Prayer: A Lasting Legacy

Fern Nichols: My name is Fern Nichols, and I am President and Founder of Moms In Touch, International. I’ve been married to Arlie for 41 years, have four children, seven grandchildren and one on the way, so God has a sweet plan for our family. Actually, the seven grandchildren we have are all six years old and under, so when they come to Nana’s house, I tell you, there’s just these little people everywhere. I so appreciate young moms, older moms, all in between, and single women who are coming to learn how to have a more effective, powerful prayer life. I thank you for coming to this session, and I want to read the description.

 

What impact will your life have on future generations? The legacy of prayer is of higher value than stock folios, portfolios, properties, money, or heirlooms. Join us in learning prayer principles that will change your prayer life and ignite you to pray with confidence for your children and grandchildren. Invest in eternity; live a legacy of prayer. I want to pray for you.

 

Heavenly Father, You are in this place. Your presence is here, and I am so very grateful that before the foundation of the world, You chose these women to be right here in this room because You want to speak to their hearts about how You long to hear their voice, how You long to answer their prayers, how You long to have an intimate relationship with them and also their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

 

So, Father, stir our hearts. Holy Spirit, speak to us, that we might know the power of God through our prayers. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

 

My mom and dad are in heaven. They passed away a while back, and they left their four children an inheritance of some money. That was very helpful, don’t get me wrong. But the greatest thing that my mom left, especially my mom, was the legacy of faith and love and prayer. Actually, before she passed away, I told her that what I wanted more than anything was the Bible that I saw her carry every single week to church. She made little notes in her Bible, and she read her Bible. We had devotions as a family together, not always very consistent, but she tried. And out of everything that my mom had—her jewelry, money, or anything else, that’s what I wanted, the Bible, because that truly is the legacy that will last forever.

 

And I have that Bible now to hand down to my daughter, and she has a daughter, Mikayla, and I’m sure she’ll hand it down to Mikayla. The legacy of my mom will be passed down generationally, if the Lord tarries, and that’s the Word of God. Isn’t that cool?

 

When we die and our children or our friends are gathered together to remember us, what will they say? That could be a very interesting little conversation they might have about you. My husband’s mother said that when she dies, she wants to have written on her tombstone, “I told you I was sick.” Wouldn’t it be awesome if ours would be, “She was a woman who believed in the power of God through prayer”? That is an investment that will not burn out. It cannot be stolen. It is gathered in the bowls of heaven, and it will always do what God wants it to do in light of a life living here on earth, and that’s pretty cool.

 

Our prayers are forever, and we each are going to leave a legacy. That’s just the way that it is. One thing for sure—we’re all going to die. That’s one thing we all have in common, and we can leave the temporal stuff or we can leave the internal investment of prayer.

 

I truly believe with all my heart the best thing I am leaving my children, my grandchildren, and their descendants in the whirlwind of life is to stop and take time to pray. And, women, isn’t that the biggest thing? In light of so many things that demand our attention, things that we are so busy about—that are good things—and yet we struggle taking the time to pray. We struggle taking the time to pray to a God that can actually intervene and burst forth in the areas where you are feeling fearful or concerned.

 

My prayer for us is that we will go away truly intentional about every day, even if it’s only five or ten minutes. That little quiet time with just you and Jesus and the prayer principles I’m going to be giving you later on can be for your own personal quiet time—if it’s five minutes, ten minutes, a half hour, hour or more—and it can also be used in prayer groups like we do in Moms In Touch. These four prayer principles just continue to change my life.

 

Raising children and grandchildren, oh, they all have their sweet little temperaments, don’t they? I know that sometimes it’s very hard to know how to correct them. I want to share about this lady who was talking about either spanking or taking him for a car ride. Sometimes the spanking worked; sometimes it didn’t. But this one little guy, he was just in a fit about something, and so she said, “Sometimes that car ride just settles him down, and they just really get in perspective about what it’s all about, and they leave changed.”

 

I have a little visual here of the car ride you can take your child or grandchild on. See the “99 miles an hour”? Of course we would never do that, but it gives us an idea, doesn’t it? Sometimes we could just pull our hair out with our little sweeties.

 

E.M. Bounds says this: “God shapes the world by prayer. Prayers are deathless. The lips that uttered them may be closed in death, the heart that felt them may have ceased to beat, but the prayers live before God, and God’s heart is set on them and prayers outlive the lives of those who uttered them; outlive a generation, outlive an age, outlive a world.”

