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 follow the pattern of the apostle in learning to travail in birth over their spiritual children until Christ is formed in them (Gal. 4:19).
Read morePray that the saints would follow the apostle’s pattern to foster the new believers as a nursing mother cherishes her own children and as a father exhorts, consoles, and testifies to his own children (1 Thes. 2:6-8, 11).
Read morePray that the saints would follow the pattern of the apostle Paul, who boasted in those who had been gained, perfected, and built up through him (2 Thes. 1:3-4; Phil. 2:16-17; 2 Cor. 9:2; 1:14).
Read morePray that the saints would follow the apostle’s pattern in considering the ones saved and nurtured by them as their hope, their joy, their crown of boasting, and their glory (1 Thes. 2:19-20 and note 201; Phil. 4:1).
Read morePray that the saints would have a burden, an interest, and a care for people in order to gain them as the Lord’s increase, and that the saints would bring this matter to the Lord and ask Him to infuse them with His heart for people (1 Thes. 2:1, 7-8; Phil. 4:1).
Read morePray that the saints would learn to preach the gospel as the apostle Paul did, turning people from darkness to light and from the authority of Satan to God that they might be transferred into the kingdom of God (Acts 26:18; Col. 1:12-13).
Read morePray that the saints would learn to pray for the binding of the blinding work of the god of this age so that the gospel of the glory of Christ might shine into the hearts of many unbelievers (2 Cor. 4:3-6 and notes 31, 41, and 44).
Read morePray that the saints would learn to exercise the authority of the headship and lordship of Christ, the Head, in praying to bind the strong man and in preaching the gospel to plunder sinners out of the kingdom of Satan into the kingdom of God (Luke 4:36; 9:1-2; Matt. 28:18-19).
Read morePray that the saints would see that the way to bind the strong man for the plundering of sinners out of his house is mainly by prayer and fasting (Matt. 17:14-21).
Read morePray that the saints would see that the Lord Jesus’ gospel preaching involved His binding of the strong man (Satan) and the plundering of his goods, his vessels (the fallen people under Satan’s usurpation), for the kingdom of God (Matt. 12:29; Luke 11:21-22).
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