3 Daily Essential Prayers

3 Daily Essential Prayers

Sister Miki Terayama - 30 August 2020

Weekend Devotions: 3 Daily Essential Prayers

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Hello brothers and sisters. A blessed Sunday to all of you. Now, just a quick question, does anyone of you have challenges when it comes to matters of prayers? Sometimes, we may be in spiritual darkness, numbness, struggles or fatigue, while other times, everything may seem fine or stagnant. Whether we are on either side of the spectrum, we may be unsure of what or how to pray for ourselves. This was a struggle I had for the longest time even after I have come to Christ for awhile, and even though I thought I have been praying, but instead of being strengthened, I start to lose conviction and felt lost. If you are ever in this state or meet someone in this situation, a place to find our answer is in what David has said in his simple prayer from <Psalm 51:12>. He said “Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.” Whenever David is faced with trials of all kinds, he always placed his focus on praying to God first. Thus, in our “valley” moments, let this verse be a reminder of putting our heart into prayers first. Now, it may still seem vague as we just read through that one-liner verse. So, what should we pray about exactly, you may ask. Today, let us find out what are the 3 essential things we can pray for each day.

 

Pray for Restored Joy

The first thing we should pray for is to restore our joy. What is this joy? It is the joy of salvation by Christ, and we need to be reminded of this daily. We need to see that because we believe in His love and grace, in His finished work on the cross that redeemed us from our sins, and we believe the value of having Him as the Master of our hearts, we can then have the joy of salvation. However, the hustle and bustle of our present society often robs away our joy. Therefore, if we are not assured about our salvation, we will easily be wavered when the influence and troubles of the world comes. That is why, many believers feel that they have come to the Lord for a couple of years, yet they still cannot experience the joy as a child of God. We need to affirm that God has already made a new way for us through His precious blood. Thus, God’s heart embraces us, He does not hide His mercies for us, His help will come to us and He has the authority to remove the insinuations and accusations that oppresses us. Brothers and sisters, if we do not draw near to our salvational God, our spirits will roam in unrest, insatiable desires, and clinging onto many temporal matters, losing our joy. When we truly pray for a restored joy and see the value of our salvation in Christ, the peace, happiness and wisdom from above will be given to us and God will surely provide for us sufficiently. In fact, the strength of this joy far exceeds our present troubles, darkness, disappointments and hurts.

 

Pray for a Clean Heart and Righteous Spirit

Now let us turn to the bible. <Psalm 51:10> “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” Brethren, in our daily living, there are countless information, thoughts and ideas that are pouring into our hearts, and what our environment does is to make us forget about God, distancing ourselves from His concerns, and desire our own comfort, men’s approval and earthly gains, not realising how it will cause us to feel empty eventually. Therefore, the next essential thing we need to pray for is a clean heart and righteous spirit, as it is said in the verse we read. Now, I am not saying that our hearts cannot be weak at all. There will be times where we are triggered by anger, have emotional outbursts, let loose in our actions or say things that hurt others. But whatever our weaknesses, conditions and experiences may be, we should not hide from God or avoid bringing all our burdens before Him. When we pray to Him, let Him examine our hearts to help us accept His truth into our spirits, He will not rebuke us. When we are righteous before God about all our wrongs and shortcomings, we will naturally regain a clean heart. When that moment comes, even if we are imperfect, we will be seen as blameless before Him as we are honest about our limitations and need for Him.

 

Pray for a Heart that Willingly Submits to God

Finally, we need to pray for a heart that willingly submits to God. It does not matter if we are willing to submit yesterday or tomorrow. What matters is our submission today, in the present. Now I realised that this is one of the hardest thing to do as a child of God. Most times, it is not because it is too difficult, but because there are too many burdens and bondages of sins, or some temporal satisfaction that we want to pursue. All these makes us doubt God’s full provision and presence. Therefore, we truly need to pray for God to give us a willing heart to submit. In other words, we need to wrestle with God in prayers against our bondages to restore this submissive heart. How do we wrestle? We need to wrestle till we are willing to put ourselves down and let God take the throne in our hearts, that means to let His truth be our guide, instead of our own intentions. This must go on until our heart matches His. If you feel that you are unable to do so or you do not have the conviction to submit, you must know that these are all untruths and we must reject such thoughts. We need to pray for God’s help to see Him as the source of our guidance and joy. When we keep wrestling in us, keep clinging onto the truth of God, we will definitely gradually have a willing heart to submit to the Lord. If we submit to the Lord and continue running the race He has prepared for us, His blessings and glory will surely follow us no matter what situation we may be in. <2 Corinthians 4:18> “So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”

Brothers and sisters, when we are faced with troubles of all kinds, let us pray for these 3 things: to restore our joy in Him, restore a clean heart and righteous spirit and to have a willing heart that submits to His guidance daily. When we pray like this, even we are in the darkest of days, we will meet God’s love, enjoy His sovereignty and receive a liberated, joyful and contented heart.

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Miki Terayama
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Miki is a full-time ministry staff at The Blessed Run Ministries. She is a sister who shares a natural, God-given affinity with children and youths. She is married to Randy (NET Group Youth Leader) and has two little ones of her own, Liora and Jude. She is involved in the children, youth and social media ministries.

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