Tag Archives: Praying Scripture

Seven Habits of Highly Effective Prayers

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In my first year of college I was assigned to read The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. It is a classic book on effectiveness in life. But the seven habits can easily be applied to an effective prayer life as well.

1. Be proactive– It is important for people of prayer to understand their role in coming to God in prayer. I often teach that whenever you have a desire to pray it is probably coming from God. The question is will we not only follow those promptings, but also proactively set aside time to pray.

2. Begin with the end in mind-This is a powerful idea when coming to God in prayer. The end is eternity and life with God in heaven. That is a great place to start our thoughts thinking as we begin our prayer time.

3. Put first things first– I love to begin my prayer time with thanksgiving and praise to God. It shifts my perspective to a healthy place right from the start.

4. Think Win/Win -Building on the habits we already developed we pray for the Lord to win in the world. Jesus encouraged us to pray, “Your kingdom come. Your will be done.” Effective people who pray understand that is a win for them as well.

5. Seek first to understand then to be understood– Listening before asking creates requests that change history. Starting with Scripture creates a foundation for powerful asking. This takes our prayer to a new level.

6. Synergize– This reminds me of two parts of effectiveness in prayer. First, I am reminded of the power of agreeing together with others in prayer. Second, it reminds that after hearing from God before asking we are actually working together with God.

7. Sharpen the Saw– We can always grow in our prayer life. That is why we create our resources. What will you do to learn and develop your prayer life?

Let me encourage you to take one of these habits and build it into your prayer life in the next month. See how your effectiveness increases.

4 Things to Pray with Confidence for the Countries of the World

One of the things that I find as I travel and speak on the subject of prayer is people who do not pray with boldness. One of the reasons that it is easy to struggle with confidence in prayer is the question, “Is what I am praying the will of God?”

One of the ways to pray with confidence is to pray the scripture. If you are praying what God has already expressed as His desire, you are basically praying, “Your will be done.”

So how about the countries of the world? I use the world prayer map to pray for every country of the world every single month. If you pray for about 8-10 counties every day you will get through every country. But what do you pray? Right on the map there is a list of 4 scriptures to pray that I now pass along to you.

1.  Father, I ask for open doors to spread the Gospel.

“Devote yourself to prayer that God may open a door to proclaim Christ.”(Colossians 4:2-3)

2.  Father, I ask for open minds to receive the Gospel

“I am sending you to them [the lost] to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light.” (Acts 26:17)

3.  Father, I ask for open hearts to embrace the Gospel.

“For God made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of God.” (2 Corinthians 4:6)

4.  Father, I ask for open heavens, that the Gospel may run swiftly.

“Open up, O heavens, and pour out your righteousness. Let the earth open wide so salvation and righteousness can sprout up together. (Isaiah 45:8)

Those are great opening places to start. It may lead you to pray for workers for the harvest field of that country (Matthew 9:37) or move to some of the strategic prayers for a city.

It helps me as I learn more about a country. My wife and daughter and I are looking up tourism videos for countries on YouTube and watching a few each week to learn about countries. You can also visit Operation World to look up specifics of certain countries.

If you do these things before you know it you will have way more to talk to God about than you have time to pray for these things.

To order your own free copy of the world prayer map visit here. Info from the World Prayer Map is copyright Dick Eastman. Used with permission.