(upbeat music) - Podcast listener Nathan writes in to ask about prayer. Pastor John, I'd like to see 2016 become a revival in my prayer life. I want to be honest when I tell people I pray for them. I read through many theologies of prayer, but I would love to hear any practical tips or methods for praying for others, specifically for a spouse, for children, for the lost, for leadership, for friends, for the infirm, et cetera.

Do you have any suggestions to help refresh my prayer life? - It may seem too obvious to be mentioned, but in my experience, there's real motivating power to see my obvious duties stated with simple clarity in the very words of scripture themselves, instead of just kind of vaguely knowing that I have a duty to actually see what the Bible says.

So let's start there to help Nathan and ourselves, 'cause all of us share his desire probably. The Bible commends what Nathan is longing for, namely regular prayer for other people specifically. It does so with explicit commands and by numerous examples. For example, the command James 5:16, "Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed." So Nathan should take heart that his desire is exactly in line with what God wants him to do.

Pray, pray for other people, pray for one another. The one another in that text implies that the people you're connected with are people you should pray for, not only, but for sure, pray for them. And to do so is to please God. It's what he tells us to do, to do it pleases him.

And that should just give us a warm, sweet, comforted sense that when we get on our knees and intercede for somebody, God is smiling upon us because we're doing what he said to do. And then there's the examples of Scripture, not just the commands that tell us what to do, but the examples of Scripture where, for example, Paul is praying for his kinsmen, Romans 10, 1, "Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved." Wow, I can't tell you how many times that text has encouraged me to see Paul earnestly interceding with his father for the people he loves to be saved.

So just to hear those words in Scripture can be very encouraging and motivating, powering for us to press on. He's praying for unbelievers there, but he also prays for believers in Ephesians 1, and Ephesians 3, and Colossians 1, and Philippians 1, those great prayers of Paul. Wow, I would just encourage Nathan and all of us, meditate long and pray through the prayers of Paul.

The Philippians 1 goes like this, Philippians 1, 9, "It is my prayer that your love may abound more and more with knowledge and all discernment so that you may prove what is excellent and be pure and blameless for the day of Christ." I have found these prayers of Paul incredibly valuable, both in inspiring me to pray for others this way, but showing me, modeling for me how to do it.

And that's what I would encourage us to do, just make those prayers so much a part of us that we can't help but pray this way for other people. And then there are Paul's invitations to us to pray for him, I mean, to the readers of his letters, to pray for him.

2 Thessalonians 3, "Brethren, pray for us that the word of the Lord may speed on in triumph." And Romans 15, 30, "I appeal to you, brethren, by the Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, strive together with me in your prayers to God on my behalf so that I may be delivered from the unbelievers in Judea, that my service for Jerusalem may be acceptable." I mean, for me to hear the greatest man who ever existed, I think, short of Jesus, to have him ask for prayer this way is so life-giving, so warm, it just makes me wanna get on my knees and do that for somebody, because Paul, if he needed it, good night.

Everybody we know needs prayer like that. So I think that's about the most motivating thing I could say, that God tells us to pray, and then he gives lots of examples for how to do it, and he loves to see us do it, which is why probably Revelation 5, 8 describes the prayers in the golden bowls in the hands of the elders as incense before God.

I mean, what does incense before God do? Well, it just fills his room with pleasant fragrance. That's what it does. And what a beautiful image to get out on your knees with and say, "I am right now going to light a sweet-smelling lamp or candle, and it's gonna fill the room of heaven with a fragrance this afternoon or this morning that God is gonna be pleased by." Well, that's the most important thing I could say, but that's not what Nathan asked for.

He asked for tips. He asked for suggestions. So here they go. I'm just gonna bang away. And really, these don't have biblical authority because these are just kind of growing out of Piper's experience, and that's what saints should do for each other. We should just share what we've discovered.

So number one, use a list. Break it up in categories. We're talking about people now, all right? You probably, over time, are gonna know more people, have more people ask you to pray, have your circles of relationships grow so that one list is hopeless, right? You gotta break it up into pieces, various groups.

And I find that creating a notebook in Evernote on my iPad, I've got a notebook called Prayer, and under Prayer, I have these different kind of groupings, and you can add people to various lists, and then you can decide on when you're gonna pray for those people. So use lists.

Number two, think and pray in concentric circles with the closest relationships near the center, and then moving out to the more anonymous prayers for groups and ministries and nations. So for example, in my Evernote folder, I move from my immediate family at home, that's three of us, well, actually two now, that Talitha's in college, but used to be three, out from there to the children and the grandchildren who live away, and then out from there to the ministries I'm associated with and the people in Bethlehem Baptist Church and Desiring God Ministries and Bethlehem College and Seminary, a whole slew of people that I pray for there, and then I move out to the church planters that I know and the Treasure and Christ Together Fellowship, and then I move out to ministries like Together for the Gospel and TGC and TLI and a lot of friends there that are on my list, and then I move out to my neighborhood and a few people I've written down in the neighborhood and sometimes just in my jogging evangelism that I do in good weather, and I'll meet people and they'll tell me their name and I ask them what I can pray for, and that goes on one of my lists.

So concentric circles is one way I handle the diversity of those lists. Third, pray the Word of God over these people. This will keep your prayers from being merely repetitive, right? Read the Word of God first, meditate on it, pray in it, and then pray what God shows you from the Word for the people that are appointed to be prayed for that day.

Fourth, periodically assess your prayers for them by comparing what you pray with what the New Testament prays. I gathered in one place, and I think this is available. - Yeah, I'll find the link. - We could check, Tony, and make it available. I think it's available at Desiring God.

I gathered into one place all of the things that are prayed for in the New Testament. It's a list about, I don't know, it's about 40 different kinds of prayers, and I use that list not every day, but periodically I just run through it and say, okay, am I neglecting anything important that the New Testament prayed for?

Number five, mingle general prayers with specific prayers. A lot of people are skittish about general prayers. I love general prayers, like, "Hallowed be thy name all over the world." That's a big general prayer. Both specific prayers are important. So a specific prayer might be, "Grant that Bill would find a job this week.

"He's been out of work, Lord, help him find a job." That's specific. You can just bang, you can see the answer to that immediately. General prayer would be, "Lord, cause Bill to love you more "and to treasure you above all." Well, that's a lot harder to detect, right? But so crucial that you pray for.

Number six, I've only got seven. Number six, be quiet over the people and see if God brings things to mind that people might need today, and then pray those things if God brings anything specific to mind. And lastly, I would say, look for answers, take note of them, keep some kind of record, maybe in your journal or in another folder of answers.

And what keeps it all fresh and authentic is the way it all flows from the Word and goes back to the Word, the Scriptures. And I can't stress enough that we don't wanna become rote, we don't wanna become mechanical and repetitive. And the best way to do that is let the Word be fresh daily and let the Word make your prayers for people fresh daily.

Yeah, such good counsel. Thank you, Pastor John. And when it comes to praying God's Word, I'll add the link to the podcast transcript. And this is probably a good time to remind you that we do release transcripts of the audio recordings as we release them. And you can find those at our online home at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.

And when it comes to praying the Bible, see Don Carson's book, "A Call to Spiritual Reformation, "Priorities from Paul and His Prayers," really excellent book. And Don Whitney has a new book titled, "Praying the Bible." Both of those books are really helpful in taking the words of Scripture to help orient our own prayers to God.

I'm your host, Tony Reinke, and we will return tomorrow. See you then. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)