Prayer-School Course #5

A Spiritual Checkup For Intercessors

A PERSONAL PRAYER/INTERCESSION MODEL

These concepts are built into this prayer model. It is meant to be flexible.. a tool you build and launch form, not a rigid set of rules to hold you back or to grind you into a routine...

There are six basic steps to this model.

Step 1: Praise And Worship

1 Cor 1:4-9
4 I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given to you by Christ Jesus,
5 that you were enriched in everything by Him in all utterance and all knowledge,
6 even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you,
7 so that you come short in no gift, eagerly awaiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ,
8 who will also confirm you to the end, that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
9 God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

During this portion of prayer time, you may desire to strum a guitar, put on worship music or read sections of scripture to remind yourself of God's goodness, His faithfulness and His wonderful promises to us.

Sample prayer:

"I pray to My Lord Jesus Christ, who died for my sins on Calvary and rose from the dead, defeating Satan and death. Thank you for loving me and forgiving me and thank You for giving eternal life to me. I also pray to God my Father Who loves me and I thank You for adopting me as Your own child. I also pray to the Holy Spirit Who empowered the early Church at Pentecost and now lives inside of me. Thank you for leading and guiding and teaching me every day."

Step 2 - Invite God to lead your prayer time

Ps 31:3
For You are my rock an my fortress; therefore, for Your name's sake, lead me and guide me.

Ps 25:12
Who is the man that fears the Lord? Him shall He teach in the way He chooses.

Ps 37:23
The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and He delights in his way.

Ask the Holy Spirit to be present in your prayer time. Give God permission to supercede your agenda and change the "syllabus" if He wants to. Ask Him to guard your mind during prayer.. that He keep out things He does not want you praying about (or put a check in your spirit) and that He also brings up everything He wants to cover.

Take authority over enemy interference during the prayer time. (If you are feeling particularly laden with guilt/condemnation, you may want to do step 3 before you do this authority prayer. Otherwise, it is good to do this prayer before you examine your heart with God. It does not have to be drawn out or fancy, and the precise words are not important. But you want to take authority over the enemy and forbid him to interfere in the prayer time. Here is a sample prayer:

In Jesus' name, through His power and authority, I forbid any enemy spirits to be involved in this prayer time. I take authority over this room and I command any spirits that to now willingly bow their knee to the Lord Jesus Christ to leave, right now. I forbid confusion or fear or condemnation to any other spirit to become involved in this prayer time.

Lord Jesus, I turn this prayer time over to you and I ask you to please lead it. Do not allow anything to happen here that is not lead of Your Spirit. Holy Spirit, please lead and guide me. Make me sensitive to Your will.. able to hear Your voice. Please alert me if I inadvertently wander into any area You do not want me to cover and please remind me of all that You do want to do here today.

I ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

Step 3: Assure you're right with God

James 4:8-10
8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
9 Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into gloom.
10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.

This is very important.. it is the area that most often hinders our prayers. God considers unforgiveness a sin, and it must be dealt with before you can pray effectively. If you find it too hard to forgive someone, discuss it with God and ask Him to help you.

Matt 6:14-15
14 For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
15 But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Mark 11:25
And if you stand praying, forgive if you have anything against anyone.

Step 4: Invite God to change your nature to be more like Him

I prayed this prayer every day for a few years. I did not realize it, but God was transforming me daily as I prayed. Then one day He called to my attention about how much He had transformed me, and I was amazed.

The exact words are not important, it is the heart and attitude behind it that matter. Here is the prayer I prayed:

Lord, please transform me and make me like You. If I could change myself and present myself to You perfect, I would.. but I can't. So I am asking You to please change me.

Please change the very desires of my heart to line up with the desires of Your heart. Make me want the things You want. Let the things that are important to You become important to me. Let me love what You love and hate what You hate. Make me to disdain the things You disdain.

Please change my personal ambitions and even the motives of my heart to line up with Your motives and with Your plans and purpose and call on my life. I want to be like You. I want to desire what You desire and I want to want what You want. Change me Lord, transform me. Teach me to look at things from Your perspective, to see things Your way. Give me ears to hear Your voice and a heart to obey You.

Amen.

Here is some scriptural references for this type of prayer:

Ps 40:8
I delight to do Your will, O my God, and Your law is within my heart.

Ps 51:10-12
10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
11 Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, and uphold me by Your generous Spirit.

Ezek 36:26-27
26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
27 I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My judgements and do them.

Step 5: Prayer Time Topics

John 16:13-15
13 However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come.
14 He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.
15 All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you.

Here are some of the things He might want to do in prayer time:

• Intimacy (no petition or requests)
• Deal with areas of your life that He wants control of
• Heal past hurts or help you to forgive someone
• Review your day with you
• Have you intercede for someone else
• Share your delights with Him
• Have you tell Him about weakness or fears and turn them over to Him
• Make plans with Him: little ones (planning your day) or big life-impacting ones

Give God free reign to visit/change any area of our lives...

2 Thes 3:5
Now may the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God and into the patience of Christ.

Pray your agenda if God did not supercede it. Most of the time He will allow you to pray your prayer agenda, He does not always supercede it. While praying, if you notice that the dimension of His life and power is not there ... or if you notice that the divine intensity or unction is missing, stop and ask God to examine what you are doing with you. Invite Him to redirect you if you've wandered outside of what He is doing. Tell Him you desire to be led of His spirit as you prayer. Then go back to prayer, trusting He will direct you.

Step 6: Ending your prayer time

John 14:23
Jesus answered and said to him, "if anyone loves Me, he will keep my word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.

Ps 37:3-6
3 Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and feed on His faithfulness.
4 Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart.
5 Commit your way to the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass
6 He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light and your justice as the noonday.

A CORPORATE INTERCESSION MODEL

Practical guidelines:

1. Start with lots of worship.

2. At beginning:
     - take authority in Jesus name over enemy interference
     - invite God's presence
     - ask Him to be in control and lead us
     - give Him permission examine our hearts / convict us

3. Silence and waiting on the Lord are OK.. someone does not always have to be talking out loud during corporate prayer

4. Pray short prayers, but pray many times
     - keep any one prayer short.. 2-3 minutes
     - keep your prayer to a single subject at a time
     - if several subjects are quickened to you, choose one if a long lag (or follow on the current subject) and jot the others down so you won't forget them.
     - feel free to pray more than once on a given topic
     - when you hear a brother/sister pray something, the Holy Spirit may quicken something else to pray about the same subject.. feel free to do that.. this is building on each other's prayers as the spirit leads

5. Pray a subject through / Build on each others prayers
   a. someone starts off the topic
   b. everyone prays along the same topic as the Holy Spirit
   c. it is OK to pray more than once on a given subject
   d. feel free to share scripture that goes with the given subject as God quickens it to you
   e. build on each other's prayers as the spirit leads

6. Intersperse worship between topics

7. After long pause it is ok for someone who feels led to change topics and group press in on new topic.

8. Save personal requests and personal ministry for the end.

[Please Note:

This is intended as a discussion series. Please feel free to send your discussion (comments or questions) to prayer-school@godspeak.net. We will have online discussion each week. These discussions will NOT be put on the course WWW page.]