This post is part of a prayer challenge, 21 Days of Prayers For Your Friends. If you would like more information about the full challenge with daily email prayer guides, I invite you to find it here.
“We know we were made for so much more than ordinary lives. It’s time for us to more than just survive. We were made to thrive.”
This song by Casting Crowns joyfully proclaims a powerful truth: Christians are meant to flourish.
We have a God who invites us into a relationship with Him and who paid a very high price to make it possible. In His very presence we find fullness of joy. He tells us in no uncertain terms that He cares about every detail of our lives, and He provides abundantly for our every need.
We have a Savior who understands us, who relates to us, and who intercedes for us.
We have a Spirit who guides us, convicts us, and reminds us of who we are and Who we belong to.
We have a Word that enlightens us, strengthens us, and comforts us.
We have an incomparable hope that no matter our circumstances, “there are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.” (C.S. Lewis)
God has given us everything we could possibly need that pertains to life and godliness. In His Son Jesus Christ, every single promise that God ever made is a resounding “YES!”
Hallelujah!
I know you want to see your friend walk in these truths – faithful, fruitful, and fulfilled. Will you join me in offering to the Lord these prayers for her to flourish?
Prayers for Your Friend to Flourish
Lift your friend to the Lord, asking that He would keep her from walking in the counsel of the wicked, standing in the way of sinners, and sitting in the seat of scoffers. Pray that her delight would be in God’s Word, and that she would meditate on it day and night. Ask that she would be like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. Pray that she would prosper in all that she does. (Psalm 1:1-3)
Implore God that your friend’s love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that she may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God. (Philippians 1:9-11)
Acknowledge in prayer that Jesus is the true vine, and the Father is the vinedresser. Confess to Him that every branch in Him that does not bear fruit He takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Ask for His pruning in your friend’s life, not that you wish on her the pain of the shears but that you desire her fruitfulness and you trust the hand of the Pruner. Pray that your friend would abide in Him, and He in her. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can your friend, unless she abides in Him. He is the vine; she is a branch. Claim on her behalf the promise that if she abides in Him and He in her, she will bear much fruit. Ask for your friend to have a humble awareness that apart from Him she can do nothing. Pray that she would abide in Jesus, and that His words would abide in her, so that she may ask whatever she wishes, and it will be done for her. Beg the Lord to glorify Himself in her life, that she bears much fruit and so proves to be His disciple. (John 15:1-8)
Thank God that your friend has died to the law through the body of Christ, so that she may belong to Another, to Him who has been raised from the dead, in order that she may bear fruit for God. (Romans 7:4)
Pray that your friend would make every effort to supplement her faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. Thank God for the promise that if these qualities are hers and are increasing, they keep her from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Peter 1:5-8) Pray that He would fulfill these words in the life of your friend.
Ponder the truth that the righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. If your friend is a believer, thank God that she is clothed in the righteousness of Christ and pray that He would grant her the strength to walk in that righteousness each day. Pray that she would be planted in the house of the Lord, flourishing in the courts of our God. Ask that she would bear fruit her whole life long, ever full of strength and vitality, declaring that the Lord is upright, her wholly righteous rock. (Psalm 92:12-15)
Praise God for your friend’s life, acknowledging to Him that her life here on earth is for the purpose of fruitful labor. (Philippians 1:22) Ask that He would direct her to the specific tasks He has just for her, and that He would grant her the grace to fulfill them so she might bear fruit for His glory.
Dear Heavenly Father, thank You for sending Jesus to give us abundant life overflowing with joy and fulfillment and confidence, not because of who we are but because of who You are and what You accomplish for us and through us. I pray that my friend would walk in the abundant life You died to secure for her; that she wouldn’t just survive but would thrive; and that her life would bring You much glory as she abounds in fruitfulness. It’s in the Name of my Savior, Jesus Christ, that I pray. Amen.
If you haven’t already done so, don’t forget to sign up for the rest of the prayer challenge! It will be a source of blessing in your life (and your friend’s life) as you continue to pray the Scriptures over her.
