Getting Out What You Are Putting In: Investing in Prayer for Your Children

    In our previous post, we began discussing the need to invest in our family and then we provided solutions to investing in prayer for our spouse.  If a spouse is all that you have in your family, then I would encourage you to reread that post and double down on your investments.  However, if you are like me then you have a collection of younger people in your family called children that are also in need of a prayer investment.

    So how are we to pray for our children?  Are there any particular areas of prayer that we should focus as we invest in our children with prayer?  Let me say the answer to that question is a resounding "YES!!!"

    As we invest in our children, I want to offer five sound Biblical prayers for your investment plan.  First pray for the salvation of your children.  1 Timothy 2:4 makes clear that God desires for everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.  So we have every confidence that if this is God’s desire and if salvation is a spiritual work then praying for this work to come to fruition is not only acceptable but encouraged. 

I have personally prayed for the salvation of each of my children from their birth and beyond that I pray for the salvation of every child that attends the church I pastor.  1 Peter 5:7 calls for us to cast all of our cares upon the Lord for he cares for us.  We should pray for our children’s salvation because we care about the salvation of our children and God, who cares for us, cares about their salvation as well. 

Let me make this clear, prayer is not a good luck charm.  Ultimately your child will come to a place where they will believe or reject the gospel.  Nevertheless we can pray for God, through the work of the Holy Spirit, to call to our children to himself, to convict our children of their sins, and to convert our children unto salvation and we can have confidence in God’s good, faithful, just, and merciful response to our prayers.    

    Second pray for your children to be holy.  The apostle Paul prayed for the Thessalonian church to be sanctified through and through (1 Thessalonians 5:23).  Sanctification is the process by which we are made holy in a practical sense.  When our children come to faith in Christ they are made holy by Christ and through their position in Christ.  However, there is a practical holiness that must be pursued throughout this life.  We, as their parents, ought to pray for God to make our children holy just as Paul prayed for God to make other believers holy.

    Often we are concerned about our children’s happiness.  While there is nothing wrong with having happy children, our greatest concern should be for our children’s holiness.  Happiness is an emotion.  Holiness centers on their character and their relationship with the savior.  While we cannot merit the salvation of God through our activities, a lack of holiness will result in stunted spiritual growth and the development of character draining habits that may follow them throughout their lives.  Most of all praying for your child’s holiness reminds us, as parents, of the spiritual battle that is often waged over character and keeps us moving forward, as our children’s guardians, with a proper perspective.

    Third pray for your children to grow in godliness.  Paul told Timothy to discipline himself for the purpose of godliness in 1 Timothy 4:7. While holiness is a focuses on what we are set apart from, godliness focuses on what we are set apart too.  We pray for our children to be godly.  That they would practice those things that illustrate God’s presence in their lives. 

    As we pray for our children’s godliness, this also encourages us to lead our children in this practice.  This spurs us to love our neighbor, to share the Gospel, to practice patience, to illustrate gentleness, and to minister to the least of these.  As we pray and model godliness, the practice of godliness becomes real and becomes reality to our children.  Rather than focusing on making our child a great athlete or a great student, as good as those things are and as valuable as those things can be over the long term, let us focus on making the practice of godliness the priority of our homes.

    Fourth pray for the protection of your children. Jesus said, “The thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy…” in John 10:10.  Consequently, we pray for the protection of our children.  While we often pray for protection from the physical harm of this world, I would encourage you to pray for protection from the spiritual dangers that this world brings to bear. 

    Pray for God to protect your children from the influence of worldliness, materialism, ungodly sensuality, and overbearing negativism.  Pray for the Lord to keep them from the grasp of temptations that can lead them down paths of sin and suffering.  Pray that God would protect them from addiction and from a sense of hopelessness.

    You are the parent of your child.  God has given a responsibility to guard them, protect them, and to love them.  The first line in fulfilling this responsibility is to pray for their protection.

    Fifth pray with your children.  This final investment is perhaps the greatest of all.  Praying for your children is crucial, but praying with your children is more crucial still.  As you pray with your children they have the opportunity to see your faith in God on display.  They have the opportunity to hear your heart from your lips.  They have the opportunity to learn how to pray from your example.

    Praying with your children also allows them to grow in their practice of prayer.  Pray for mommy, daddy, sister, teacher, the church, the pastor, the Sunday school teacher, the missionaries, Ironman, and Sofia the First.  As your child grows in faith they will learn more and more about what to pray and how to pray it, but wherever they are in their development pray with your children.

