ICS Daily Devotions
Expand Your Prayer Horizon
Prayer for all men
1 Timothy 2:1-2 (NKJV) Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence.
As Christians, while we can walk in the Spirit to ensure that there will be peace and quietness in the home, we also need to pray for the district, the city and the country. Our prayer life should not just be centred around our personal needs or the needs of our family. Instead, we should sow in prayers for the city and take time to prayer walk or drive.
We can all start by prayer-walking in our neighbourhood when we go for our morning or evening strolls. We can pray that God will redeem places of social activities or gatherings, for the Word of God to be the subject of conversations, and for uplifting and encouraging conversations to be held.
As prayer walking is praying with insight while onsite, we will gain spiritual insight and observe places where ungodly activities like drugs and alcoholism might take place. We can pray for people to honour God in speech and behaviour, and that God will transform these places into gatherings of the saints, and that every pre-believer coming to these places will proclaim the name of Jesus and be saved.
We can pray for God to intervene in each home so that spiritual awakenings and supernatural encounters will take place, for people to have a positive dissatisfaction in their hearts that will give them a desire to know God, for whole families to come to know God, and that homes will be places of worshipping the true and living God.
We can also intercede for places of economic activities when we walk through the financial centre of the city. We can pray against the stronghold of the love of money, for people to love their fellow beings above money. We can pray that God will redeem the society and social justice will prevail, the rich will no longer oppress the poor, and for people, especially Christians, to see that God is Jehovah Jireh – our provider of all that we need. We should also pray for people to have a healthy work life balance, for the marketplace believers to be good Christian witnesses and be bold in sharing the Gospel, and for Christian fellowships to be established in the offices.
Prayer changes things. Although we may not see immediate turnarounds, we can take heart that something has already happened in the spiritual realm the moment that we prayed, and it may take time to be manifested in the natural realm. There is tremendous power in the prayer of a righteous person.
Sermon Series: A Quiet and Peaceable Life