 

I was reading in the Word one day, John 17, and that’s that wonderful passage of Scripture where Jesus is praying for His disciples. I’ve read it many times, but this one time the Holy Spirit just impressed me about something in this passage. John 17:20 says, “My prayer is not for those alone,” in other words, for the disciples He was praying for, but listen—“I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message.”

 

That was me! I believed through the message of over 2,000 years ago, and so did you. God was praying for Fern Nichols over 2,000 years ago when He was praying for His disciples. I thought, “This is cool. This is so awesome. I can pray generationally for my children. Two thousand years after I’m dead, the effect of my prayer for my descendants will continue to be played out and God answering them”

 

So, this is what I did. I took Ty, he’s my oldest, and I prayed for a godly spouse for him. I prayed for his children, that they would come to know the Lord, and I prayed for my grandchildren’s spouses, and their children. It took me a little while to go generationally through it all, because I wanted those prayers to be lived out long after I’m dead—for salvation to be a part of Ty’s household, that every single child would grow up and marry a Christian. I prayed that. I prayed that they would not fall away from the Lord. I prayed that they would love God with all their heart, mind, soul, and strength. I prayed that they’d be devoted to the Lord. I prayed that they’d use their gifts in the church. I prayed about everything that I could think of, everything that I prayed for my own children, I prayed for my descendants.

 

That took a little time, but then I have another son, and so I prayed specifically for him, for his wife, his children, his children’s children, his children’s children’s children—a generation yet to praise the Lord. I said, “Oh, God, in the Arly Nichols’ line, let not one be lost. May not one go to hell, that every single one You give us in this line will love You and serve You.” Those are prayers, and I don’t just pray it now and then. I pray it a lot.

 

I took Troy and his whole line, then there was Travis, and I prayed his whole line, and then there was Trisha, and I prayed her line. And God in His goodness, in light of not only my prayers, but many prayer partners with me, has allowed me to see that my children love the Lord today; they’re serving the church, instructing their children in the ways of the Lord, and, as I shared in the main session, two of my grandchildren asked Jesus into their hearts. This is huge. This is eternal stuff. This is a time investment that is worth more than silver or gold or anything else here on this earth. I want to encourage you—pray, pray. Don’t give up.

 

Another thing that God has really impressed on my heart is to pray when you feel like it and pray when you don’t, because the majority of time you don’t feel like praying. Did you feel like praying when God woke you up at 5:00 this morning? Did you feel like praying when your little neighbor was snoring and you couldn’t get to sleep? Many times we don’t feel like praying, but you know what? Let us not go by our feelings. Let us go by faith, and prayer is the answer.

 

Prayer is powerful, and prayer also develops just a sweet, loving relationship with the Beloved. There are times I’ll be riding in the car, and the Lord will bring a thought to my mind, and I’d say, “Oh, this is so sweet. Lord, thank You for letting me live long enough to hear that sweet thought You just gave to me.” It’s a conversation, really a relationship, a friend-to-friend thing, yet a very incredible reverence that happens the more you pray, the more you’re in the Word. Your love relationship with Jesus does grow, and you change. You become sweeter. My husband a while back said, “Honey, I just so appreciate you letting me be me,” and I thought, “Oh, boy. God’s been changing me. Apparently He noticed I was trying to be too helpful.”

 

My legacy started with my mom. My mom had four children, but was empty in her heart. All of her children were healthy; she had a husband that had a good job, was faithful, a car in the garage, and yet she knew something was missing in her life. What is so awesome about God, when He draws us? I believe it’s because somebody prayed for my mom. I don’t know who it was. I can’t wait to get to heaven to find out, because she was not raised in a Christian home. But I really believed somebody prayed for her, and God was drawing her to His heart.

 

Every morning when she’d get up and work in the kitchen, she would turn on Christian radio. She loved Christian radio. It was just comforting. It was encouraging, and she heard about Jesus. One glorious moment that I thank God for all the time was when the message was given of how she could give her heart and life to the Lord. She asked Jesus to come into her heart, and God knew what would happen in the life of my mom. When she asked Jesus into her heart, it wasn’t kind of a slow gradual, “Well, I think I’ll go to church, read my Bible.” It was a 180 degree turnaround.

