I want to help you set yourself up for spiritual success at the beginning of each day. Here are five prayers to start your day with the Holy Spirit. Not only am I going to teach a little on each prayer, but I’m also going to pray each prayer with you.
1. When you begin your day with a prayer of gratitude.
Psalm 107:1, “Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good. His faithful love endures forever.”
Psalm 9:1-2, “I will praise you, Lord, with all my heart. I will tell of all the marvelous things you have done. I will be filled with joy because of you. I will sing praises to your name.”
Psalm 100:4-5, “Enter his gates with thanksgiving; go into his courts with praise. Give thanks to him and praise his name. For the Lord is good. His unfailing love continues forever, and his faithfulness continues to each generation.”
When you begin the day with gratitude, when you begin the day with thanking God for what He’s already done, praising Him for His great works, then you start your day in the right frame of mind. Far too many believers begin their day by focusing on what they don’t have, focusing on what they’re still praying for. They’re focusing on what went wrong. And by doing this, they rob themselves of gratitude; and by robbing themselves of gratitude, they rob themselves of joy. Gratitude is a source of joy. When we’re in the right frame of mind and we’re thinking about what God has accomplished, we’re thinking about the might of His power, we’re thinking about all those times He’s come through for us. This gives us that strength of joy for the beginning of the day.
I know the enemy may attack you. You may hear lies like, “Well, I don’t have anything to be grateful for,” or “things are so tough right now that I don’t know if I can get into this frame of mind.” That’s not true. This is where you have to ask for the Holy Spirit’s help and say, “Help me to be grateful. Help me to be thankful.” If all else fails, we still have the presence of the Lord. If all else fails, we still have the presence of the Holy Spirit abiding within us, and that is reason enough to be grateful. That is reason enough to begin the day by saying, “Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord, for your goodness. Thank you, Lord, for your mercy towards me. Thank you, Lord, for your forgiveness. Thank you, Jesus, for your presence abiding with me in every moment of every day.”
When you begin your day like that, it sets you in the right frame of mind. Don’t jump right to social media. Don’t jump right to texting. Don’t jump right to obsessing about all of the problems. Begin with a prayer of thanksgiving. Begin by thanking the Lord for everything He has done. Let’s pray that right now.
Pray with me
Lord, we thank you for your mercy and your grace. We thank you for your patience toward us. Father, we give you the praise for the time and the energy and the will to do that which you desire. But I thank you for all the blessings you’ve given to us. Thank you for coming through for us so many times before. Thank you for your love that endures forever. Your love is everlasting. We acknowledge you, and we praise you; and Lord, even in the midst of trials and disappointments and setbacks and delays, we thank you that we have your presence—a beautiful constant in our lives. Thank you, Jesus. We’re grateful for you. In the mighty name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.
2. A prayer for guidance.
Far too many believers just begin their day making their own plans, operating in their own intelligence, operating in their own strength and wealth. Of course, you should use the resources that God has given to you. It’s also important to remember how dependent we are on the Person of the Holy Spirit—how much we need His presence, how much we need His guidance. Because without Him, we’re just walking out our own plans. In Psalm 119:133, we read, “Guide my steps by your word, so I will not be overcome by evil.”
Everyone’s corruptible. Everyone, if they distance themselves from the Lord, will be corrupted. And so, it’s important that we cling to Him, recognizing that He has all wisdom, He has all power. He is the highest intelligence in all of the universe. We can have conversations with Him on a day-to-day basis. Think about that. What an advantage we have in life—His divine wisdom, His foresight. He can see the future. He can see into the hearts of those around us. He can see motives and secrets. He hears conversations that you don’t hear. He sees things coming that you would never; He sees trouble coming that you can’t see. And this is why we pray to Him daily, “Lord, guide me. Teach me to walk in your will. Teach me to live a life that’s yielded.”
And when you pray prayers of guidance, here’s one of the added benefits. Not only do you get the guidance of the Lord, but you learn to yield by asking the Lord for guidance. You’re humbling yourself before God, and you are training your mind. You’re training yourself to be reliant upon Him. You’re teaching yourself to surrender because that’s what guidance is. Guidance is given to us, and in response we surrender. So as God guides, we’re given something to yield to. But this is where we have to humble ourselves. It takes great humility to pray for God’s guidance because it’s a recognition of the fact that we don’t have it all together, that we do need His divine wisdom in our marriages, in our family lives, in our businesses, in the ministries that we steward—in every aspect of life.
