Epaphras Prays Podcast

There is so much noise and so much conflicting ideas that we can often have trouble hearing or knowing Truth. King David prayed much about this, learning and being lead by Truth.

This is how we pray for our nations leaders, starting in Psalm 25:5

Pray For The People Of God From The Word Of God

Here is one passage in four parts we are praying from this week:

* Thursday - Psalm 28:9 - Save your people

* Friday - Psalm 28:9 - and bless your inheritance:

* Saturday - Psalm 28:9 - feed them also,

* Sunday - Psalm 28:9 - and lift them up forever.

Will you join me in praying this verse, and ask one person to join you?

Until Monday, grace and peace

What happens when it goes well with the righteous? Proverbs 11 tells us the city rejoices! A city is exalted by the blessing of the upright (v. 11).

Let us approach the Lord in Heaven and ask for elected and appointed men and women in government authority to be those who are upright, who desire and pursue integrity, honesty and loyalty in all they do.

Pray For The People Of God From The Word Of God

Here are four passages we are praying from this week (one passage per day):

* Thursday - Psalm 34:9

* Friday - Jeremiah 17:7

* Saturday - Jeremiah 17:8

* Sunday - John 14:27

Will you join me in praying these verses, and ask one person to join you?

Until Monday, grace and peace

Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash

“The testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple.”

As we continue praying for our public servants, we pray they would know and value the commandments of God and teachings of Christ, and may these guide them in how they live and govern.

Even a casual glance will reveal that much of our nation -- and her government, has rejected the Lordship of Christ. But we know politics is not the answer, the Gospel is — that is, the Word of God that teaches the good news that we are all sinners, in need of a savior, and that Jesus is that redeemer.

In our PrayerPodcast we will be praying today from Psalm 19:7-11…

Pray For The People Of God From The Word Of God

Here are four passages we are praying from (one passage per day):

* Thursday - 2 Thessalonians 3:1-3

* Friday - 2 Thessalonians 3:4-5

* Saturday - 2 Timothy 1:13-14

* Sunday - 2 Timothy 2:15

Will you join me in praying these verses, and ask one person to join you?

Until Monday, grace and peace

Photo by Shawn Davey on Unsplash

Today as we focus on praying specifically for our nation’s government, we want to focus on the most important task of hearing the Gospel. Join us on the PrayerPodcast, and let’s pray from Romans 10:14 and focus on asking God for a clear presentation of His Word. Pray that it result in salvation for those who hear.

Pray For The People Of God From The Word Of God

Here are four passages we are praying from (one passage per day):

* Thursday - Ephesians 3:14-19

* Friday - Ephesians 6:10-17

* Saturday - 1 Thessalonians 3:12-13

* Sunday - 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12

Will you join me in praying these verses, and ask one person to join you?

Until next time, grace and peace

Photo by Emmanuel Phaeton on Unsplash

There are many in government who serve not in elected offices or appointed positions, but on the front lines. They are often called the first-responders — the men and women who serve to protect and defend are in branches of military, or in law enforcement, or as firefighters.

These run toward danger as we run to safety. They work often in harms way for our protection — but they also need protection, both physical and spiritual. So we pray for the armor from Ephesians 6.

More Prayers For The People of God from The Word of God

Last time we looked more closely at five intercessory prayers for the Church. Here are two more to round out a full week of Biblical texts to pray.

Pray that God’s people would: Watch, stand fast in the faith, be brave, be strong. Let all [we do] be done with love. [1Co 16:13-14 NKJV]

And this [we] pray, that [our] love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment, that [we] may approve the things that are excellent, that [we] may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ, being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God. [Phl 1:9-11 NKJV]

Mark these in your Bible. Consider writing these seven prayers in the front or back of your Bible for easy reference. Put them on a card you can carry with you and you can pray these through your day. One of our prayer partners has written these on notes and placed them in her home - one one the microwave, another on a mirror, etc. as easy reminders.

