12 Powerful Prayers..... from Paul Kelly Balarie

12 Powerful Prayers from Paul

• Kelly Balarie

Sometimes praying feels like throwing darts - with your eyes closed. You hurl some words heavenward and wonder if you've hit the bulls-eye of progress. You hope something sticks.

Lately, I've been thinking, I don't want my words to just touch heaven, but I want them to move heaven's power on my behalf. I want to pray knowing, all I am - needs all of Him . I want - what I throw up, to fall back down with such strength - God's fingerprints, clearly, handled my every word. Even more, I want the Lord's will to fall on earth, not because I am good (far from it), but because He is good, all good. And, more than enough.

What would happen if we prayed like Paul? God got me asking this question. So, I searched every prayer Paul prayed (below) to find the essence of God's power held within his words. What I found were 12 categories of prayer. I hope they bless you as much as they did me!

1. God, I thank you for others.

I ask you to fill them, and myself, with knowledge of your will, with wisdom and understanding. Even more, may I pursue others with love, through prayer, while building unity.

"I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." - (Philippians 1:3–6)

"First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being reported all over the world. God, whom I serve with my whole heart in preaching the gospel of his Son, is my witness how constantly I remember you in my prayers at all times; and I pray that now at last by God’s will the way may be opened for me to come to you." - (Romans 1:8–10)

2. God, may others be saved.

May they understand the fullness of your love.

"Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved." - (Romans 10:1)

"I pray that you may be active in sharing your faith, so that you will have a full understanding of every good thing we have in Christ. Your love has given me great joy and encouragement, because you, brother, have refreshed the hearts of the saints." - (Philemon 5–7)

3. May your name be glorified.

May my life, and the lives of those around me, be filled to the measure of the fullness of God (through love, hope, power, strength, faith, grace and mercy).

Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. - (Romans 12:12)

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. - (Phil. 4:6-7)

May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you. May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones. - (1 Thess. 3:13)

4. Encourage our hearts, Lord God.

May the power of Jesus Christ continually fill with joy, grace, peace and hope, through the Holy Spirit.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. - (Romans 15:13)

The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you. - (1 Corinthians 16:23)

We have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. - (Colossians 1:9–14)

5. May our hearts be in continual prayer.

May you open doors to our messages. May we proclaim Jesus. May we refresh others. May the mysteries of Lord Jesus Christ be open as we fearlessly convey the gospel.

Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful. And pray for us, too, that God may open a door for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains. Pray that I may proclaim it clearly, as I should. - (Colossians 4:2-4)

I urge you, brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to join me in my struggle by praying to God for me. Pray that I may be rescued from the unbelievers in Judea and that my service in Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints there, so that by God’s will I may come to you with joy and together with you be refreshed. The God of peace be with you all. Amen. - (Romans 15:30-33)

Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should. - (Ephesians 6:19-20)

6. God, praise be to your name for all your goodness.

All goodness is you. We praise you for who you are, what you do and how you've blessed us with a new standing in Christ Jesus.

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort." - (2 Corinthians 1:3-7)

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will—to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. . . ." - (Ephesians 1:3)

7. We offer all thanks to you, God.

You do all things, You bring life and You deliver hope. Thank you for enriching us, keeping us and equipping us with spiritual blessings. We lack nothing. We praise you.

"But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him. For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life. And who is equal to such a task?" - (2 Corinthians 2:14-16)

"I always thank God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus. For in him you have been enriched in every way— in all your speaking and in all your knowledge—because our testimony about Christ was confirmed in you. Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. He will keep you strong to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God, who has called you into fellowship with his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, is faithful." - (1 Corinthians 1:4-9)

8. God, may you heal us.

If we do not see healing, please speak your truth into our heart. May we know that all you give is more than enough and that, in us, you are still working.

"Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take (thorn in flesh) away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” - (2 Cor. 12: 8-9)

9. Father, may holiness and love thrive.

Sanctify us more and more.

"And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God." - (Philippians 1:9–11)

"Now we pray to God that you will not do anything wrong. Not that people will see that we have stood the test but that you will do what is right even though we may seem to have failed. For we cannot do anything against the truth, but only for the truth. We are glad whenever we are weak but you are strong; and our prayer is for your perfection." - (2 Corinthians 13:7–9)

10. God, may grace abound in me, to me and through me.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers. - (Galatians 6:18)

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen. - (Philippians 4:23)

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. - (1 Thessalonians 5:28)

The Lord be with your spirit. Grace be with you. -  (2 Timothy 4:22)

Grace be with you all. - (Titus 3:15)

11. May you protect me and those I love.

"And pray that we may be delivered from wicked and evil men, for not everyone has faith. But the Lord is faithful, and he will strengthen and protect you from the evil one. We have confidence in the Lord that you are doing and will continue to do the things we command. May the Lord direct your hearts into God’s love and Christ’s perseverance." - (2 Thessalonians 3:2–5)

12. God, again, we cry, thank you, Father.

Thank you for blessing us with the ability to serve you.

