A Way to Pray Anointed Prayers

A mother wondering how to pray for her son said, “One morning I’ll pray, ‘Do something today, Lord, to make him think about You.’ Then the next morning I pray desperately, ‘Don’t let anything happen to him today.’ It’s almost as though I cancel out yesterday’s prayers.”

How are we to know what requests to make? Paul encourages us to take “the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God: Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit” (Ephesians 6:17b, 18a). We are to take the Word with us when we go to prayer.

I’ve found it to be a great help at times to take one of Paul’s prayers in the first chapter of either Ephesians, Philippians, or Colossians and pray what he prayed for those on his heart. The Holy Spirit anointed Paul to know how to ask for those things that will produce spiritual maturity.

For instance, Paul prayed that the Colossians “might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding.” He prayed that the Philippians’ love would “abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that [they would] be able to discern what is best.”

Since the people we pray for have needs similar to those of the early Christians, Paul's prayers can be used as model prayers by inserting the names of people on our prayer lists.

Dear Jesus, guide me to pray the best scriptures for those on my prayer list.

“I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. 17 I keep asking that the God of our LORD Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better” (Ephesians 1:16, 17).