You might pray one Scripture per day or all seven each day as the Lord leads, but brothers and sisters in Christ - let us intercede for one another!

Until Monday, grace and peace

It is Job who tells us in whose hand is the life of every living thing; who it is who makes nations great – or destroys them. Our prayers are for our nation and our government - that we know it is the Lord who does this. We pray from Job 12, and from a hymn that God would shed His grace.

Prayer Insights … from E.M. Bounds

Prayer and Faith

In any study of praying, first place must be given to faith; it is the initial quality in the heart of all who would seek the Unseen; we must out of sheer helplessness, stretch forth hands of faith, write Bounds in The Necessity of Prayer. We must believe where we cannot prove.

It is faith that does the impossible because it brings God to undertake for us, and nothing is impossible with God. How great is the power of faith! Prayer projects faith upon God, and God on the world.

Only God can move mountains, but faith and prayer move God.

Believe You Have Received

[Mar 11:24 ESV] 24 Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

This is the key connection of prayer and faith, that faith which realizes and asks. Writes Bounds, This faith which creates powerful praying is the faith which centers on a powerful Person. It is a faith in Christ’s ability to do and His willingness to do it. Remember the leper who cried, “Lord, if thou will, thou can make me clean.” Here we see faith focused on Jesus’ ability to do this.

Faith then is the belief that Jesus can. He asked the blind men, “ Do you believe that I am able to do this? They said to Him, Yes, Lord.” [Matt 9:28]

Faith believes, Faith obeys, Faith acts.

Faith Also Waits

Bounds continues that faith is also called upon to wait patiently for God and is prepared for seeming delays in seeing the answer. “Faith does not grow disheartened because prayer is not immediately honored; it takes God at His Word and lets Him take what time He chooses in fulfilling His purposes, and in carrying out his work.”

We know the case of Lazarus, in the tomb four days while Jesus delayed. But He said to them He was glad that He was not there, “to the intent that ye may believe.”

Fear not…Jesus will come, if patience be exercised, and faith hold fast…Pray on. Wait on. Thou canst not fail. If Christ delay, wait for Him. In His own good time, He will come and will not tarry.

Pray For The People Of God From The Word Of God

Here are four passages we are praying from (one passage per day):

* Thursday - Mark 11:24

* Friday - Luke 22:32

* Saturday - 2 Peter 1:5-8

* Sunday - Isaiah 26:3

Will you join me in praying these verses, and ask one person to join you?

Until Monday, grace and peace

We are told by the Lord in Jeremiah not to glory in wisdom, might and riches, but in the things that the Lord delights: that He is the Lord who practice kindness, justice and righteousness.

We lift up our prayers for our nation and it’s government starting in Jeremiah 9:23-24 that we would each glory in the things that the Lord delights.

A Christian’s despair makes him pray; it is a despair of self. A worldling’s despair makes him rave against God and give up prayer. C.H. Spurgeon

Did you know Spurgeon and Marx were contemporaries? Both struggled for the souls of men in completely different ways and means, and in the same city at the same time.

It is extraordinary to me that both Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892) lived and worked in the same city at the same time. Both were, in a sense, evangelists contending for the souls of men with their competing visions of humanity. Moreover, each was at the height of his powers at the same time as the other. While Marx was preaching salvation through bloody revolution, Spurgeon, on the other side of the city, was preaching salvation through the blood and grace of Jesus Christ.

Read the rest of Karl Marx vs Charles Spurgeon: An Epic Struggle for the Souls of Men in 19th-Century London

Pray For The People Of God From The Word Of God

Here are four passages we are praying from (one passage per day):

* Thursday - Acts 4:29

* Friday - Micah 6:8

* Saturday - Colossians 4:12

* Sunday - Psalm 100

Will you join me in praying these verses, and ask one person to join you?

