How to Use the Bible to Help You Pray

 Since this is the day I post a prayer on my Weekly Prayer blog, 

I thought I'd include ways you can use the Bible 

to teach you to pray and enrich your prayers. 

• Change any scripture into prayer by personalizing it.

“Help (ask this for yourself or insert a loved one’s name) begin to understand the incredible greatness of your power for us who believe you. This is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead” (based on Eph. 1:19).

• Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal how you should pray. That’s based on Romans 8:26, which tells us the Spirit helps us in our weakness when we don’t know what to pray for.

• When praying for the younger generation, pray Psalm 119 which tells how to live a godly, successful life. (It’s a long chapter so it may take several days or weeks to get through it. Pray only the verses that strike you as you read.)

• After you’ve failed miserably, pour out your grief to the Lord with Psalm 51. Then claim Romans 8:1, “So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus . . . “ and Romans 8:38, 39, “ . . . Nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus . . .”

• For loved ones in danger, or for all soldiers and American civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, pray Psalm 91 daily. It is also a great Psalm to pray during natural disasters.

• Pray along with any prayer in the Bible. Start with Paul’s prayers in the early chapters of Ephesians and Colossian then, changing the specifics to fit our own nation, pray Daniel 10: 7- 19.

• Anything God says is a promise. When you find a promise as you read, claim it for yourself. Thank the Lord for it. That sort of grateful prayer delights him.

• Below is a “wrecking ball prayer” to pray daily for yourself, your family or your friends. Written by Barb Martin, based on a concept in Intercessory Prayer by Dutch Sheets:

“Knowing God’s weapons for fighting the stubborn problems (strongholds) in my life are spiritual (see 2 Cor. 10:3 – 5), in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, I destroy you, strongholds of (see below).  I declare no weapon of Satan will prosper in _____________’s life.”

(Ask the Holy Spirit to identify strongholds for you. Some possible strongholds: fear, feelings of worthlessness, rebellion, pride, control, defiance, procrastination, laziness, denial, passivity, rebellion, selfishness, lying, intellectualism, strife, self-sufficiency, contention, competition, domination, manipulation, hiding, negativity, anger, lack of wisdom, skepticism, workaholism, god of science or sports, hedonism, self-indulgence, materialism, resentment, occult, religious spirit, stubbornness, adultery, lust, other sexual sins, etc.) 

The above suggestions barely make a dent in the many ways you can turn to the Bible for help as you pray. There is nothing better than praying God’s own powerful words back to him. You can’t go wrong when you do that.

© Jeannie St. John Taylor