You can benefit from divine wisdom by simply inviting the guidance of the Holy Spirit. What begins to happen is you ask Him for guidance; He gives you an instruction. Sometimes that instruction will contradict what you desire—sometimes a dream (aspirations you have for yourself) you have to exchange for His own dream. And this is where you have to be like Jesus in the garden and say, “Nevertheless, not my will, but your will be done.” Now you’re learning to yield; you yield to that instruction. But even when it contradicts your desires, your plans, your dreams, your agenda—and then what begins to happen is as He gives you guidance and as you yield to that guidance, you become a reflection of the Lord in the Earth because that guidance is going to affect your words. That guidance is going to affect your thoughts. That guidance is going to affect your actions to where people stop seeing you and they begin to see Jesus in you. What a wonderful benefit of being guided by the Lord.
And He sets up for you divine appointments, He sets up for you connections, He sets up for you opportunities that you would have missed if you were not under His guiding hand. When we receive that guidance, we’re put in sync with the will of the Father. We’re put in sync with God’s divine plan, and we become reflections of that marvelous light. As we yield to the Holy Spirit, we become the influence of heaven in the Earth. As we receive heavenly guidance, we yield. We teach our flesh to obey, and we become the image of Jesus for others to see. We become a reflection of His love, His peace, His power, His wisdom—all because we yield daily and ask Him to guide us.
Pray with me
Lord, help us to be aware. Help us to be attentive to that voice of the precious Holy Spirit and give us the grace to yield, give us the grace to obey, even when it’s difficult. Lord, when you speak, help us to respond immediately. So, Lord, without hesitation, reservation, or doubt, remove from us the selfishness that keeps us from yielding to you. Remove from us the shortsightedness that causes us to be afraid when you speak, afraid to obey, or afraid to take that risk. Remove that fear. Lord, help us to become reflections of you because we are guided by your voice and hand; and help us to remember always to be aware of your presence and voice. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
3. We need to pray for protection from harm.
Psalm 91:9-12, “If you make the Lord your refuge, if you make the Most High your shelter, no evil will conquer you. No plague will come near your home. For He will order His angels to protect you wherever you go. They will hold you up with their hands so you won’t even hurt your foot on a stone.”
Pray for protection from sickness. Pray for protection from loss. Pray for protection from calamity. Pray for protection from physical harm. You can ask the Lord to protect you. This does not mean that the Christian will never suffer. This does not mean that the Christian will never face hardship. But it does mean that the Lord will bring you out of it. And the Lord, of course, still is your protector. This is a matter of aligning yourself with the will of God, especially in this day and age.
Think about the world in which we live—all of the violence, the uncertainty. I mean, just stepping out the front door, you never know what you’re going to run into or who you’re going to run into or what’s going to happen. There are so many variables. But rather than becoming fearful, rather than becoming paranoid, rather than locking yourself in and shutting yourself away from the world, it’s best instead to rely on the Lord, to make Him your refuge, your high tower, your place of safety, to find shelter under the wings of the Almighty. When you feel scared, just go to Him; and when you’re uncertain about the future, go to Him—even when you’re fearful concerning the things of this world.
We as believers aren’t called to walk in fear. We’re called to walk in faith. And you keep that faith alive by trusting God to protect you, trusting Him with the results, trusting in His plan. You yield to His plan by placing yourself under His covering. He is your refuge. He is your place of safety. I’m not saying be naive. I’m not saying that you should be in denial about the reality of this world. You have to put that into proper perspective by recognizing that your safety is in Him.
Pray with me
Lord, we thank you that you are the high tower. You are the place of refuge and strength. And so, Father, we turn to you now in this hour of uncertainty, in this hour of calamity, in this generation of wickedness and violence and hatred. We turn to you, and Father, we thank you that we have no reason to fear. Stir our faith, Lord. Give us faith as your people that we may walk as children of light in this dark world and that darkness would not affect our hearts and minds, that we would trust you to protect us and to keep us centered in your will. Protect us from stepping outside of your will. Keep us safe, keep us in your care, and we trust you even when trouble comes. In the mighty name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.
4. Pray
for divine opportunities.
Colossians 4:3, “God will give us many opportunities to
speak about His mysterious plan concerning Christ. That is why I am here in
chains.”
Here we see this prayer for opportunities to minister to the
lost. You know that every day that you step out your door, there are
opportunities waiting for you all along your path to share the good news with
someone, to be a reflection of the heavenly light, to share the love of God, to
share the truth of Scripture. You have those opportunities. But sometimes we
miss them because we’re just rushing through the day. Or maybe we are worried
about things that just affect us only—so we can be a little selfish in that
regard. We’re caught up in our own world, caught up in our own bubble. We
forget to look outward as believers and see that there are people suffering all
around us and that there are opportunities every day to share the gospel with
someone near to us—either close to us as friends or close to us in just
physical proximity as we walk through the store or down the street or move
through the workplace.