 

There was a church about a mile from our home. She really didn’t know if it was a Bible-believing church or not. She just wanted to get into a church because she wanted to grow. She wanted to learn about this Jesus. So, she got us four kids ready every single Sunday. We were there Sunday morning and Sunday night. I remember she would take us to prayer meeting on Wednesday night, and I was only four or five years old. What is amazing, and I should have asked her more how she did this, is that we would sit there quiet through the whole prayer meeting. I remember in my heart thinking, There’s something sweet going on.

 

You don’t know what God is doing in the heart of your child when you pray, when you take them to church, when you share the Word of God with them, when you don’t get angry even when you feel like you have every right to. They are watching. There are things going on within them, and it’s a legacy that you’re leaving. And she left me this legacy of prayer. Little did she know or I know that I would be the founder and president of an international prayer ministry. God’s ways are just so much higher.

 

I praise God for the legacy that He started in my mom and passed down to me and then I passed down to my children. This is how old they were when I started this prayer ministry. I knew the importance of prayer. I knew that corporate prayer was prayer multiplied and very powerful. I knew that the whole world turned upside down by a little prayer meeting in Acts after Jesus was descended and those disciples got together and started praying in one accord. They got together and prayed in one accord.

 

When my two oldest sons were heading off to that junior high school, I said, “Lord, I need another mom to pray with. This burden is pretty great here. They are going to be facing things at that school that I think would curl my hair if it was straight.” And God laid on my heart another mom. You see, it was out of desperation that my boys would not succumb to the things that would undermine their faith. I couldn’t walk around and say, “Ty, don’t look at her.” Or, “Troy, that’s humanistic teaching.” But you know what? I could through prayer. I could walk the halls. I could be in the classroom. I could be right with them through the power of God through prayer.

 

I called the gal, and she said, “Yes, let’s pray.” So, a week later, there were four or five of us, just this little prayer group. I told them, “We’re not going to have coffee, and we’re going to start and end on time because women are busy.” And we prayed.

 

The reason I’m sharing this with you is because maybe some of you are in a prayer group, and maybe these are some tips that you might want to take hold of and use to have a powerful effective prayer hour. We prayed these four principles I’m going to tell you in a little bit, and God started to work—in our lives first, changing us, realizing we needed one another. Sometimes one would come with a burden that was so great that the others could lift her up in prayer. They had the faith for her when she didn’t seem to have the faith for her child. Sometimes that is hard, because we’re living with that child, and they can have more faith for that child.

 

One child in particular, there was just a strain between him and his mom in that he could just hardly stand her touch. She didn’t know how to break through; she didn’t know what the problem was. We began to pray for a loving relationship between this mother and this son, and by the end of the year, God changed both. We just kept filling the bowls with prayer for this relationship, and the relationship was healed. He gave his mom a hug and kiss before he left for school. Prayer works. Now that’s a hug and kiss, a relationship answered prayer.

 

There were other prayers of, “Oh, Lord, they need help in passing a test.” Or young moms getting together to pray, they’re just praying over things like potty training. I have little Mikayla—she’s just a darling little girl; she’s a wild woman for Jesus, actually—and she wants to please, and she loves her Nana. But she has this little something going on with Trisha right now that she’s supposed to go potty before she takes her nap, and so she doesn’t want to go potty. So, she sits on the potty and defiantly does not go for 20 minutes, just because she wants to be in control. Does that give me a little clue about how to pray for her in my Grandmas In Touch group? There’s a little bent there. It’s not too soon to pray, because they have little bents that go toward their old nature, but who’s standing in the gap to pray against that, that she would ask Jesus into her heart at a young age?

 

We pray for the mommies and the daddies, too. Trisha is teaching her the Word of God. She’s teaching her the fruit of the Spirit. You know what’s in the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22–23? One of the fruit is self-control, and that’s another area in which Mikayla needs to exhibit. She gets so excited; she just likes to bite. That’s kind of maybe her love language! Nana says it’s her love language, but her mother doesn’t say that.

 

It’s never too soon to start praying, even from the womb. I don’t know if there’s some in here that have a little baby that’s in the womb? Start praying now that they would love Jesus. Start praying now for their spouse. In fact, we put on your chairs How to Pray for Your Children’s Spouses papers. I love that sheet. I prayed it a lot for my kids, and then they grew up to be adults. Now they are passing on the legacy to their children.

 

There we are. Prayer works. Prayer changes people. Prayer changes things. God wants to intervene in your little world where you live, and He wants to do mighty miracles. In James it says, “We have not because we ask not.”

