January Prayer Night

 

On Sunday evening, January 12, we gathered together for our first prayer night of 2020. The theme for the evening was prayer for new believers in our church family. Prayer points and scripture readings from the meeting are below for your continued use.

"Assemble yourselves and come; draw near together, you survivors of the nations! They have no knowledge who carry about their wooden idols, and keep on praying to a god that cannot save…And there is no other god besides me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none besides me. Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other." - Isaiah 45:20–22

"But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit."  - 2 Corinthians 3:16-18

Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven…

  • Humble stubborn hearts that resist submitting their will to King Jesus

  • Settle troubled minds that struggle with intellectual objections to faith in Christ

  • Keep the seeds of the gospel from being snatched away by the Evil One, destroyed by suffering, or choked out by the cares of this life

  • Expose false assurance of salvation; strengthen genuine assurance of salvation

  • Distinguish the true gospel from all pretenders

  • Grant desire for godliness and understanding of the claim Jesus makes on every are of life

  • Grant joy in following Jesus no matter the cost

"…May (he) grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God."  - Ephesians 3:16-19

Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors…

  • Eagerness to step outside our relational comfort zones to befriend those who are wrestling with the faith or new believer

  • Forgive us looking down on people who appear less mature spiritually

  • Persistent love for those who are skeptical or reluctant to follow Christ

  • Discipleship relationships between believers who are younger/older in the faith

  • Help new believers learn how to practice the spiritual disciplines

  • Help them trust the Lord as their Provider and Defender

  • Help them forgive as they have been forgiven

  • Help them seek the wisdom of godly counsel

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil…

  • Deliverance from thinking we can sanctify people or God will use someone else to help

  • Deliverance from impatience when the process of change is slow and messy

  • Deliverance for new believers from slavery to besetting sin

  • Deliverance from comparison causing some to conclude God can’t use them

  • Deliverance from being led astray by false teaching

  • Deliverance from pride leading to isolation or hypocrisy

  • Deliverance from fear of man that would cause them to keep quiet

 
Matthew Williams