"I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength, that he considered me faithful, appointing me to his service." - (1 Timothy 1:12)

Streams in the Desert

I have found an atonement (Job 33:24, margin).

Divine healing is just divine life. It is the headship of Christ over the body. It is the life of Christ in the frame. It is the union of our members with the very body of Christ and the inflowing life of Christ in our living members. It is as real as His risen and glorified body. It is as reasonable as the fact that He was raised from the dead and is a living Man with a true body and a rational soul today at God's right hand.

That living Christ belongs to us in all His attributes and powers. We are members of His body, His flesh and His bones, and if we can only believe and receive it, we may live upon the very life of the Son of God.

Lord, help me to know "the Lord for the body and the body for the Lord."
--A. B. Simpson

"The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty." (Zeph. 3:17). This was the text that first flashed the truth of Divine healing into my mind and worn-out body nearly a quarter century ago. It is still the door, wide open more than ever, through which the living Christ passes moment by moment into my redeemed body, filling, energizing, vitalizing it with the presence and power of His own personality, turning my whole being into a "new heaven and new earth."

"The Lord, thy God." Thy God. My God. Then all that is in God Almighty is mine and in me just as far as I am able and willing to appropriate Him and all that belongs to Him. This God, "Mighty," ALL Mighty God, is our INSIDE God. He is, as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, in the midst of me, just as really as the sun is in the center of the heavens, or like the great dynamo in the center of the power-house of my three-fold being. He is in the midst, at the center of my physical being. He is in the midst of my brain. He is in the midst of my nerve centers.

For twenty-one years it has been not only a living reality to me, but a reality growing deeper and richer, until now at the age of seventy years, I am in every sense a younger, fresher man than I was at thirty. At this present time I am in the strength of God, doing full twice as much work, mental and physical, as I have ever done in the best days of the past, and this observe, with less than half the effort then necessary. My life, physical, mental and spiritual, is like an artesian well--always full, overflowing. To speak, teach, travel by night and day in all weather and through all the sudden and violent changes of our variable climate, is no more effort to me than it is for the mill-wheel to turn when the stream is full or for the pipe to let the water run through.

My body, soul and spirit thus redeemed,
Sanctified and healed I give, O Lord, to Thee,
A consecrated offering Thine ever more to be.
That all my powers with all their might
In Thy sole glory may unite.--Hallelujah!
--Dr. Henry Wilson

Elbows & Ears..... by Shawn McEvoy

Elbows & Ears
by Shawn McEvoy

I will redeem you with an outstretched arm. - Exodus 6:6

Be merciful to me and hear my prayer.- Psalm 4:1

Once, when my son was just shy of three, he informed his mother he was drawing a picture of God.

"Oh… What does God look like?" she asked.

"Well, I put some elbows and some ears," he replied, and he went back to his work.

I was told that story when I came home from work. Cute, I thought. Not exactly as awe-inspiring as Ezekiel's vision, but sounds like a weird picture. I mean, where is the face?

"The face of the Lord is not one you could look upon" ( Exodus 33:12-23), came the voice inside my head.

Where are the hands and feet?

That's you.

Oh yeah, that's true…

So… elbows and ears, huh?

Well, I guess God does reach us, and move us, and nudge us, and hold up the light to our paths. As Wayne Watson sang, "No one in this world can slip beyond the reaches of the long arm of the Lord."

And I know he hears us. He created us for fellowship. He desires praise and prayer. He's absolutely listening. He can even hear things we don't even know we're saying. As Steven Curtis Chapman sang, "The cross should have been mine, But His love broke through time, And heard my heart's cry."

So in one statement about one drawing by one child, I had digested a complete meditation on the nature of God, who He is and what He does, even what He leaves for us to do. As Casting Crowns sang, "If we are the body... Why aren't His hands healing... Why aren't His feet going?"

Intersecting Faith & Life: Consider today what part of the body you are playing, and what other parts (eyes, mouth, shoulders, etc.) describe what you know about the character of your God.

