To Speak Your Words of Life [a prayer]

Jesus, You are the Living Word (John 1:1-3); and You are Eternal Life (1 John 1:1-3).

To Speak Your Words of Life [a prayer]

Oh, how wonderful is the power of Your Word!
Your Word created everything (John 1:3; Heb 11:3).
The Word of Your Power upholds everything (Heb 11:3).
Your Word will always “prosper” and “accomplish” Your purpose and Your Word will never return to You empty (Isaiah 55:11).
Your Word has the power to fulfill itself (Luke 1:37).
Your Word is not carnal, but mighty to pull down strongholds and break down all arguments and reasonings (2 Cor 10:4-5).
Your Word is the sharp two-edged sword of the Spirit that divides between soul and spirit and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart (Heb 4:12-13).

Lord, let me speak Your Word today…

As You told Your disciples, the flesh profits nothing, but Your Words, Jesus, are “spirit and life” (John 6:63). Oh, Jesus, I recognize that merely sharing knowledge about Your Word – by my flesh and by my reasoning – can never impart life to others. Jesus, You alone have the “Words of Eternal Life” (John 6:68), so please help me as I open my mouth to speak. Help me to discern the difference between ”flesh” and “spirit”:

That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

John 3:6

Holy Spirit, the Word of Life can only be imparted with Your breath, so I humble myself before You. I know without Your anointing, I am totally unqualified and incapable of ministering Your Word to others (Exo 40:15). My words are nothing but the “oldness of the letter” mere human knowledge that “kills” and cannot give life. But Your anointing is God’s provision of sufficiency to transform me into an “able minister” of the New Covenant; and through me, Words that are “spirit and life” can be imparted:

Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God;
Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.

2 Corinthians 3:5-6 (KJV)

But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.

Romans 7:6 (NKJV)

Jesus, You said that just as the Father sent You into the world, so You would send us (John 17:18; John 20:21). As the Father sent You with the Holy Spirit’s anointing (Luke 4:18-21; Acts 10:38), so send me. You said that with the Baptism in the Holy Spirit, I would receive and be clothed with power (dunamis) from on high (Luke 24:49; Acts 1:8). Your Word also promises that when someone is “sent” to speak Your Word, You provide them with an unlimited supply of the Holy Spirit:

For He whom God has sent speaks the words of God; for He gives the Spirit without measure.

John 3:34 (NASB)

You also said, “This is My covenant with them: My Spirit which is upon you, and My words which I have put in your mouth shall not depart from your mouth…” (Isaiah 59:21). Therefore, I thank You for “sending” me with the same immeasurable provision of the Holy Spirit’s anointing to speak Your Word. I yield myself to the Spirit’s leading – not just for Sunday sermons, but, even more importantly, for everyday speaking and even writing to others along their life’s journey.

Jesus, Your Word reveals how prayer and ministering the Word was of primary importance for the disciples in the Early Church:

But we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the Word.

Acts 6:4 (NKJV)

May that importance lay heavy upon my heart in prayer. Let me be a “sower” of Your “precious seed” and move me also to “sow in tears” in prayer for souls. For this is Your promise:

Those who sow in tears
Shall reap in joy.
He who continually goes forth weeping,
Bearing seed for sowing,
Shall doubtless come again with rejoicing,
Bringing his sheaves with him.

Psalms 126:5-6 (NKJV)

I know that speaking Your Word depends on hearing Your Word. So, I thank You for “awakening” my ears morning by morning and helping me to “hear as a disciple” so I may also have the “tongue of the learned that I should know how to speak a word in season to him who is weary” (Isaiah 50:4).

People are so weary in their journeys. Oh dear Lord, it is Your Word – the Bread of Life – they need more than anything. As You taught us to pray: “Give us this day our Daily Bread!” Dear Jesus, I am using the words of Your parable in Luke by asking, seeking, and knocking on Your door with importunity: Please “…lend me three loaves; For [friends] of mine in [their] journey [are] come to me, and I have nothing to set before [them]…” Please give me “three loaves of bread” – for their entire being: spirit, soul, and body. I thank You for using me to deliver Your Bread to others. I know You will because of Your promise:

For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.

Luke 11:10 (NKJV)

Lord, I “sanctify Christ as Lord” in my heart that I might be “a vessel for honor, sanctified and useful for the Master, prepared for every good work” (2 Tim 2:21), and “ready to give a defense to everyone who asks [me] a reason for the hope that is in [me]” (1 Peter 3:15).

As You did for Isaiah, cleanse my lips and allow me to hear Your call. Enable me to passionately respond just as willingly as did Isaiah:

Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying:
“Whom shall I send,
And who will go for Us?”
Then I said, “Here am I! Send me.”

Isaiah 6:8 (NKJV)

Jesus, here am I! Empower me!
Touch my lips and my tongue with Holy Fire!
Send me, oh Lord, send me!

In the mighty Name of Jesus. Amen.