Speak To My Heart Holy Spirit 4
If you study the prayers of the Bible, you begin to notice that the prayers God honors and answers are those that repeat his promises back to him.
Go and read the story of Jacob, for instance. At the beginning of his life God had prophesied—before Jacob was even born—that the blessing would be his and not Esau’s (Gen 25:23).
But it was not until Jacob took it in a prayer-wrestling match with God that it really became his. He laid hold of the promise of God through a night of prayer. The Bible is a book full of promises; there are an estimated 3,000 of them. Yes, I realize that some of them apply to specific and unique situations, as with God’s promise to give Jacob the blessing.
But I also know that Paul calls all the promises of God “Yes” in Jesus (2 Cor 1:20). So in a Christ-centered way, every one of them is Yes for me and for you. I do not want you to read through the Bible. I want you to pray through it!
The Bible is our prayer book, so read through it and lay hold of the promises of God! I make it a discipline of mine every time I read the Bible to go back and pray through what I’ve just read. And whenever I pray, I try to tie promises of God to what I’m praying.