Prayer Summary for June 2

Prayed…

Father, we come before You with open hearts today
Yielding to You through Your precious Holy Spirit
We reverence, honor, and magnify You
Lead, guide, and direct us, today, Lord
Thank You that we can find strength and rest in You
We praise and lift up Your name—Jesus!

Shared…

The following excerpt is taken from Born for Battle by R. Arthur Mathews:

The Cutting Edge

Prayer is a weapon, a mighty weapon in a terrible conflict.
Our prayers are to be a continual, conscious, earnest effort
Of battle, the battle against whatever is not God’s will.
P.T. FORSYTH

PRAYER IS THE CUTTING EDGE of any work for God. It is not a supplemental spiritual rocket to get some well-meaning effort off the ground. Prayer is the work and the working power in any spiritual ministry. It should be the central thrust.

The spiritual history of a mission or a church is written in its prayer life. The expression of corporate life is not measured in statistics, but in prayer depth. The programs of preaching, teaching, and serving; the goal setting; the adoption of news, twentieth-century techniques, seminars on time management, and administrative procedures are all good. But they are effective and productive in God’s economy only as they are subject to prayer.

Considering the importance God attaches to prayer for the carrying out of His purposes on earth, we must be alert and sensitive to common habits and tendencies that impair our payers’ effectiveness and blunt their cutting edge. Prayers with blunted edges have no power penetration. They may not get through to the throne. Furthermore, such prayers do not have any deterrent effect on the attacking enemy. Since it takes a sharp edge to inflict wounds, our best endeavors ought to concentrate on preserving a razor-sharp cutting edge.

In a day when new and exciting cutting edges are being recommended, the tendency is to be carried away with new ideas and relegate the traditional trusty weapons to a place of less significance, or to throw them away altogether. We need to realize that God is not going to use any means of operation just because it happens to be innovative. Nor will He use it because it relates to the status quo. Edith Schaeffer warns us that “it is difficult to stand against the pull of 20th century solutions.” It is easier to go along with the contemporary mood. It is less troublesome to give priority to outward means and methods that promise to increase the effectiveness of our service and our praying, but often at the expense of inner reality.

My purpose is to intensify the inner realities and to encourage God’s people to derive their value systems from the direct teaching of the Word itself. Then I want to encourage them to surrender themselves to the truth as the Holy Spirit applies it, and to use it in prayer.

If we do this, there can be no fear that the cutting edge will be blunt. So let us consider prayerfully some of the attitudes and concepts that can spoil the cutting edge of a prayer life.

The concept that treats prayer as if it were merely a supplemental booster in getting some project off the ground makes the project primary and the prayer secondary. Prayer was never meant to be incidental to the work of God. It is the work.

If prayer is fostered only by emergencies and is only and always just petition, then it seems to me that some very important aspects of prayer are being ignored. Prayer is more than the church’s ambulance, called out to deal with various crises after the damage has already been done. To use it only in this way is to cheapen and act despitefully toward the deeper significance of prayer that God teaches in the Bible.

To pray in an emergency is altogether right. But to pray only in an emergency cannot be right because this limits prayer to the area of our own self-awareness in the events of life. It makes prayer a convenience, something to which we are driven by our human perspective on the crisis, not something in which we are drawn and energized by the Holy Spirit.

I think we need to study the implications of these things. Prayer must start at God’s end, for isn’t that the control center of all that happens? Therefore our relationship with Him and our attitude towards the things He allows to disturb our lives is more important than passing on information to Him.

Because of this, our first duty is to make sure we are really in that lofty place by His side with the right attitude and with nothing in us to prevent Him from hearing us or to prevent us from hearing His still, small voice. It is only from that place of closest intimacy that we may learn what the will is that we are to pray will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

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Continued Praying…

Touch us today, Lord
You have everything in Your hands and You are in control!
Pleading the blood of Jesus over those transitions
We are asking for peace that surpasses all understanding
Loosing Your angels and ministering spirits to go before us and prepare the way
The blood speaks love, peace, and joy, and we thank You for that, Father
We will not be moved; our eyes are fixed and focused on You, Lord
Give us greater revelation and illumination of a Your word in our hearts
Worshiping and giving You glory, honor, and praise
There is peace and victory in the blood of Jesus
Reveal to us Your right ways and plans
Thank You for Your perfect peace, Lord
We ask for clarity in the name of Jesus!
No, we will not lean on our own understanding, but we put our hope and our trust in You
Clear out the pathway, Father
Debris—get out of the way!
Calling for every step to be ordered by Heaven, today!
We yield to Your fullness and Your greatness, Lord
The promises of Your Word are coming to pass in these days
Asking for eyes to see and for ears to hear!
No weapon formed against us shall prosper in the name of Jesus
Every wrong plan will be shut down and shut out today
Calling for prosperity of every kind
The body of Christ will begin to shine brighter than ever before!
We will not be status quo—we will stomp out every kind of complacency!
Continually contending and moving toward Your will and plan, Father
Declaring for a greater number of souls to come forth in Jesus’ name!
The harvest is ready to be taken in!
The glory of God is being poured out today!
Hallelujah!
Calling for a greater momentum, a greater increase, and a greater revelation
Open, open, open!
Now is the time; this is the hour for the harvest to come in!
Souls come in, families come in now—Jesus is coming soon!
God is building an army!
We come against complacency in the name of Jesus!
This is the day that the Lord has made, and we will rejoice and be glad in it!
The blood of Jesus is delivering and making all things new today!
We give You praise, glory, and honor
Thank You for the peace of God that transcends all understanding
Reveal to us the details of Your will and Your plan
Lifting these things before You today, Father

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