Praying With Scripture

(the fol­low­ing is adapt­ed from an email I sent to our stu­dents and to our prayer team recent­ly):

I encour­age you to make it your goal to grow spir­i­tu­al­ly as we cel­e­brate the birth of Christ. Come back to school more on fire than when you left!

Here are some resources to help you grow in your prayer life by root­ing your prayers in God’s Word. Tim Kerr explains the pow­er of this very well in his book Take Words With You (avail­able online as a free PDF).

There are two words that are very pow­er­ful when used in prayer. These words are sim­ply, “you said”. In Gen­e­sis 31:2, God makes a promise to Jacob. Involved in that promise is one of the most faith-giv­ing promis­es in Scripture—“I will be with you”. A promise that means God will do us good and pour out his favour upon us! Then lat­er, when in deep crises, Jacob cries out to God in prayer and reminds God of his promise to him. Lis­ten to what he says:

But you said,‘I will sure­ly do you good’… and Jacob said, “O God of my father Abra­ham and God of my father Isaac, O LORD who said to me,‘Return to your coun­try and to your kin­dred, that I may do you good.’ Gen 32:12, 32:9

The fuel of an inter­ces­sor is the promis­es of God.

The fuel of an inter­ces­sor is the promis­es of God. Wow. Isn’t that inspiring? Here are three arti­cles that have helped me root my prayer­s in the Word.

• Speak­ing God’s Lan­guage: How Scrip­ture Can Add Pow­er To Your Prayers (Joni Erick­son Tada)
• A Prayer Life That Nour­ish­es Your Rela­tion­ship To God (Tim Keller)
• How To Pray Using Scrip­ture (Kevin DeY­oung)

I hope these arti­cles (and Ker­r’s book) are as much of a bless­ing to you as they were to me.