 

What I want to share with you now are three things that hopefully will inspire you and stir your heart to keep praying and pray more. I want to share with you why it’s important to pray with others. We know why it’s important to have a quiet time—there are a lot of seminars on that. But I really get excited about sharing with the Body of Christ the importance of praying with others in the Body. I’m going to just talk a little bit about that, and then I want to share what the results are when we pray with each other. Then I’m going to go through the four steps of prayer and how you can have a powerful, effective prayer life.

 

Let’s go with the first one. Why is it important that we pray with each other? Because God says to. When God tells us to do something, then we know it’s of His heart, and it’s very important. He says there is greater power when we pray together. The prayer principle on that is in Ecclesiastes: “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work…. Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three stands is not quickly broken” (Eccles. 4:9, 12). I love that prayer principle.

 

The other prayer principle in Deuteronomy is, “How could one man chase a thousand, or two put ten thousand to flight?” (Deut. 32:30). There’s power in unified prayer.

 

In Matthew 18:19, Jesus says, “Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven.” What a promise! If we pray according to His will and His Word, and we unite together, He says that what we ask for will be done. And in verse 20, He goes on to say “for where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.”

 

I don’t know of any other place in the Bible where God so distinctly says where His presence is. When you pray together with other women in one accord, there is the presence of Jesus, the reality of His presence and power like no place else, because in Ephesians it talks about, “We know the fullness of Christ when we’re with each other.”

 

You see, if I’m the thumb, I will pray how the Holy Spirit directs me to pray, but I’m the thumb. I can’t pray how the pointer finger would pray or the middle finger or the ring finger. And then there are the toes, and then the hip … so you see what I’m saying? When the Body comes together in praise, we experience the fullness of Christ, because He’s the Head. Isn’t that just exciting to think about?

 

Don’t you learn when you hear other people pray? Yes, the disciples said to Jesus, “Teach me to pray.… Teach us to pray,” because they saw what happened in Jesus when He would come down from that mountain after talking with the Heavenly Father. And so what happens is not only does Jesus teach us through the power of His Holy Spirit in what to pray, but we teach one another.

 

There will be times when I’m in my prayer group and another mom will be praying for my granddaughter or grandson, and I say in my heart, “Oh, Lord, if I would have thought of that, that’s exactly what I would have said.” Right? I write things down about how other moms and grandmas pray, because I want to be a learner to prayer as well, to express my thoughts to the Father.

 

Sometimes there’s groanings. We don’t even know what to say, and that’s okay, too. Sometimes I just walk around the house when I’m in a situation that I feel like I’m in a fog, and I just don’t know what to do. I just say, “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,” and that’s a prayer.

 

When I wrote the book Every Child Needs a Praying Mom, I said Jesus a lot. I would go sit down to type, and I would get up, and I’d be in a fog. I’d just walk around the house saying, “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.” In other words, “Come manifest Yourself to me. I need Your help. I don’t know what to do. I feel confused or lost or whatever.”

 

God is so wonderful as a Dad. My little grandkids, when they’re little, they don’t know how to speak yet. But they come up to me, and they say all kinds of things. I have no idea what they’re talking about. I’ll say, “Well, can you point to it?” to understand. God always understands when we can’t express ourselves.

 

That’s why I love praying together. Not only does God tell us to, but we need each other. We teach one another to pray.

 

We really do have the power of God through prayer, and we help one another as we pray together. We know that more than any other power that is out there, we have the greatest power. Imagine a woman on her knees, and around her are all these military weapons. “Oh, Lord, imbed that on our hearts that when we pray, it is more powerful than any power anywhere on earth.”

 

And this is what we want to pass to the next generation—that our descendants will know that God is God, and He will hear and answer their prayers. That’s why little Mikayla, she’s got the sword in her hand—she doesn’t really know that yet—but it’s the power of God’s Word. And that’s what we want to pass down to the next generation, the power of God’s Word.

 

Another reason why it’s important that we pray together is we’re stronger together, and we need each other. It’s like what happens when the sun comes to the earth, and you put a magnifying glass over that leaf. Because of the multiplied power in that magnifying glass, the rays refracting and reflecting can actually burn up a leaf. That’s pretty interesting, isn’t it? It’s pretty amazing.

 

You know where I’m going with this—your prayer partners are that magnifying glass, and we speak to the Son. The synergy of our prayers multiplied affect the person, the situation, the circumstance that we’re praying about, and God intervenes, and the power of the Holy Spirit comes upon that person.

