I’d like Thursdays to be a day of us praying together corporately. We’ll get on our knees and “grab hands” virtually around the world. Where two or three are gathered together, there He is in the midst of them. 🙂
The goal here is for us to focus on these topics, please, in our prayers and comments:
- praising God
- thanking Him
- repenting of any sin in our own hearts
- praying for ourselves to become the women God commands us to be
- praying for our husbands in a God-honoring way
- praying for God’s glory in our marriages
- praying for God to work through the power of His Spirit among His people around the world to restore marriages and reconcile people to Himself.
I am planning to choose a topic each week for us to pray about together, God-willing. You can pray along with me in your heart, or even out loud if you would like to. You can also add your own prayer for these issues we are talking about in the comments. I desire this to be a time of building one another up, women learning to fervently pray individually and as a group, unity in the body and nourishing the bonds of sisterhood (and brotherhood if there are men who would like to pray).
Ladies, EVERY DAY, let’s nourish our souls and abide in Christ – this is the secret to His abundant life:
- feast on God’s Word
- repent deeply of EVERY trace of sin
- listen to God’s Spirit and have willing hearts to obey Him in EVERYTHING no matter what He asks us to do and no matter how great the personal cost may be to ourselves, submitting fully to Him as LORD of our lives
- be full of God’s Spirit and power
- praise God – all day long, constantly meditating on things to praise God about and focusing on His character and His goodness, sovereignty, strength, holiness and power.
- thank God – all day long, I pray we will thank God for the things He has given us and I even pray that we will thank him in the midst of suffering and trials knowing that He is able to use those things to make us stronger, more spiritually mature and to refine our faith and make us more like Jesus. I pray we won’t run from suffering, but that we might embrace it if it is God’s will – and that we will lay still on the operating table as He removes any spiritual gangrene or cancer from our souls, so that we might be more healthy and more and more like Jesus.
- pray for ourselves – not for our will but for God’s will to be done in our lives, that we might die to self and live as living sacrifices daily for Him, taking up our cross and living lives worthy of all that Jesus has done for us. I pray that we might allow the floodgates of heaven to open up and spill the spiritual treasures of heaven into our lives and our homes – giving us the power to become the women of God’s dreams, that we might have the perseverance, patience, wisdom, maturity, faith, love, godliness and strength to shine brightly for Christ where we are, being faithful servants of His.
- pray for our husbands – not telling God what to do, but thanking God for them, asking God to fill them with His wisdom to lead our families and asking for God’s victory over any strongholds of sin. I pray we might ask God to show us how to bless our husbands, how to better respect and honor them and how to make their job to lead us a joy. I pray that God might empower us to inspire our husbands and to set godly examples for them by showering them with goodness, grace, mercy, forgiveness, kindness, patience, gentleness, self-control, selflessness, honor and blessing.
- pray for God’s Spirit to sweep across His church around the world and bring repentance from sin and a NEW Great Awakening for this generation that THIS generation might rise up by God’s power to become a godly generation. I pray that God might wake up His women first, that we might become the wives He desires us to be and that we might bless our husbands through our obedience to Christ and pave the way for them to become the men of God that Jesus desires them to be.
UNITY – This was one of Jesus’ most powerful prayers for His church – that we would be one with Him and that we would be one with each other and have perfect unity, that there would be NO divisions. This was His prayer for His church. It is MY prayer for His church, too. And it is my prayer for our marriages.
Ladies,
- I invite you to cover your head with a scarf or hat with me in obedience to I Corinthians 11:3-16 to show our respect for the God-given authority our husbands have over our lives as we approach God with reverence, awe and trembling. For more about this almost forgotten New Testament teaching, please read here. 🙂
- I also invite you to fast with me on Thursdays as we pray for our marriages together. This is not a requirement or anything! You can fast for one meal, two meals, all day, do a liquid fast – whatever you believe God is calling you to do. But there is POWER in seeking God in prayer together and fasting together for the needs of marriages as we pray with one another. If you are not familiar with fasting, please check this out!
- Please remember, before praying – if there is any sin in your heart, repent of it and turn from it for God will not hear our prayers when we cherish sin in our hearts!
Lord,
We come to You in total awe of all that You have done and all that You are. You alone are God! There is no other! You alone created the world and all that is in the universe from nothing. You are SOVEREIGN over every galaxy, over every subatomic particle, over every person’s life and every wife and husband represented here. No one can snatch us from Your loving, holy, sovereign hands. You are GOOD. You are not able to have evil motives towards us. You give good things to us – even when we suffer – it is ultimately for our benefit and blessing to make us more like Christ. How amazing that You had such love for us that You were willing to lay aside the glory of Your majesty in heaven and put on a frail human, mortal body, and live as a godly example for us and then die in our place – the death that we so deserved, that you did not deserve. How INSANE that You would take our sin debt of “billions” of dollars that we could never repay to You except by our own suffering in hell, and write across our bill, “Paid in Full.” There is NO sin that You cannot forgive. There is NO sin that is outside of the reach of the blood of Christ. WE PRAISE AND THANK YOU FOR THIS INCREDIBLY GOOD NEWS! If You were willing to do all of this for us while we were still Your enemies, we cannot begin to fathom how You will move heaven and earth to accomplish Your purposes in our lives now that we belong to You. We seek only Your will. We acknowledge that Your wisdom is infinitely higher than our own. You are the Truth, the Life and the Way.
We THANK YOU for what You have done in our lives. Every breath we take, every bite of food we eat, the houses where we live, the clothing on our backs, the husbands and children in our homes, the countries where we live, our leaders, our health, our roads, our electricity, our gasoline, our cars, our schools, our governments, our churches, our Bibles, our talents, our intellect, our abilities, our bodies, our money, our jobs… it is ALL directly from Your hand. We thank You that You bring problems and trials into our lives to discipline us and to make us more mature and complete, ready to accomplish Your will and Your plans in our lives. We acknowledge that all of these blessings could be taken away if You so choose. We thank and praise You for providing for our needs today. We trust You today. We put all our faith in You today. And we trust You with tomorrow.
Help us to see anything we are withholding from You, anything we don’t trust You with, and let us lay it down, surrendering it to You in faith. Open our eyes to any sin in our hearts: pride, idolatry, self-righteousness, unforgiveness, rage, resentment, bitterness, gossip, lust, greed, envy, adultery, silence (not sharing Christ), disobedience to any of Your commands for us as Your disciples, rebellion against Your Word or the authorities You have placed over us, selfishness, lack of generosity, apathy toward those in need, not caring for the poor, dissensions, factions, unthankfulness, complaining, arguing, and any impure motives. Cleanse us by the blood of Christ. We deeply repent and turn away from our sin. We see how nasty and filthy and repulsive it is in Your sight. Make us clean, Lord! Forgive us and give us new hearts and minds in You. Transform our minds and souls by Your power. Sanctify us – set us apart for Your purpose. Make us more and more like Christ. Help us to open our hearts WIDE to Your Spirit to allow You to work full blast in us.
Use us to reach the world with Your love and truth!
JOHN 17
20 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— 23 I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
24 “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.
25 “Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. 26 I have made you[e] known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”