Many matters require the church’s prayer. The items of prayer listed below are offered as a help to focus and enrich the prayer of the saints and of the churches. They are not meant to be restrictive or exhaustive, nor are they meant to be legally adopted. In the end, it is the Spirit who intercedes for us, in us, and through us according to God and His will. The intercessors’ responsibility is to be one spirit with the Lord and one mind with Christ to discharge the inner burden with Spirit-inspired utterances. In light of the current world situation, let us persevere in prayer with a strong spirit.
Pray that the saints would proclaim the glad tidings of the jubilee of grace, ministering Christ as the jubilee to people that they might be returned to Him as their lost possession, enjoy freedom from the bondage of sin, and be returned to the church as their divine family (Lev. 25:9-10; Luke 4:17-21; Acts 26:16, 18).
Read morePray that the saints would proclaim the glad tidings concerning the wonderful person of Christ and His unsearchable riches (Luke 2:10-11; Acts 5:42; Rom. 1:1-4; Eph. 3:8).
Read morePray that the saints would proclaim the glad tidings of the gospel, the good news that the world needs today, and that they would also live the gospel, becoming a pattern of the glad tidings that they spread (Psa. 68:11 and notes 111 and 112; Isa. 40:9; 1 Thes. 1:5 and note 51).
Read morePray that the saints would realize that as Christ, the firstborn Son of God, is the Word of God—God’s oracle for the speaking and dispensing of God—they, His brothers, as members of the Word of God, are also God’s oracle, speaking and dispensing God for the spreading of God and the increase of Christ (Rom. 8:29; John 1:1; 3:29a, 30, 34; 6:63; Eph. 4:29 and note 293; Col. 4:6; 1 Pet. 4:11a).
Read morePray that the saints would grasp every opportunity to speak the Word in their daily life to all kinds of people and also in the meetings (Mark 16:15; Acts 8:4; 1 Cor. 14:31; Col. 3:16; 2 Tim. 4:2).
Read morePray that the saints would see from Acts that it is the word that grows and the word that multiplies and would go forth to preach the word as the high gospel to people (Acts 6:7 and note 71; 12:24; 19:20; 8:4; cf. Mark 4:14).
Read morePray that Lord would stir up the saints’ interest and seeking after the Lord in His truth and that the saints would build up a daily habit of spending time in the Word with the help of the Recovery Version, the Life-studies, and the ministry books to be equipped with the word to speak the word (1 Tim. 4:6; 2 Tim. 2:15; 3:14-17).
Read morePray that the saints would be impressed that the divine Word is what we really need and would be one with the Word, full of the Word, saturated with the Word, and constituted with the Word so that they may minister the Word by the Spirit (Acts 4:31; John 1:1; 6:63; Eph. 6:17).
Read morePray that the saints would see from the crucial verses in the New Testament that the Word of God is actually God Himself and the living person Jesus Christ our Lord, who is the embodiment of the divine Word (John 1:1, 14; 6:63; Matt. 4:4; Luke 8:11b; 2 Thes. 3:1; Col. 4:3a; Rev. 19:13b).
Read morePray that the saints would be deeply impressed that the story of God is a speaking history, a continual speaking, and we are a speaking people through whom this speaking God can be transfused into people (Heb. 1:1-2; Acts 3:20b-22; 1 Cor. 14:24, 25b and note 251; Rev. 2:1b, 7a; 22:17a).
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