Category Archives: Bible Prayers

Bible Prayer for Jerusalem

Bible Prayer - Prayer for Jerusalem - walls of Jerusalem, Israel

Bible Prayer – Prayer for Jerusalem – walls of Jerusalem, Israel

Here is another Bible Prayer, a prayer by Daniel while he was in Babylon longing for God’s people to return to the land of Israel.  Daniel 9:16  O Lord, according to all thy righteousness, let thine anger and thy wrath, I pray thee, be turned away from thy city Jerusalem, thy holy mountain; because for our sins, and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and thy people are become a reproach to all that are round about us.

Here is a Bible prayer asking God to make Jerusalem a praise in the earth. This is actually not fully fulfilled until the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ is fully established on the earth.   Isaiah 62:6 I have set watchmen upon thy walls, Jerusalem; all the day and all the night they shall never hold their peace: ye that put Jehovah in remembrance, keep not silence, 7 and give him no rest, till he establish, and till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth.

 The picture above shows some of the walls of Jerusalem.  The Lord wants us to pray for the peace of Jerusalem.  Psalm 122:6 Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:  “May those who love you prosper;   7 may there be peace within your walls,  prosperity within your fortresses.”

So the Bible is full of example prayers.

Hannah Prays

Hannah Prays - River and Tree

Hannah Prays – River and Tree

The priest, Eli, noticed Hannah praying. For some reason Eli thought she was drunk.  If you read the first few chapters of I Samuel, you realize that Eli, the priest, was not serving the Lord very well, and his heart was no so much on God. In fact, his sons were doing things against the temple. This indicates to me that Eli was probably too close to the world and was used to seeing people drunk and that is why he thought this lady was drunk. We don’t want to be like Eli; we want to be like Hannah, a person who prays before the Lord.

We see in verse 15 that Hannah went on to say, “…No, my lord, I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit: I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but have poured out my soul before the LORD.” Eli answered her in verse 1, “… Go in peace: and the God of Israel grant thee thy petition that thou hast asked of him.” Eli eventually recognized that she was praying to the Lord and he joined in with her prayer. That is a very important point. Our passage says that the Lord remembered Hannah and gave her a son. That little phrase in verse 19, “The Lord remembered her” really means something. God remembers prayer. Sometimes we pray and we think, “I don’t know if God will remember this or if God will do anything.”  God remembers every prayer.  God answers every prayer. It may not be answered in the time we expect or in the way we expect.  Sometimes the thing we specifically pray for may not be God’s will so God kind of turns that prayer around and uses it in the proper way.  Never forget that the Lord remembers prayer and He answers prayer.

Hannah Prays for a Son – Samuel

Bible Prayer - Beach Flowers

Bible Prayer – Beach Flowers

Lets look at the  background on the life of Samuel. There was a woman named Hannah. She had no children and she was quite depressed and despondent about the situation. She cried out to the Lord and prayed:  “Lord, I have no children and people are looking down on me.”  She desperately wanted a child. She went to the temple one day in great distress and she prayed.  She said, “Lord, I ask You for a child, and if You give me a child I will give him to You for all the days of his life.” Samuel was produced out of the prayer of his mother. If you are a mother, never despise the prayers that you make for your children. God answers prayer and God remembers prayer.

Let’s read from I Samuel 1:10, “And she was in bitterness of soul, and prayed unto the LORD, and wept sore. 11 And she vowed a vow, and said, O LORD of hosts, if thou wilt indeed look on the affliction of thine handmaid, and remember me, and not forget thine handmaid, but wilt give unto thine handmaid a man child, then I will give him unto the LORD all the days of his life…”  Here we see that Hannah prayed out of her distress, out of her distressing situation. You could even say that her situation seemed impossible.  It looked like it was impossible for her to have a child. I don’t know what her situation was medically, but the point is that she prayed and God answered her prayer.

Prayer of Declaration

Bible Prayer of Declaration - Sunrise over Sea of Galilee in Israel

Bible Prayer of Declaration – Sunrise over Sea of Galilee in Israel

Here is a prayer of declaration to the Lord:  “Lord, You have been our dwelling place throughout all generations” ( Ps.  90:1 ).  Only the Lord satisfies. Places, things and projects do not replace Him.  We try to do many things to get satisfied, but only the Lord can satisfy us in reality. So this is also another example of a Bible prayer.

