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Improving Your Personal Prayer Life
by Pastor Jim Feeney, Ph.D.
Sermon Summary: If you are reading this sermon outline, it is very likely that you are seeking to have a more effective personal prayer life. Let's turn to the Lord and His Word for His help in that noble endeavor.
Psalm 6:9 ...the Lord accepts my prayer.
•• Pray with the assurance that God accepts your prayers.
• This keeps prayer personal, not detached.
Psalm 32:5-6a Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD” and you forgave the guilt of my sin. [6a] Therefore let everyone who is godly pray to you while you may be found.
•• Clear your heart of the guilt of sin before praying.
• Acknowledge your sin, confess your transgressions.
• God will forgive you. Then verse 6a (“godly”) will describe you. And you’ll pray with the confidence of a clear conscience.
Psalm 109:2-4 For wicked and deceitful men ... have spoken against me with lying tongues. [3] With words of hatred they surround me; they attack me without cause. [4] In return for my friendship they accuse me, but I am a man of prayer.
James 5:13a Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray.
•• Under attack by someone? Someone hate you? speaking against you?
• That’s not the time to retaliate.
• That’s the time to be a “man [woman] of prayer.”
•• Are you “in trouble? [You] should pray.”
Romans 1:9-10a God is my witness how constantly I remember you [10] in my prayers at all times.
•• Pray for others! “remember” people, by name and need, in your prayers.
• I pray for my elderly Dad and Mom, for my wife, and for all my children and my grandson every night ... every “give us this day...”
• It only takes seconds to remember people before God in your prayers.
Luke 22:31-32a “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. [32a] But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail.”
•• You can offer prayers for those under Satanic attack.
• “Deliver us” includes more than me!
• Colossians 4:12 Epaphras ... is always wrestling in prayer for you.
Romans 10:1 Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved.
•• You can pray for specific people to be saved.
• In the church that I pastored in New York, we prayed for an unsaved wife of one of the members. She did not attend the church, but we kept praying until she did indeed get saved.
Matthew 21:22 If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.
•• Be honest how often do you ask for something in prayer and have very little confidence that you’ll receive it?
• That describes many of us! Often!
• Why shouldn’t we believe for a faithful God to be true to His promises?!!
1 Corinthians 14:14-15 For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful. [15] So what shall I do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my mind; I will sing with my spirit, but I will also sing with my mind.
•• Vary your personal prayer life — in tongues ... in English ... in the spirit ... with your mind/understanding.
• praying ... also singing — both with our understanding and “in the spirit”.
Acts 28:7-8 ...[8] His father was sick in bed ... Paul went in to see him and, after prayer, placed his hands on him and healed him.
•• “After prayer ... [he] healed him.”
• Prayer opens the door to spiritual gifts.
• That’s one reason that preservice prayer is so important — that is, to prepare our hearts before God to be used in spiritual gifts during the church service.
Philippians 4:6-7 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. [7] And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
•• Personal prayer is a great way to cast off anxiety.
• Include petition specific, targeted requests.
• Cast your cares on the Lord in prayer.
• Be sure to thank God for the expected answers.
•• You’ll find your heart will go from anxiety to peace.
Psalm 6:9 ...the Lord accepts my prayer.
•• You may approach God in prayer with that confidence — that He accepts that which you bring to Him in prayer.
•• So determine to be a man or woman of prayer!
Preached at South Valley Church, Phoenix, Oregon, January 4, 2004
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© 2004, James H. Feeney, All rights reserved.
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