Monday, July 10, 2006

Kingdom-Centered Prayer

Dr Tim Keller's idea of Kingdom-Centered Prayer is very inspiring. He said that biblically and historically, the one non-negotiable, universal ingredient in times of spiritual renewal is corporate, prevailing, intensive and kingdom-centered prayer, which is the following:

1. It is focused on God's presence and kingdom (Acts 4, Exodus 33, Nehemiah 1).

  • a request for grace to confess sins and humble ourselves
  • a compassion and zeal for the flourishing of the church
  • a yearning to know God, to see his face, to see his glory

2. It is bold and specific.

  • pacesetters in prayer spend time in self-examination
  • in the context of the gospel, it is purifying and strenthening
  • pray that the world might see the glory of God through his people

3. It is prevailing, corporate.

  • prayer should be constant, not sporadic and brief
  • pray withouth ceasing, pray long and hard
  • the process will have our hard hearts melted, to tear down barriers, to have the glory of God break through.

5 comments:

Matthew Celestine said...

Those seem to be Biblical ideas.

Kitty Cheng said...

Yes, I think so Matthew.

Jonathan Moorhead said...

Great perspective. So much of prayer seems to be anthropocentric.

Kitty Cheng said...

Jonathan, thanks for dropping by my blog. I agree with you that many of our prayers are anthropocentric. This is a good reminder for me personally, as I am guilty of praying like that at times too.

audrey` said...

Yeah!
Our Lord is just a prayer away :)