Your Personal Prayer Strategy

In John 4, Jesus and his disciples were walking toward Galilee and were passing through Samaria. Tired from the journey, Jesus sat down by a well while his disciples scooted off to a nearby town to pick up some food.  A Samaritan woman came to the well to draw water and Jesus spoke to her saying, “Will you give me a drink?”

There is all kinds of background and context to this exchange but in the course of the conversation between Jesus and this woman, she comes to realize that Jesus is someone very special, the long awaited Messiah.

Once she realizes this, she leaves her water jug where it is, hurries back to her town and says to the people there, “Come, see a man who told me everything I did. Could he be the Messiah?”

And the people respond. They come out to the well to meet Jesus for themselves where they eventually are lead to say, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”

Making disciples begins with telling others about the good news of Jesus; the gospel.  As we train people to make disciples, we find it helpful to answer a few simple questions to help people get started.

This story helps us answer the question of who. Who should we share with?
 
Who did the Samaritan woman share with? She went back to her town and shared with the people who knew her and by whom she was known.  There is a relationship already established. And this is the place where we are all called to start making disciples.

In Acts 17, the Apostle Paul is speaking at the Areopagus in Athens and he says, “From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands.”

Have you ever thought that you are where you are, that you have the neighbors and co-workers that you do because God appointed you to be their neighbor or co-worker or friend right where you are?  Paul continues by telling us why this is so: “God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.”

Like the Samaritan woman, we have neighbors, friends and acquaintances who need to hear about the the good news of the Kingdom of God.  

And it’s no mistake that you are in their lives!

God wants to use you to introduce them to Himself.

Action Step
Our lives are busy!  Too often we get going through our days and weeks and, without some intentional effort, we easily miss the opportunities that God is putting before us. I too often find myself with my head down and it’s go, go, go.  

At our E2E events one of the training strategies we use is to have everyone take five minutes to pray about their life and think about the people in their life.  We then have them make a list on a note card of everyone they can think of who they think is far from God. I’d like to challenge you to do this activity right now for yourself.  

Here are the four steps:

1. Take a minute to pray and ask the Holy Spirit to bring to mind everyone you know who is not walking with Him, who is far from God.
2. On a sheet of paper, note card or in a document on your phone, write down every name that the Spirit brings to mind.  
3. Take a few minutes to pray about every person on that list right now.  Ask the Lord to remove the blinders of darkness, to soften their hearts and draw them to Himself.  Ask the Lord to use you to share His love with them.
4. Make a plan.  Make a plan to pray over this list every day.  Some people set a daily alarm on their phone that goes off every day to remind them to pray.  Others post the list on their mirror at home or on their dashboard for their morning commute. Find what works best for you and determine to pray every day.  This is your prayer strategy.

If you can do this; if you can begin to pray daily, I can almost guarantee that God will begin using you.  You’ll find your friends suddenly asking questions about God. You’ll find that you are more readily transitioning to spiritual conversations and that you conversations are more fruitful than you would have imagined.  

God delights to answer these kinds of prayers for our lost friends and family members.

And then they won't believe just because of what we have said, but will believe because they have met the Lord Jesus!

Did you find this article helpful? --- Click here to subscribe to the blog.