Pray Specifically

26 Mar

Susan Merritt, PhD Christian Living, Weekly Devotional 0

At Hezekiah’s request, Isaiah asked God to take the shadow backwards ten degrees as a sign of His healing. And God did it (2 Kings 20:8-11). While it is nothing for the Creator to bend time and reverse solar movement like that, it is a significant demonstration of God’s intent to honor Hezekiah’s request.

The Matthew 6:9-13 Lord’s Prayer includes the phrase “Give us this day, our daily bread.” It is not the specific request for the miraculous that Hezekiah prayed. Nevertheless it represents the specificity in prayer that God desires. It also demonstrates that God is interested in hearing about all aspects of our individual lives. Finally, it establishes the need for prayer for the needs of others besides ourselves

For our own needs and those of others, daily bread is not all that we require to live in this world. We also ask God for needs as they arise, whether it is financial, relational, emotional, spiritual, or physical. James 5:13-14 gives a list of specific things to pray for. They include:

Is any among you afflicted? let him pray.
Is any merry? let him sing psalms (worship in prayer).
Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him…

1 Timothy 2:1-2 expresses specifically what to pray for with regard to both ourselves and others, including those whom God has ordained to govern us. “I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men, for kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.” In verses 3-6, the author of 1 Timothy continues to tell us why we pray for others as well as ourselves: “For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.”

The Bible is clear that God desires to hear specific prayers, offered in faith and belief that He not only hears but also answers. John 5:14-15 confirms that “…this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he hears us: And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.” When we pray, we also ask for God’s will. When I was a child, prayers said during corporate prayer meetings, were always sprinkled with either “D.V.” (short for the latin “Deo Volente” meaning “God willing”) or “according to Your will”. In order to truly ask according to His will, we need to be unhindered in our walk with Him. If we harbor sin in our lives, we cannot pray fully in God’s will because we are, ourselves, no longer living in His will. See my blog for August 24 for additional information on this topic.

Besides our needs for living in a physical world, 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12 describes the need for prayer pertaining to our specific spiritual needs. “Wherefore also we pray always for you, that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfill all the good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power: that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and ye in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.”