November 17, 2025 -How Should We Pray

1 THESSALONIANS 5:12-28

2 THESSALONIANS 1:1-3:18

ACTS 18:4-23

Chronological Bible Readings

^{2Thessalonians 1:11} So we keep on praying for you, asking our God to enable you to live a life worthy of his call. May he give you the power to accomplish all the good things your faith prompts you to do. ¹² Then the name of our Lord Jesus will be honored because of the way you live, and you will be honored along with him. This is all made possible because of the grace of our God and Lord, Jesus Christ.

In the book that I read to better understand what it means to be an elder in my church (The Biblical Rose of Elders for Today's Church by Larry Kreider, Ron Myer, Steve Prokopchak and Brian Sauder), they talked about our field of ministry. They say that "Christian believers have specific fields of ministry, unique to them, that have been assigned by the Lord. These fields, dotting the landscape of their lives, are their spheres of influence, responsibility and anointing. They quoted 2 Corinthians 10:13-15 to explain how we should like Paul should be "careful not to take the credit or responsibility for another person's field of ministry." Over all the elders are shepherds of the flock in our church so the entire church is part our responsibility and then broken down we all have areas in the church that we are specifically responsible for. After reading this chapter it changed my daily prayer focus. I had identified the specific fields that God has given me responsibility in, and those areas and people are where I center my focus in daily prayer. They are written on tablet that I use in my regular prayer time. When someone asks me for prayer, I will still pray for them at that time as well as when God brings them to my mind, but they don't get written down in my prayer list. When I read this, I felt that this is a great prayer to pray over the larger field of the entire church. It is a prayer that has nothing to do with my opinions and desires or for any person's request, opinion or desire. It is a prayer for God's hand to accomplish what He is calling each person to accomplish. It is in line with God's will and gives Him the glory and shows others Jesus.

I am going to add this to the prayer list as an overarching prayer. This is how we should be praying.