Whose Approval Are You Seeking? (Galatians 1:10)..... By: Anne Peterson

Whose Approval Are You Seeking? (Galatians 1:10)
By: Anne Peterson

For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. - Galatians 1:10

I want to tell you a story about a people pleaser. I know the story well, because I’m afraid it’s about me. My husband and I were part of a monthly jamboree which met at our town’s community center. Mike played guitar and I sang with a couple of our friends.

One month, we had an event where tickets were purchased. I remember hearing that the money and tickets were not matching up. After almost everyone left, I took it upon myself to look for the missing tickets. At the time, I didn’t realize what I was about to do was over the top. So there I was standing in a dumpster at 11:00 at night, flashlight in hand, looking through trash bags.

It was that moment I realized I had little self-respect. Pleasing others was too important to me. Soon after, I had been sharing this with a counselor who suggested I read the book, Boundaries by Henri Cloud and John Townsend. In that book, I learned how living in a dysfunctional family had affected my self-esteem. And I learned that we are to be concerned with pleasing God, not people. The next time I read Galatians 1:10, I was surprised to notice the word “or,” I had thought if I sought to please men, God would also be pleased. I was wrong.

As I studied the Bible and grew spiritually, I learned that growing emotionally was also important. As a child, I grew up trying to please my authoritarian parents who would never be pleased. And when we don’t get approval, we sometimes carry that need with us into adulthood. The problem is, even if we please others, we still have that longing for what we never received.

Somehow, I struggled to believe anyone would approve of me. Even God. But when I came to understand what His Word said, and that he loved us as sinners, it was enlightening. God loves us, unconditionally. He demonstrated his love by allowing his Son, Jesus to be our sacrifice (John 3:16).

We are offered eternal life when we accept God’s gift by faith (Ephesians 2:8-9).

Realizing God accepted me, was something I desperately wanted, but something I felt I didn’t deserve to hold onto.

But as I kept reading God’s Word over and over again, my thoughts began to change. It really wasn’t based on me, it was all because of God’s love. My feelings about myself were transformed by truth. Reflecting on those truths, I felt like I finally had a place where I belonged. I belonged to God. I didn’t have to strive for God’s acceptance, because when I accepted the sacrifice Jesus made, I became God’s child. Totally accepted in the beloved. I know that God will never love me any more or any less based on what I do. He loved me at my worst. And he made me righteous when I trusted Christ.

At that moment, I was given access to God’s throne room, where I can climb onto my heavenly Father’s lap, night or day, and tell him what I need. Whatever I might ask him, is nothing compared to what God has already given me (Romans 8:32).

Do you long to be accepted? Have you struggled with people-pleasing? The good news is that you can please the one who really matters. It takes faith (Hebrews 11:6).

A Prayer for a New Season..... By Renee Davis

A Prayer for a New Season
By Renee Davis

“Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy. Those who go out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with them.” Psalm 126:5-6

It’s early, just after dawn. I plunge my spade into the blackest of soil, and grin as I hear that rowdy rooster from down the lane. He sounds extra energized this morning. Perhaps it’s the slight nip in the air? I hold my seemingly meager seeds and smile, pondering their potential and the transformation they’ll undergo.

I ready them for their slumber, covering them with their blanket of darkness.  I tuck them in tight as a cool hint of anticipation dances on the breeze, softly brushing my ponytail aside, reminding me the change of the season is here. Autumn. The season of transition, nudging us from a summer that was most likely too hot for many of us to a winter that will most likely be too cold for most of us.  

I gently pat the bed and tell them to sleep well. Will these seeds I’ve sown yield a harvest I’ll be pleased with? I wonder what these months of transition and change will yield in my own life. Change. That word makes me so uneasy. So much uncertainty in this next season of my life.

My anticipation turns to anxiousness as the ‘what ifs’ parade through my mind. Will I yield fruit? Will my potential be made known? Will this season of my life be one of hurting or healing, absence or abundance, hardship or happiness?

I close my eyes and pray. I am comforted when He whispers Truth to me: No matter the changes that come my way, He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is eternally unchanging and faithful—no matter the season, no matter the circumstances.

May you praise Him and trust Him in every season of your life.

Dear Father God,

Thank You for Your unfailing love for me, Your blessings, and goodness. Thank You for Your faithfulness to guide me and see me through times of uncertainty, for lifting me up, and setting me on high. Thank You for Scripture that comforts and reminds me of Your promises, plan, and provision. Thank you for taking away my fears and worries, the what-ifs, and reminding me that my help comes from You. Help me be a good steward and to sow wisely.

In Christ’s Name.
Amen.