 

When I was praying for another one of my sons in high school, and our group was praying for him, it was like, “Oh, Lord, put the fire of Your Holy Spirit on that boy. Burn up the sin. Oh, that he might know how awesome You are.” Just think of that magnifying glass—how powerful that is when we pray with others. Why is it important that we pray together? We truly are stronger together.

 

Why is it important that we pray together? I love this one—it’s just on the personal note of moms—it’s to experience the joy of other mothers, grandmothers loving your child through prayer. To hear somebody else say your child’s name in prayer is absolutely, well, it’s teary. They care. Who else can understand your struggles as another mom can? The issues that we go through are real, and many of us have the same issues, but there’s an understanding. I love that when I pray with others, there’s no condemnation.

 

What happens when we pray with others? When we pray, God changes us. When we pray, He changes our prayers as we pray with others, and fears are replaced with hope.

 

When we pray with others, we learn to trust God’s heart. When we don’t understand His ways, we learn to trust His heart, especially when we hear that other mother praying with such faith. It causes our faith to grow.

 

Our passion for prayer becomes ignited again when we get together. It’s kind of an accountability group, actually. No, we don’t wait until we just get together and pray with others and that’s all the praying we do. But there’s something about the fullness of Christ in that prayer group that ignites our prayer and fans the flame of our prayer.

 

Praying with others helps you to be a more confident prayer. One mom said it like this, in light of deep bonds that take place when you pray with others: “I didn’t know when I started praying with the other mom that God would bless me with a friendship that I didn’t know I needed. It continues to flourish as we pray together.”

 

Praying with others helps us keep our focus on what is eternal. Prayer is the best time investment we can give our children.

 

What are these four powerful prayers that we can pray? In James it says that “the fervent prayer of a righteous woman is dynamic in its power,” or another way to say it is, “a fervent prayer of a righteous woman is powerful and effective.” Well, those are the kinds of prayers that we want to have, right? We want to have powerful, effective prayers. We want to come to the throne with confidence. How do we do that?

 

I’m going to talk about the prayers of praise. When we begin to praise God for who He says He is, we start trusting Him. There’s a verse in Psalm 9:10 that says, “Those who know Your name will trust You.”  Do we know His name? We might be able to rattle off the attributes, but do we know Him experientially? Have we seen His compassion in a situation? Have we seen His all-powerful hand come and intervene on a situation that we’ve been praying about for a long time? God’s attributes, His name, lived out experientially causes our trust to grow. God is who He says He is.

 

We’re living in perilous times. In Psalm 11:3 it says, “When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do?” Our foundations, it seems like they’re being destroyed right now. I love this answer. David says in the Psalms, “the mountains can be thrown into the midst of the sea, but I shall not be shaken.” How do we get there? “The Lord is in his holy temple; the Lord is on his heavenly throne” (Ps. 11:4). What can the righteous do? Look up. See God on the throne in all of who He is.

 

Corrie Ten Boon said, “Trust your unknown future to a known God.”

 

I’m going to teach you a little five-finger play that my girls are teaching my grandchildren, and I try and reinforce it when they come over. The five-finger attribute play is this: Always there; always answers; always understands; always loves; and always forgives.

 

Let me go back. I’m going to give you the Scripture. Hebrews 13:5—this is what God says to you, precious daughter, precious beloved one, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”

 

I want to tell you this—you might feel lonely at times, but you are never alone.

 

Always answers—Psalm 34:17: “The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles.” Hallelujah. He always answers.

 

Always understands—Psalm 103:14 and Psalm 139:13. “For He knows how we are formed.… You knit me together in my mother’s womb.” Our personality, our giftedness, how we think. He formed us.

 

Always forgives. Earlier today, we heard Karen, in just a beautiful way as she shared 1 John 1:9, about confessing our sin. My little hint here is don’t wait until the day goes by and think, Hmmm, did I sin today? No. Be conscious of the Holy Spirit throughout the day. “That was an angry, critical thought toward her.” “Oh, Lord, You’re right. I’m so sorry for that. I don’t want to think that way.” That’s confession. That’s keeping your heart pure as you go along throughout the day.

 

And He always loves. Jeremiah 31:3: “I have loved you with an everlasting love.” You know what? Right now we’re going to praise Him. All together, with one voice, with these five. We’re just going to say it out loud. We’re going to say, “Heavenly Father, You’re always there. You’re always …” and we’re going to do it right now. God is just going to be so blessed to hear His daughters speak truth. We know His name. Are we ready?

