I begin … or may I be bold enough to say, We begin … a 10 day vigil for the Holy Spirit to fall afresh in our lives. I didn’t know how to start and then, my friend, Nancy Long, shared this book with me, Matthew Henry’s Method for Prayer. (great price … FREE on iBook! See link below.) I opened to the first page and there it was … the way to begin to pray, to be attentive to, to “Walk. Stand and Wait.”… with vigilance … for a deeper awareness and renewal of the Holy Spirit: Worship. Adoration. Praise.
This version of Method for Prayer prays Scripture using the ESV in the first-person. I’ve added a salutation derived from the Passover prayers. It is written in plural form. We pray this together, then the main body of prayer will be first-person. Another addition are two times of silence. Just, tell all the voices in your head that they can wait for a few minutes. In those silences you want to “stand and wait”, to be still and listen. OK, and one more addition to the excerpt from Matthew Henry … music … either sing yourself or play it. Choose a song of worship and praise, one that focuses on Who God Is, and have it at the ready. Once that is done … please, pray with me … (bold, italic mine)
Blessed are you, O LORD our God, Master of the Universe, who sanctified us through Jesus our Messiah, upon You we wait to kindle the fire of Your Holy Spirit within us
A time of silence…
“My spirit being composed into a very reverent and serious frame, my thoughts gathered in, and all that is within me charged in the name of the great God carefully to attend the solemn and awful service that lies before me and to keep close to it, I must, with a fixed attention and application of mind and an active lively faith [vigilance!], set the Lord before me, see his eye upon me, and set myself in his special presence, presenting myself to him as a living sacrifice, which I desire may be holy and acceptable to God and a spiritual service; (1) and then bind this festal sacrifice with cords up to the horns of the altar, (2) in such thoughts as these:
Let me now lift up my heart, with my eyes and hands, to God in heaven. (3)
Let me rouse myself to take hold of God (4), to seek his face, (5) and to ascribe to him the glory due his name. (6)
Unto you, O Lord, do I lift up my soul. (7)
Let me now with confidence enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for me through the curtain, that is, through his flesh .(8)
Let me now attend to the Lord with undivided devotion, (9) and let not my heart be far from him when I draw near to him with my mouth and honor him with my lips. (10)
Let me now worship God, who is spirit, in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. (11)”
Sing or play a song of worship. Here is a suggestion …
Come, Holy Spirit. Come.
A time of silent waiting …
In the powerful Name of Jesus,
AMEN.
God bless you. +++
1 Rom 12:1.
2 Ps 118:27.
3 v. Lam 3:41; John 17:1.
4 Isa 64:7.
5 Ps 27:8.
6 Ps 29:2.
7 Ps 25:1.
8 Heb 10:19-20.
9 1 Cor 7:35.
10 Isa 29:13.
11 John 4:23-24.
Excerpt From: Henry, Matthew. “Matthew Henry’s Method for Prayer (ESV 1st Person Version).” Matthew Henry. iBooks.
Used by permission: Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, alliancenet.org: https://www.matthewhenry.org
Check out this book on the iBookstore.
Repost from May 10, 2013 blog post: WWJD