Praying the Word of God

     One of the most important disciplines of godly living is prayer. According to Donald Whitney who wrote Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, it is second only to what he calls Bible intake (Bible reading, Bible study, Bible meditation, Bible memorization). Many times, however, our prayer life seems repetitive. The same old prayer, saying the same old thing.
     Recently, I came across an online article written by Kevin DeYoung, author of The Hole In Our Holiness. You can read the entire article here. It is a simple tool to help you pray using scripture as a guide. It uses 3 Rs to organize your prayer:

Rejoice               Repent              Request

With every verse in the Bible you can do one (or more likely, all three) of these things. Here is an example of how I have made Galatians 1:4 into a prayer:

Rejoice: Father, I rejoice in the fact that you have saved me and rescued me from this present evil world. The work of Christ on the cross, being slaughtered for my sins, saving me from Your wrath, has rescued me, and I no longer need to be influenced by the world and its evil forces, temptations, and allurements.

Repent: I confess that this present evil world still influences my thoughts and attitudes and actions. I do not love you enough, and the world becomes more attractive to me. Sometimes I just forget about you because my affections are set on things of this world.

Request: I pray that you make me more aware of Your Word so that I will love You more than the world that is constantly showing me a different way to live. Help me to live as a citizen of Your kingdom, setting my affections on things above rather than things of the earth, knowing that you will provide me with all that I need. 

     Of course, some verses lend themselves to prayer more easily than others. The Psalms are especially useful for this type of praying, but you will find many verses where this will work effectively. If you want to pray "according to God's will" (1 John 5:14), what better way to pray than using the source of God's will: scripture itself! 

     Using this simple strategy of Rejoice, Repent, Request can make an incredible impact on your prayer life. Give it a try!