 

Heavenly Father, we praise You that You are always there; always answer; always understand; always forgive, and always love.”

 

Prayers of praise will keep you from being shaken.

 

The second powerful principle of prayer that I want to share with you is this whole thing of forgiveness.

 

You know when I shared with you James 5:16 that says “the prayer of a righteous woman is powerful and effective”? Well, we go to the power and effective stuff, and we kind of miss that little word righteous. I heard this phrase, and it was just like it pierced my soul. There is power in purity.

 

Sin is like a clogged up drain that the water can’t get through. Confession unclogs the sin in our hearts so that Christ can live His life freely and unhindered through us. The result of that is when we pray, we will be effective, there will be results, and it will be powerful, because we’re praying in the powerful name of the Lord Jesus Christ through His Holy Spirit. May they be Holy Spirit directed prayers and not self prayers.

 

Prayers of praise; prayers of confession; prayers of thanksgiving. God tells us to give thanks, for this is His will. You say, “Oh, I want to know the will of God.” Okay, here it is, girls. Here’s one of His wills—that we are thankful women. We are thankful when the answers come, and we give Him glory for it. He deserves the thanks. It honors Him, but we also thank Him when the answer does not come, because we’re saying, “God, apparently You’re still doing something under the ground; there’s something else that needs to be happening before that answer comes.”

 

And He wants us to be intentional about watching for the answers. That’s why I love to keep a prayer journal. I love writing down my prayer requests, because sometimes I forget what I asked. But I’ve gone back, and I say, “Oh, Lord, You answered that three months ago, and I didn’t even say ‘Thank You.’ I’m so sorry. Thank You so much.” Has that ever happened to you? Keep your requests so you can be sure that you give Him the thanks, because He’s the one that answered.

 

The personal benefits of a thankful heart are that we will have a gracious spirit, a joyful spirit. Our attitudes change. When we have a thankful spirit, it crowds out depression, fear, discouragement, and self-pity. How can we thank God and have these other things looming? Thanksgiving changes our mental attitude because we’re resting in God’s plan and not ours.

 

Prayers of praise—you won’t be shaken.

 

Prayers of confession—your prayers will be answered because of your purity.

 

Prayers of thanksgiving—it’s God’s will, and it will change your attitudes.

 

These are pretty powerful prayers. They work. And as I continue to pray them, God’s still working on me, little by little. I don’t have it all together, but I know the truth of His Word, and I want to live by it.

 

The last principle I want to share with you is prayers of intercession. I want to give you the distinction between two words—supplication and intercession. Supplication includes yourself—praying for yourself, and you should. We’ve talked about that with the other three kinds of prayers. But intercession is praying on behalf of someone else. It’s praying for another. It’s praying for your husband, your child, your pastor, your schoolteacher—whoever. Intercession is always for somebody else. It’s standing in the gap for that person, asking God to intervene in their life in specific ways and in scriptural ways.

 

I love the sword of the Spirit, the Bible, because it is a powerful, powerful weapon. God says in His Word in Isaiah 55:11, “It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” So, that’s what I prayed for Troy because he wasn’t in the Word of God, and how can he follow the Lord in a determined, intentional manner if he doesn’t know the ways of the Lord that are revealed through the Word? In Colossians there’s this verse that talks about “the Word of God would dwell in Troy richly,” and so I just prayed that prayer for him a lot—“Oh, God, that Your Word would dwell in him richly. That You would draw him to Your Word. That he would love Your Word.”

 

I think it was his freshman year in college, I can’t remember, but he just got so excited about the Word, and he wanted to memorize it. So, he started memorizing Scripture after Scripture after Scripture, and then he made this chart. This is above and beyond what I hoped would happen. When you pray, you don’t know how God is going to answer.

 

Troy made this big chart on the wall, and he had a hundred Scripture verses all written out in their little block. I could go in and say, “Troy, what does …” and I would say the reference, and he would quote it just like that. The Word of God dwelt in him richly.

 

God’s Word is powerful. Praying God’s Word is praying God’s Word, and women, it turns us from timid prayers to confident prayers, faith-believing prayers. To pray with confidence for our children and grandchildren, pray the Word of God. It is alive. It is powerful. It is active.