Until Monday, grace and peace

Today we pray for those in our nations government who are saved and faithful in Christ. We are thankful they know the Lord and serve Him, as well as serve we the people. We pray for them today from Ephesians 1 beginning in verse 17:

[Eph 1:17-19 NKJV] 17 …that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, 18 the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, 19 and what [is] the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power…

Pray For The People Of God From The Word Of God

Here are four passages we are praying from (one passage per day):

* Thursday - James 1:2, 3, 4

* Friday - James 1:5, 6

* Saturday - James 3:17

* Sunday - James 4:6-10

Will you join me in praying these verses, and ask one person to join you?

Until Monday, grace and peace

h/t Prayer Coach for the collection of prayer tips

Photo Credit

In ancient days were many servants of the Lord who stood with boldness before those in authority. Joseph, Moses, Esther, and Daniel are several who served the people of God under foreign, pagan kings.

We pray for such in our day and pray for them as Paul asked for prayers in Ephesians 6:19-20, that words may be given him to speak as he ought, to boldly proclaim the Gospel and to make known the mystery of Christ.

Our world is desperately in need of such like John the Baptist who would proclaim “behold the Lamb of God!”

Prayer Insights - from John MacArthur

How To Pray In A Pagan World

In general we live in a fallen world surrounded by people who do not know or love the Lord. The nation as we knew it has changed dramatically in recent years, and even in the church we have bowed knees to cultural gods. We are looking for solutions and we are told they are political, social, or economical.

What is Gods strategy? This is nothing new for the people of God. In the promised land they were surrounded by pagans and God told them to get rid of them all. The new testament church was a little island in the middle of paganism. Neither the OT nor the NT has any affect or impact on the world prior to the arrival of Jesus.

How did He tell his people to confront these realities? In Luke 11, Jesus instructs us - When You Pray, Say … and He taught them what we commonly call the Lord’s Prayer.

Jesus instructs us here to confront the world of paganism with something that seems to be of very little interest to the contemporary evangelical church; and that is to confront paganism with prayer.

In this prayer that Jesus taught, we recognize that He is Sovereign – your kingdom come. Jesus was preparing the disciples to proclaim the gospel in an increasingly hostile world that neither knows nor cares anything about God.

His instruction: pray that God would do whatever advances his kingdom – the heart of true prayer. How does his kingdom come? One soul, one believer at a time – that’s what we need to be praying now. Ask Him to bring His Kingdom!

The church is the answer to that prayer: the church is His kingdom, and our cry is - Let your kingdom come to earth, bring an advancement of the gospel that brings salvation that builds the church where the kingdom of God on earth is seen. Pray this with importunity. Do not be indifferent to the evil in this world nor lose your zeal for the intercession that calls on God to reveal his saving power in the world.

This prayer is rebellion to the world, the spirit of the age.

Sermon Notes from How To Pray in a Pagan World

Pray For The People Of God From The Word Of God

Here are four passages we are praying from (one passage per day):

* Thursday - Colossians 4:2-4

* Friday - Acts 12:5

* Saturday - Romans 12:12

* Sunday - Luke 11:13

Will you join me in praying these verses, and ask one person to join you?

Until Monday, grace and peace

Photo by Sean Paul Kinnear on Unsplash

Intercessions are prayers on behalf of others needs. There are many examples of this in Scripture and we are instructed to do the same, to pray for the needs of others like those in office, in authority, in government positions.

They have needs as do we and so we pray on their behalf, that is we go before the Father and make requests for them of blessing, healing, protections, wisdom and so on.

In this PrayerPodcast we have several Scriptures to bring to our Heavenly Father in prayer for our nation and government, including Hebrews 10:25, Hebrews 13:7, Romans 1:21, Titus 2:12, Proverbs 26:6, John 17:15.

Pray For The People Of God From The Word Of God

Here are four passages we are praying from (one passage per day):

* Thursday - Acts 1:8

* Friday - 1 Thessalonians 1:5

* Saturday - Ephesians 6:18

* Sunday - 2 Thessalonians 1:11, 12

Will you join me in praying these verses, and ask one person to join you?

Until Monday, grace and peace

Photo by Cassie Boca on Unsplash