    A continual investment of prayer in your children is a reflection of our understanding of our role as parents.  We are not called to simply raise up good people and solid citizens.  We are called to bring forth a godly offspring under the rule of a holy God (Malachi 2:15).  As we pray, we seek God for the spiritual undertaking such a charge requires.  We eliminate the distractions that often pull us aside from that goal and we reorient our parenting and our purposes to God’s.  We are entrusting him to do what only he can do in our children’s life and reminding us to fulfill the charge that we as parents have been given.

    I cannot stress the need nor the value of this investment enough.  Invest as much as you can as often as you can.  Invest faithfully and fully.  Invest trusting God to provide a faithful return.  Invest knowing that your investment is not in vain.

God bless

Getting Out What You Are Putting In Part 01-Investing in Prayer for Your Spouse

“This year I am going to spend more time with my family?” I have heard this resolution made over and over again throughout the 15 years I have been in vocational ministry. Why is it that we often wish to spend more time with our families? Could it be that we recognize that there is only a limited amount of time that we will have with our children in our homes? Perhaps we realize that we only have a certain number of days with our spouse before the end of life will take us? Whatever the reason many of us realize the essential nature of investing in our families.  Sadly, we often do not have a process to follow through on this commitment.

Consequently, 0ver the next several weeks I want to offer you some Biblical direction to maximize your investments in your family. These practical and Biblical instructions will provide a roadmap for effective investment in your most important relationships.

This week I want to encourage you to make the investment of prayer into your spouse. In Genesis chapter 2, we witness man’s creation and his charge to have authority over all of creation. Yet even in this utopic state, man was missing something. God had determined that man should not exist alone and thus created woman as his complement. God then blessed them and the institution of marriage was established.

The single greatest participant in your family is your spouse. God rebuked the men of Israel in Malachi chapter 2 because they had acted treacherously against their wives. In this rebuke God emphasizes the partnership that exist within the marriage covenant and encourages faithfulness to each other and the marriage covenant itself.

In the New Testament, marriage is used as an image of Christ’s love for his church. As Christians, we are called to be faithful in love to our spouses and as a result, our marriages will demonstrate to others the love of Christ.

One of the most loving acts you can undertake for your spouse is to pray for them every day. I am not talking about the prayer, “Lord bless my spouse, Amen.” I am talking about a commitment to Biblical prayer for your spouse resulting in a spiritual investment in your partner and a physical investment of your time each day. In order to accomplish this I want to share with you four specific areas of prayer you can focus on for your spouse. You may not focus on each of these areas every day, but these areas should all be a common character in the daily episode or prayer you undertake.

First pray a prayer of thanksgiving for your spouse.  Take time to thank God for your spouse's presence in your life.  Take time to thank God for the blessings your spouse provides to your life.  Thank God for using your spouse as an instrument of discipleship within your life.   Those things that we are constantly thankful for are hard to take for granted. The apostle Paul expresses thanksgiving in the first chapter of his letters to the Romans, Corinthians, Philippians, and Colossians just for them being a part of his life. Should we not also express thanks to God with regularity for the presence of our spouses and their roles in our lives as well.

Second pray a prayer of forgiveness. If you have been married more than a day, then there is a great likelihood that your spouse has done something that upset you. Rather than hold fast to these offenses we are called to forgive them. As you pray, remember that love doesn’t keep a record of offense (1 Corinthians 13:5). So as you pray, forgive your spouse of those offenses and ask God to help you see where your actions may cause offense for your spouse.

Third pray for your spouse’s needs. Philippians 4:6 reads, “Don't worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.” In order to pray for the needs of your spouse, you have to talk with your spouse about what they need. These times of sharing are essential to investing in your marriage. Maybe they are struggling with their job, a friend, or the kids. Maybe they are struggling in their walk with God. Don’t try and solve their problems for them. Rather spend time just listening to your spouse and then take those requests before God as you intercede on your spouse’s behalf.

Finally, pray for your spouse to walk worthy of Christ. Paul urges the Ephesians in Ephesians 4 to walk worthy of their calling. This walking is Paul’s term to describe the daily lifestyle of people. Paul urged the Ephesians to have a lifestyle that reflected their calling as Christ’s disciple. Paul urged the Galatians to live a daily lifestyle that reflected the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives. Paul urges the Colossians to have a lifestyle that illustrated Christ in all of their relationships. As you pray for your spouse to walk worthy of Christ, pray that their lifestyle will reflect Christ and ask that God will help you to fulfill your role in their lifestyle faithfully as well.

As you invest in your spouse through prayer, you are engaging in a spiritual work. As God works in your spouse through your prayers, He will also work in you as he molds you further into the image of his Son the Lord Jesus. Be vigilant in this life of prayer. Be faithful to the call. Be confident that this investment will pay spiritual dividends in the life of your spouse, yourself, and your family.

God bless