 

One woman said this: “I had never really prayed Scripture before for my children, and putting Jonathan’s name in a verse so it applies directly to him has opened my eyes to how powerful the Scriptures are and the privilege I have of wrapping his name around the Word.” Don’t you love that? See why we need each other? I never would have thought of that. I thought, “Oh, what a cool visual is that. We just wrap his name around the Word of God … we just wrap that child.”

 

I find great peace in knowing that I can depend on the constant and unchangeable promises of God. God’s promises are true. He says it’s not His will that any should perish. That’s why I pray salvation verses all the time. I will be driving in the car, and I’ll see somebody walking down the road, and I’ll say, “Lord, I don’t know if this person is a Christian or not, but if they don’t know You, I ask that You would draw them to Yourself and save their soul.”

 

It’s unceasing prayer. These are four principles of prayer that you can use in your quiet time or in a prayer group, but it is also four principles of prayer that you can use throughout the day. There are times that your heart is just going to want to praise. There are times when I go to bed at night, and I’m so full of joy and thanksgiving of what God has done that day, I just do a lot of thanksgiving before I go to sleep that night. And then there are some days, because I just don’t know what’s going on with me, I do a lot of confession that day. And then there are some days that there is just a lot of intercession. Do you see what I mean? Unceasingly talking to your Heavenly Father. You never bother Him. Don’t ever, ever, ever think you come to Him too much. My grandchildren never come to me too much. I say, “Come on, kids.”

 

We’re going to personalize some Scripture. You each got a prayer card. Would you get that prayer card out? We’re going to stand in a minute, and I’m going to ask you now to ask God who He wants you to pray for. We’re going to pray God’s will and His Word right here altogether, but when we come to the little blank place where the name goes, we’re going to pray with confidence, because this is God’s will and it’s His Word.

 

We’re going to intercede for somebody you love. We’re going to intercede for somebody that you’ve been praying for or maybe this is the first time, but God has laid upon your heart a person He wants you to intercede for. This is how we’re going to do it: We’re going to pray the Scripture. We won’t pray the caption, but we’ll pray the Scripture, say the reference, and we’ll go right on to the next one, and we’re going to go through all of these out loud together. Okay?

 

Father, I pray that Josh will know that Jesus is the way and the truth and the life; no one comes to You except through Him. John 14:6

 

May Josh hide Your Word in his heart that he might not sin against You. Psalm 119:11.

 

May You fill Josh with the knowledge of Your will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. And I pray this in order that Josh may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please You in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of You. Colossians 1:9–10.

 

God Most High, I ask that You would command Your angels concerning Josh to guard Josh in all his ways. Psalm 91:11.

 

Dear Father, I ask that You would clothe Josh with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Colossians 3:12.

 

Dear God, protect Josh from a spirit of timidity and give him a spirit of power, of love, and of self-discipline. 2 Timothy 1:7.

 

Do I hear an amen? Amen! Give your little neighbor a hug, and tell her that God heard those prayers and will answer, and then I’m going to say a prayer blessing on you.

 

My precious women, before you leave me I want to pray a prayer of blessing on you. I know I could have kept you a little longer, but I don’t know if you’re as hot as I am. I thank you for staying with me and not leaving, but I do want to ask if you would really grab a hold and think about how to pass down a legacy from your life of faith, love, and prayer. It’s never too late to start. We need to pass that torch of Christ to the next generation, and your life matters. You will make a difference in the life that God has given you and your family and your extended family.

 

I really thank you for coming to want to learn more about prayer, and I pray more than anything that your relationship with Jesus will just grow so sweet and so precious, and that you will always know He loves you—loves you dearly when you’re good and when you’re bad.

 

Heavenly Father, I do bless these women in the name of Jesus. Oh, Father, keep them close to Your heart. Be gracious to them. May Your face shine upon them and give them peace. May they know the love of Christ, how wide and high, how long and deep is Your love, and may they, Father, be intentional about spending time with You. I pray that for each family represented here and their descendants, that not one would be lost. In Jesus’ name.

 

Woman: This message was presented at True Woman ’08 in Chicago. Check out all of the messages delivered there and more by visiting www.TrueWoman.com. There you’ll find even more ways to connect from books and resources you can order for yourself, your friends, or your life group to on-demand multi-media to ongoing conversations you can be a part of, and we’re updating it all the time.

 

True Woman ’08 is a ministry of Revive Our Hearts, helping you become God’s true woman.

 

All Scripture references are taken from The Holy Bible: New International Version®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.