Earlier in 2009 I lead a men’s class that focused on building deeper prayer lives. We began by noticing that Jesus taught his original disciples to pray for the coming of the kingdom. In the parallelism of Hebrew poetry, Jesus explained this by praying that the Father’s will be done here on earth just as it is in heaven. Our world desperately needs this prayer answered today.

We spent time each week exploring a passage that carried kingdom significance. Our goal was to compose a prayer that was based on the passage for the week. All of these blogs about praying specific passages are the prayers I wrote as a part of the class.

I offer these in the hope of encouraging you to pray the Word of God. Years ago, a dear friend told me that at its best prayer is pleading God’s promises. He was correct and this class gave me the discipline to examine some promises worthy of pleading.

In the simple S.P.E.C.K. method of biblical application, the letter “P” prompts us to answer the questions: Is there a Prayer to pray? A Praise to give? or a Promise to claim?

Many passages contain doxologies–sections that break out in praise. Others teach us to lament from our faith. Others intercede for boldness. Such are worthy of imitation in my life. I urge you to deepen your prayer life by praying more and more of the Word of God!