then I go back to bed to sleep for 3 to 4 hours or so.
When I am fully awake, but still in my bed, I pray for 7 things: Armor of God, Consecration, Wonder, Love, Obedience, Humility, and Power,
1) I ask God to clothe me today with His full armor. If you are not doing this, I recommend it
2) I pray for more wonder and awe as I go through my day in His presence
3) I ask Jesus to help me consecrate this day to Him, set my agenda, and guide my steps
4) I ask God for more love – to love Him with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength; to love my neighbor (who is my neighbor? Everyone, especially those not like me); and to love myself
5) I pray for obedience. I ask for a greater capacity to hear Jesus, discern His will for my life that day, and obey.
6) I ask for more humility. Humility is obviously the opposite of pride. Pride is the root of all the evil in the world. Pride is finding your ultimate value in self and the offerings of the world such as the Big Three – money, sex, and power. Or in accomplishments, wealth, possessions, family, knowledge (including knowledge of the Bible), ministry, etc. – anything that replaces our first love, who is supposed to be Jesus, even if the thing that gives us our value serves Jesus. When we find our ultimate value in something other than Jesus, we are vulnerable. The world will ultimately steal that value, leaving us dehumanized, sad, lonely, and hopeless. Humility is the opposite of this. Humility is finding all of our value in Jesus. It is realizing that our ultimate value as a human being comes from the value of Jesus in us. That value will never be taken away. That is why the Kingdom person can have an unoffendable heart.
7) Finally, I pray for power and authority to accomplish His purposes – to live that day aligned with His mission (Isaiah 61:1-3; Matthew 10:6-8; Luke 4:18, 19; Luke 9:1, 2) for Himself and His disciples ( and so my mission as well): heal the sick and broken hearted, release the prisoners from darkness, set the captives free, defeat the power of evil, and release and advance the Kingdom of God, one person at a time, if necessary.
Then I get out of bed and begin the day. There is a lot to grieve in America today; it is too easy to let grief consume me. That is not of God. Instead, I try to live one day at a time, focused on Him, in His presence, walking in the Father's love and power. These 7 things help me do that.
At the end of the day, just before I fall asleep, I pray the Lord's prayer.
(When I first wrote this post I left out the part about praying at 3 or 4 in the morning. That time is very personal. But I realized I needed to mention it for context. This post is about the 7 things. Because of these, God has enriched my walk with Him. But they are, in a sense, about me. As followers of Jesus we are called to deny ourselves, pick up our coss, and follow Him. My early-morning prayers are focused on intereceding for others and the advance of His Kingdom, just like most of you. I have found that praying for these 7 things has drawn me closer to Jesus and made me a better intercessor, but they seem best prayed at the start of the day, not in the middle of the night).