In Psalms 119 there are many more examples.  Psalm 119:89, “For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven.” In other words, in the heavenlies there is no problem with the Word of God, but on the earth there is some problem. That’s why the Lord Jesus taught us to pray, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, indicating that in Heaven there is no problem with the Word of God. Yet, Jesus taught us to pray to bring the will of God from the heavens to the earth.

Psalm 119:89 says, “For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven.” Yet it is God’s intention that His Word would also be established on the earth.   This is another prayer of declaration. Declaring this prayer on earth reminds us and God that His word should also be settled in our hearts while we are on the earth.  Why should His word only be settled in the heavens and not in us on the earth.

Bible Prayers

Bible Prayers - Sunrise over Sea of Galilee

Bible Prayers – Sunrise over Sea of Galilee

The Bible is full of sample prayers. Let’s call these Bible Prayers. Consider the prayers of Abraham, Moses, David, Jesus Christ, Peter, Paul and John.  These top seven people in the Bible all prayed in the Bible.  Their prayers, their talking to God are all recorded in the Bible. Also consider the prayers of Samuel and Elijah.

Consider the prayer of  Hannah in 1 Samuel 1:20 And in due time Hannah conceived and bore a son, and she called his name Samuel, for she said, “I have asked for him from the Lord.”

The Bible is full of sample prayers like the last prayer in the Bible in Revelation 22:20 “Come, Lord Jesus”.

Consider the prayer in the Psalms 4:1 Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness; Thou hast set me at large when I was in distress: Have mercy upon me, and hear my prayer.

Elijah just Prayed what God Wanted to Pray

Elijah Prayed God’s Prayer

Elijah just prayed what God wanted to pray. Here did not pray his prayer, or what he thought or what he felt. Elijah just prays God’s prayer.  That’s what the phrase prayed with prayer  means in this passage in James 5:17-18  where it says Elijah was a man of like passions to us, and he prayed with prayer that it should not rain; and it did not rain upon the earth three years and six months; 18 and again he prayed, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth caused its fruit to spring forth.

Praying With God

We are praying and asking the prayer of God. If you are one with the Lord, you are obeying the Lord, you are abiding in the Lord, and His Word is dwelling in you, then you are one with the Lord, and what the Lord wants to pray, you want to pray, what the Lord wants to ask the Father through your prayer, you want to ask the Father.  So who is really praying here?  Is it us praying or is it God praying?  It is kind of hard to understand.

The Example of Elijah in James

In fact, James 5 talks about a similar principle. The last part of verse 16 says, “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” Then James goes on to talk about Elijah.  Verse 17, “Elijah was a man subject to like passions…” He was a man, just like we are. He had feelings just like you and I have. Then it says, “And he prayed earnestly” or the literal Greek is, “He prayed in prayer” or, “He prayed in his prayer”.  It is kind of a strange construction in the English. “He was a man of like passions as we are, and he prayed in prayer that it might not rain”. In other words, Elijah had an experience, here, of not praying his own prayer, but praying the prayer of God. You could say he prayed the prayer that God put on his heart, or prayed the prayer that God burdened him with.  Here Elijah was praying the prayer of God.

The Example of Young Samuel

We have another example of Samuel in the Old Testament.  This is the story of Samuel as a young boy.  He was learning how to serve God and how to do the things of God. He was just beginning, or barely beginning to hear the voice of God.  At one point, he thought Eli, the priest, was calling him, but he eventually learned that it was the Lord who was speaking to him. The phrase that Samuel repeated back to the Lord at this point was, “Speak Lord, for your servant hears.” In other words, Samuel had the attitude that whatever God would speak, he would hear, and whatever God asked him to do, he would do.

This blog was taken from a video on Drew’s YouTube channel.

The Two Great Prayers in Ephesians

The Two Great Prayers in the book of Ephesians

There are two great prayers in the book of Ephesians that Paul prays.

  • Ephesians 1:15-23 – a prayer that God would grant the believers  a spirit of wisdom and revelation.  This prayer is so we believers could see what God sees.  God’s perspective is from heaven and not from earth.  From the heavens God sees Christ far above all the crazy stuff (sin) happening on the earth.
  • Ephesians 3:14-19  – a prayer for spiritual strength so that Christ could dwell in our hearts through love. This prayer is so that the riches of the vision could be practical in the believers lives.  It is Christ living in us that allows the high vision of the book Ephesians to be lived out in us. This practice is described in details in chapters 4 through 6.