A pattern for daily prayer


A Pattern for Daily Prayer


The below in an excerpt from Tim Keller's book, 'Prayer - Experiencing awe and intimacy with God'- to aid you in your daily time spent with God. Why not read the post "Reading your Bible"  afterwards, for some further help with your quiet time? 


Morning Prayer (25 minutes)

APPROACHING GOD


Ask for his presence and help as you read and pray. Choose from one of these Scriptural invocations: Ps 16:8; 27:4, 9-10; 40:16-19; 63:1-3; 84:5-7; 103:1-2; 139:7-10; Isa 57:15; Matt 11:28-30; Jn 4:23; Eph 1:17-19; 3:16-20.


BIBLE READING AND MEDITATION



(No one can do all of the following in any one session of meditation and prayer)

Read a passage three or four times.
Then make a list of everything it says about God (Father, Son and HS); list anything it tells you about yourself; and finally, list any examples to follow, commands to obey (or things that need to be avoided), and promises to claim. Then choose the verse and truth that is most striking and helpful to you. Paraphrase the thought or verse in your own words.


To meditate on the passage: Write down responses:

1. What does this text show me about God for which I should praise or thank him?

2. What does the text show me about my sin that I should confess and repent of? What false attitudes, behaviour, emotions, or idols stir in me when I forget this truth?

3. What does the text show me about a need that I have? What do I need to do or become in light of this? How shall I ask God for it?

4. How is Jesus Christ and the grace I have in Him crucial to help me overcome the sin I have confessed or to answer the need I have?

5. How would this change my life if I took this seriously - if this truth were fully alive and effective in my inward being?

6. Why might God be showing this to me now? What is going on in my life that God would be bringing this to my attention today?


PRAYER – Pray each of the meditations – adoration, confession, petition, and thanksgiving for Jesus and his salvation. 


Pray for your needs and pressing concerns.

Take a final moment just to enjoy him and his presence



Evening Prayer (15 minutes)

APPROACHING GOD – Ask for his presence as your read and pray.


BIBLE READING AND MEDITATION

Read a Psalm

PRAYER
Turn the Psalm into a prayer and pray it back to God.
- Think over your day and confess where you sinned or failed to respond as you should have
- Think over your day and pray for people you met or heard about who have needs or are in difficulty you might lift to God.
- Review your day looking for evidence of God that you can celebrate, and evidences of personal growth.
- Pray for some of the more important and urgent needs on your heart
- Thank God for his faithfulness.
___________________


A Starter Plan for Daily Prayer (15 minutes)

APPROACHING GOD – Realise God is present and consider the privilege of being present with God. Ask Him to teach you to pray.
MEDITATION – Read a Scripture passage. Discern one or two truths you see there. Choose the one that God presses on you and write it in a sentence. Ask: 1. How does this truth help me praise God? 2. How does this show me a sin to confess? 3. How does this show me something to ask God for? 4. What does this show me I should do?

PRAYER

Now turn those four questions into a prayer - adoration, petition and supplication.

Also pray about whatever needs are on your heart. Thank God for the ways you see him working in your life and caring for you.

Ask God to use you in the lives of the people closest to you.

Thanksgiving – Praise God for what he has shown you today. End with praise for God’s promise to go with you throughout the day.




The above was written by UBC Pastor, Dave Stott- to aid you in your daily time with God. Why not read the post "Reading your Bible" for some further help with your quiet time? 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What does love look like at home?

Image
Dear friends, Are you at home alone at the moment, or with your family? There are so many challenges we are facing just now aren’t there? I’ve been thinking there is one particular challenge we are all faced with, which can be so difficult at times. And that is having love for each other. 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 tells me that even  if I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. So how are we to be loving at home when we are with each other 24/7? Or for some when you are having to spend so much time alone? What does this love look like? It is such a small word and we think we know what it might mean. But what, in practice, does this ‘love’
Read more

Reading your Bible

Image
Hi everyone During this time when we are not able to meet together to be strengthened in our faith, and to receive the word of God from others, there is, I believe, a great need for us to go to our Bibles ourselves, individually.    How we all need to grow in our salvation through these times! As Robert Murray McCheyne said  “Those believers will stand firmest who have no dependence upon self or upon creatures, but upon Jehovah our Righteousness. We must be driven more to our Bibles, and to the mercy seat, if we are to stand in the evil day.” It is my firm conviction that: We each need to be spending regular time each day alone in God’s word. And that as we do so it leads us to prayer and the worship of God.  This is the way to peace and joy and assurance in the Lord. It is also important to be going through the Bible in a structured way so that we end up reading the whole of the Bible in a given period of time – however long that takes. We all need “the who
Read more

O Death, Where is your sting?!

Image
Dear friends If you have been making God’s word a regular place to rest in at this time, and maybe spending a while in Psalm 91, you might have found comfort in the words “You will not fear the terror of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness, nor the destruction that wastes at noonday. A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you”  (v5-7). Such is the experience of the one who dwells in the shelter of the Most High As believers in the Lord Jesus we need not fear. God is our defence against every kind of threat It’s true that coronavirus is bringing to the surface many people’s fears. The underlying fear of death that is in all people. As much as man has advanced in technology and medicine and thought (arguably), no one has found an answer to the problem of death. Yet in God’s word we meet Jesus Christ who is the answer to our worst fears. I was reading in E
Read more