Iliff and Saltillo UM
October 24, 2004
"How to Pray for Your Children"
Philippians 4:4-7
INTRODUCTION: A bumper sticker read, "I have teenagers! Pray for me!"
If you have teenagers, you might feel this way at times. However, today we’re going to talk about how you can pray for your children. Today’s scripture encourages us to pray for many things.
The Message Bible puts it this way. "Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life."
How do you go about shaping your concerns about your children or grandchildren or other children you come into contact with into meaningful prayers that will make a difference?
I don’t think most of us think about the many creative ways we can pray that will make an impact on our families. Have you ever prayed and you found the same tired, boring words repetitiously coming out of your mouth? Like saying out of habit, "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep..." or the blessing over your meals, "God is great, God is good..." I believe we can add specific things to these "starter" prayers that will make them fit our particular situation and make them more powerful, effective prayers.
Look back at your own life. Who prayed for you? How did you think they prayed? What were they asking God to do in your life? Maybe you’ll never know whose prayers shaped your life, but starting today you can conscientiously pray more effectively for those under your care.
There are four general areas in which we can target our prayers. We find this in scripture. Luke 2:52 says that "Jesus increased in wisdom (academic) and in stature (physical), and in favor with God (spiritual) and man (social)." Many times we pray that children will be HAPPY and do well in school or excel in sports or music or any number of things.
First of all we see in this scripture that Jesus had a balanced life--he grew strong physically and was in good health. He increased in wisdom and knowledge--the academic part of his life. And in favor with God--the spiritual and with man--the social side of his life.
Here are some ideas which will help us to pray more effectively in these four areas:
1. Spiritual:
1. Pray that they will come to know Christ as Savior early in life.
John 17:3 says, "Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent."
At baptism a person takes the first step toward the Lord. John Wesley talked about the prevenient grace of God that goes before to open up the way for spiritual desire to take place. An infant is baptized and his/her parents and the church assume responsibility for teaching, praying for, guiding and directing that child until he/she fully understands what it means to receive Christ for himself/herself. An adult who is baptized comes making a public confession that he/she has received Christ and intends to follow in His footsteps.
We don’t know all the many ways that the prevenient grace of God works in a person’s life to bring him/her to the knowledge of salvation.
Pray that your children and grandchildren will come to know Christ early in life.
Samuel was another person who scripture says, "Grew in favor with the Lord" (I Samuel 2:26) (Spiritual).
2. Pray that they will be willing to make a TOTAL commitment to the Lord--that He will not only be their SAVIOR but LORD OF THEIR LIFE as well. If your children make Jesus their number one priority, they will be able to make better choices.
STORY: One Sunday morning two masked gunmen came charging into a church. People scattered in all directions with very few people remaining.
The gunmen took off their masks, put down their guns and said,
"Now that all the hypocrites are gone, you can start the service."
3. Pray that they will have a hatred for sin. Psalm 97:10 says, "Let those who love the Lord hate evil, for he guards the lives of his faithful ones and deliver them from the hand of the wicked."
4. Pray that they will be caught when guilty. Psalm 119:71 says, "It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees."
The Message Bible says, "My troubles turned out all for the best--they forced me to learn from your textbook" (Psalm 119:71).
It is said that "Bad Behaviors are like Trees. They’re a lot easier to remove when they’re still seedlings." Pray that bad behavior will be nipped in the bud before it gets so deeply ingrained that it is hard to change.
Allow children to feel the consequences when they do wrong. Don’t be the person who bails them out all the time. Allow "troubles to teach good lessons" rather than enabling them to continue in their wrong ways.
5. Parents say, "I don’t want them to suffer, they won’t take responsibility for their actions, and I have to step in and be the rescuer." Don’t be the "bail out person" but rather pray that they will learn to totally submit to God and learn how to actively resist Satan in all circumstances. James 4:7 says, "Submit yourselves to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you."
2. SOCIAL: A second area of concern is in relationships. Pray that they don’t choose friends who will be detrimental to them and lead them into wrong. There are several scriptures that show that we don’t have to be led astray. One is in the prayer we say every week--we say, "and deliver us from evil"--we live in a world of many temptations and pitfalls but we don’t have to stumble and fall into sin.
Jesus told his disciples, you’re living in a world of temptation but "my prayer is not that you will be [taken out] of the world but that you will be [protected] from the evil one. John 17:15.
1. Pray that God will protect them from evil in each area of their life--spiritual, social, academic, and physical.
2. Pray that they will have a responsible attitude in all their interpersonal relationships.
Throughout life we have many different kinds of friends.
Some will be "good time" friends only staying by our side when we’re having fun.
Then there are "what’s in it for me friends." When benefits run out, they drop you.
A true friend will find something positive to say about your new perm even though it looks like you took a bath with the toaster.
A true friend can see you at your worst and not take pictures.
3. Pray that they will desire the right kind of friends and be protected from the wrong ones.
Proverbs 1:10, 11 says, "...if sinners entice you, do not give in to them." Pray that they won’t go along with the crowd when peer pressure tempts them. Pray that God will lead them to the right mate as well.
4. Pray that they will be hedged in so they cannot find their way to wrong people and wrong places and that wrong people can’t find their way to them. Job prayed for his family in this way.
3. Academic: School work should be important. Pray that they will strive to excel in the academic part of their lives.
1. Work--Pray, "teach my children, Lord, to work hard at everything they do ‘as working unto the Lord, not for men" (Colossians 3:23).
2. Self-discipline--Pray, "Father, I pray that my children may develop self discipline, that they may acquire a ‘disciplined and prudent life, doing what is right and just and fair" (Proverbs 1:3).
3. Servant heart--Pray that they will develop a servant heart. Say, "God, please help my children to develop a servant heart that they may SERVE
wholeheartedly rather than BEING SERVED all the time.
4. PHYSICAL: Pray that they will not begin habits that will be detrimental to a strong and healthy body. I Corinthians 6:19 says, "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit?" Pray that your children will not begin to experiment with drugs, alcohol and tobacco in the first place.
2. I Timothy 2:11 says "abstain from sinful desires that war against your soul."
STORY: There was a newspaper article about a pet boa constrictor that squeezed the life out of its teenage owner.
The boy’s parents were distraught and lamented to the reporter, "we trusted that snake."
How often do we allow something harmful into our lives--bad habits, poor judgments, compromising actions, undesirable friends and refuse to let go until we are caught in sin’s deadly "squeeze."
3. Pray that they will maintain a life of physical fitness--I Timothy 4:8 says, "for physical training is of some value..." Studies show that children have more of a problem with obesity, diabetes and other health concerns than at any other time in history. Pray for your child’s good health.
CONCLUSION: I would like to conclude with this prayer.
A Parent’s Prayer
Dear Lord,
Help us as parents to be what we want our children to be.
To see Christ in us, especially when we are tired and rushed. Help us never to be too busy to stop and listen to them with all our attention.
Lord, guide us so that we will have no habits that we would not want them to have. Give us the courage to withhold a privilege which we think would not be best for them. Lord, let them see that the
Christian life is the greatest life on earth.
Lord, what we want more than anything else is to love them and care for them as you love and care for us. Thank you for being my loving Father. Help us to be their loving parents.
Amen
Author Unknown
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Marilyn Murphree
ICQ#: 58855823
