I think you’re awesome. By signing up for the prayer challenge, you’ve made it clear that you believe in the power of prayer and that you care about your personal purity and holiness enough to pray for it. There are many ways you can choose to spend your time each day, so I’m proud of you for making this investment that will reap reward both now and in eternity.
Preparing for Big Things to Come
There’s some important prep work you and I need to do before the challenge, though, and that is making sure our hearts are right with God. This happens in three key ways:
1.)Confess and forsake known sins. Psalm 66:18 tells us, “If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.” If you’ve been harboring sin in your life, why not spend some time accepting God’s invitation to restore relationship with Him through repentance?
2.)Ask God to reveal hidden sins. We learn from the Bible (in Psalm 19:12, for example) that we often don’t recognize our sin as being sinful. Many times we’re quick to attribute our sin to a personality quirk or a weakness, instead of realizing it is sin we need to confess and forsake. The Lord doesn’t want these sins to remain hidden, though. Spend a few quiet minutes before Him with a sincere heart, asking Him to show you areas of hidden sin. I can promise that He will do so!
3.)Re-surrender your life to God. This is as simple as doing whatever He tells you to do following confession and repentance. Perhaps it’s to get rid of a source of temptation. Maybe it’s to ask forgiveness from a person you have wronged, either intentionally or unintentionally. It could also be taking action to remedy a sin of omission (something you should be doing, but aren’t), like giving financially to your local church or willingly serving those in need. Whatever He tells you to do, do it.
After making sure our own hearts are ready to storm the gates of heaven in the next few weeks, here are a few reminders about how we should pray.
Prayer How-To’s
Pray with faith. If we don’t believe that God is mighty enough to answer our prayers and kind enough to want to answer them, we shouldn’t waste our time praying. Why would we even want to pray to such a god? Let’s commit to following Abraham’s example, of whom Paul said that no unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, and that he remained fully convinced that God was able to do what He promised. (Romans 4) Lord, we believe! Help our unbelief.
Pray with awareness. As you pray over the next few weeks, keep in mind that each of the Scriptures I share is part of a greater context. Some of God’s promises are conditional, and in those situations we do well to pray that the conditions would be met so God’s promise can be fulfilled. Use the verses I provide as a springboard, and modify your prayers as the Holy Spirit leads.
Pray with maturity. It’s important to remember that God sees a much bigger picture than we do. When it comes right down to it, the best attitude we can have in prayer was modeled by our Savior when He prayed to the Father, “Thy will be done.” (Matthew 6:10)
Pray with confidence. Hebrews 4:16 tells us to come boldly to the throne of grace, so let’s join hands and come to Him with assurance, not in our own merit but in the merit of the One who died so that we might have unhindered fellowship with our Father through prayer.
I hope those tips are helpful to you, friend, as you prepare for this critically important season of prayer in your life.
A Gift for You
I’m excited to share something else with you: I’ve created an awesome digital bundle of personal purity resources JUST for this challenge! (And YOU get an extra-special price!)
The kit includes more than FIFTY pages of goodies, but the must-have item is your very own Praying the Scriptures for Personal Purity journal. The journal is the perfect complement to the email challenge, sharing tips for prayer and plenty of room to write each day’s verse, pray over it, and journal about how God is working in your heart.
The bundle also includes Scripture cards, a bookmark, and even wall art, all designed specifically to help you saturate your mind and heart with Scripture about personal purity.
This set of digital resources regularly sells for $24, but I’m thrilled to offer it to you at just $10 when you use code 10PURITY at checkout. This special price is only available to those who are brave enough to take the challenge, as a small way I can cheer you on and say, “Well done!”
***Click here to grab your bundle, and don’t forget to use coupon code 10PURITY to access this top secret price of just TEN bucks. ***
That’s all for now! Click here to head back to the main page and find Day 1 of the challenge. 🙂