Don’t miss those divine opportunities; and in fact, as you
pray for divine opportunities, you become more aware of the idea of divine
opportunities. And as you become more aware of that idea, you begin to
recognize them even more. When you begin your day praying for divine
opportunities, you’re actually conditioning your mind to look for those divine
opportunities, to be discerning, to recognize them. We can just rush through
the day not thinking of anybody else and miss those windows of opportunity.
There are divine opportunities for connections. Maybe
there’s something that you’ve been praying for—an open door, a breakthrough in
some sense—and God wants to connect you with someone who’s going to be the key
to help open that door. Pray for divine opportunities to meet divine
connections. There are divine opportunities for evangelism. Ask the Holy Spirit
at the beginning of the day, “Show me the hurting persons. Guide me to those
who need to hear the truth. Guide me to those who are just barely getting by,
ready to give up, and they’re looking for hope. Take me to the place I need to
be when I need to be there—under the right conditions, connected with the right
people, in the right frame of mind. Lord, set up divine opportunities.” And you
will find that this will actually accelerate your spiritual growth. This will
accelerate what God has put in your care. This brings acceleration when you
pray for divine opportunities.
Again, you pray for divine connections of favor to open
doors, divine opportunities for evangelism, divine opportunities to minister to
other believers, divine opportunities for provision. Maybe financially you’re
struggling and you’re just looking for an opportunity to use your skillset.
You’re looking for an opportunity to seize upon that God might bless it. Well,
you begin the day by saying, “Lord, show me, guide me to those right places.
Guide me to those right people, and help me to be aware of these divine
opportunities.” And as you pray this at the beginning of the day, it puts you
in the right frame of mind to not miss those doors that God is opening.
Lord, we thank you for divine opportunities and open doors,
divine connections, moments of evangelism and ministry, moments of favor. Lord,
we thank you that you can do more in a single moment than we can in a lifetime.
And so, Father, today help us to look for divine opportunities. Help us to see
your hand at work all around us. Take us to the place we need to be at the
right time, under the right conditions, and in the right frame of mind. We
thank you, Father, for your favor. Help us to slow down that we might not miss
these moments that you’ve created for us. In the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.
5. Pray for strength against temptation.
There’s temptation on your phone. There’s temptation when you step outside your front door. There’s temptation at work, at school. There’s temptation in your mind because the enemy will give you tempting thoughts. There’s temptation because your flesh just craves things often that are ungodly. You have to pray that the Lord would protect you from temptation. Matthew 6:13 tells us plainly, “And don’t let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one.” Matthew 6:13 is a model prayer. You ought to be praying that you wouldn’t yield to temptation, but instead that you would be rescued from the evil one. Who’s the evil one? He’s the tempter. Well, that’s what that means—your rescued from the one who is tempting you. James 4:7-8, “So humble yourselves before God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come close to God, and God will come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners; purify your hearts, for your loyalty is divided between God and the world.”
You submit to God, and then you can resist the devil. You have to be prayed up so that you can resist the onslaught of temptation. Here’s what many believers do, sadly. They wait for temptation to confront them. And then in that moment where temptation confronts them, they suddenly want to become prepared right then and there. That’s like an athlete going to the big game without having conditioned through practice. It’s like a soldier getting onto the battlefield after skipping his training. You don’t skip the preparation. The preparation doesn’t happen in the battle. The preparation happens before the battle. You train before you go into conflict.
And so, before temptation ever comes, you need to be drawing near to God. Before temptation ever comes, you need to be submitting to the Word of God, going to Him daily, asking for His strength, getting yourself in the frame of mind of, “If temptation comes my way, I’m not going to debate with it. I’m not going to consider it. I’m not going to go back and forth. I’m going to flee from that temptation. I’m making that up in my mind right now that when temptation confronts me, I’m fleeing from that temptation with the power of God.”
And so, pray in the morning, pray to begin your day against temptation.
Pray with me
Father, strengthen your people today against the powers of temptation. Teach them to be satisfied in your presence and your presence alone. Teach them to not grieve the precious Holy Spirit, but give us strength in times of temptation. Help us to be mindful of the battle before us. Give us grace to resist the sinful pleasures of this world. In the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.
