How to Pray Scripture and Deepen Your Prayer Language

Praying Scripture back to God is a powerful way to pray deep and build your prayer language. What better way to honor our majestic God than to use His own words to praise Him and pray to Him? It’s also a way to dig deeper into scripture while you pray.

While Psalms are a popular choice for prayer, you can pray from any Scripture in the Bible.

How to Choose a Scripture to Pray:

• Open your Bible to any page and pray the passage that catches your eye.
• Keep a list of favorite verses and choose from that list. Maybe you have verses for specific needs.
• Pray from the week’s lectionary readings. Look up the verses for the week at www.lectionarypage.net  Choose the gospel or epistle reading.

How to Pray Scripture:

Read the passage slowly, soak in the words and take the verses to heart. You may even want to write it out on paper.

Reflect on what the passage is saying to you. How does this passage apply to your life right now? How does it address your prayer needs? What words stand out to you and speak to your heart?

Respond to God by praying this passage back to him. Insert “I” or “me” in the passage to make it more personal. Or, insert a friend’s name if you’re praying the scripture for someone else. As you respond in prayer, consider these three responses:

• Rejoice in God’s great goodness. Praise Him through the scripture.
• Repent of your mistakes and sins. Where is this passage convicting you?
• Request prayer for your areas of need. Ask for God’s promises and blessings from this passage.

Receive God’s response to your prayer by taking a moment of silence to listen. What is He putting on your heart in response to your prayer?

Praying Scripture Deepens Your Prayer Language

To give you an example of praying Scripture, I chose Mark 8:31-38 from this week’s lectionary readings. Read through this passage below and then see an example of my prayer.

Then Jesus began to teach his disciples that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

Heavenly Father,

You sent your son, your only son, the Son of Man, Jesus Christ, down to earth to teach us and save us. For our sake, he suffered great pain and rejection and was killed. Yet, in Your great majesty, he rose from the dead to live in Your glory with the holy angels, to give us new life in You.

God, how I want to follow you, to take up my cross and follow you, yet too often I’m like Peter. Too often, I’m focused on earthly matters, human priorities, my own wants.

Help me lift my eyes and set my mind on divine things instead of human things. Help me take up my cross and follow You. To lose my life for Your sake and the sake of the gospel. I don’t want to be ashamed of You in this world, but instead be bold to proclaim You goodness. For, in the end, what good will it do me to gain the whole world, yet forfeit my own life?

Amen!

Praying scripture is a beautiful way to pray. If you don’t think your prayer language is ‘enough’, the scriptures have it all. If you’re not sure how to put into words what’s on your heart, there will be a scripture that already says it all. Let the Spirit lead you in prayer through God’s words, build your prayer vocabulary, and use scripture as your guide for prayer.

PRAY DEEP CHALLENGE: Choose a verse from the New Testament and pray it today. Try 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24 to get started. Write out your prayer in your prayer journal.

Resources:

Choose a daily Bible reading plan and use the day’s reading for your prayers. Biblegateway.com has a wide selection of reading plans (and they’re free!).

Like this post? Explore this and other forms of prayer through the Pray Deep prayer journals. Each book will lead you through a variety of prayer methods through 21 days of focused prayers. Get started with one today!

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This post is part of the “Pray Deep” series. For more information on the series, click HERE.