Lesson 13: Benefits of Prayer

“Prayer is a channel for God’s blessings.”

To learn to pray for eleven categories of blessings from God.

► Is there any value to having a list of things to pray about?

► Can someone describe how you use a prayer list?

A prayer list is helpful because it reminds you of certain things you ought to be praying about. Many people tend to pray about certain kinds of needs but not about others that are also important.

In this lesson we are looking at a list of benefits of prayer. By listing benefits of prayer, we see some of the things we should be praying about.

We should pray:

1. To know God. Imagine having a friend who never talks to you except to ask you for something. That is the relationship many people have with God. They do not show interest in really knowing him. A lifetime of acquaintance with the infinite God will continually open exciting discoveries.

2. To grow in Christlikeness/holiness. As we know God better, we should want to be more like him. We cannot really worship him (which means to honor him for what he is) while being unconcerned about sinful characteristics or impurities in ourselves. If we really honor God for being loving, just, compassionate, patient, and pure, we should desire to see those characteristics increase in ourselves.

3. For family salvation and blessing. The blessings in this list will come to you but also flow through you to those closest to you. Better than having a rich uncle, if your family has a member with a rich prayer life, the benefits that will come to them through those prayers are immeasurable. Be that person for your family—the channel through whom the blessings of God flow because of prayer. They will reach even into future generations.

4. For personal anointing and extension of ministry. Every Christian has a ministry. Not only as pastors and teachers but as parents, spouses, friends, fellow believers, witnesses, coworkers, and citizens, we have potential to bless the lives of others. Blessing comes by the work of the Holy Spirit in our ministries. Your special gift will not have its full usefulness unless it is submitted to God’s direction, empowered by his Spirit, and used for his glory. Seek that focus and increase it through continual prayer.

5. For wisdom, discernment, and guidance. Because of infirmity, we don’t know even how to pray as we should, but the Holy Spirit helps us. In all areas of life it is the same. What mistakes could we have avoided if we had sought the discernment that God gives? That doesn’t mean we should seek unusual signs or impulsively follow irrational ideas, but let God give understanding of situations as he sees them.

6. For understanding of the Bible. The same Holy Spirit who inspired the Bible illuminates it for our understanding now. In prayer we seek not for new revelation but for better understanding of God and his will revealed in the Bible. We don’t read just to feel blessed or be encouraged, but to let the passage speak its message to our lives.

7. For financial needs. We can come to God about our needs, because he is our Father. As Jesus, taught in the Lord’s Prayer, we should ask God to provide daily. We can talk to God about anything we need, and even the things we want, as long as we remember that he will decide what is good for us.

8. For joy and fulfillment. The joy of the Lord is strength. We resist discouragement with faith. Without faith, we do not expect great things from God. Don’t yield to depression. Seek joy in your relationship with God more than anywhere else.

9. For purpose and order in our lives. We best demonstrate the priority of God in our lives by praying. When we put him first by putting prayer first, all of life takes on new meaning and order. We have a sense of fulfilling the purpose of our existence.

10. For specific answers and miracles. God’s responses to our prayers are all miraculous interventions, but we see some of them better than others. He changes things from what they would have been. There should be times when we realize that God wants us to believe him for specific help. When we understand the will of God in a particular situation and trust him, he does miracles for us.

11. For extension of God’s kingdom through mission. God’s kingdom is advanced when a sinner repents, receives grace, and becomes a worshipper of God. Pray for the effective spread of the gospel, not just in your own community, but everywhere in the world, especially where you know a missionary is working.

► Are there any of these that you have not been praying about?

► Do you see why you should pray about these needs?

Ask members to commit to pray through the above list daily for the next week.

Heavenly Father,

Thank you for helping me see that you want to bless me in ways that I had not thought of before.

Help my prayers to be a channel of your blessings to my family and others around me.

Most of all, I want to talk with you so that I can know you better.

Thank you, Father, for the privilege of prayer.

Amen

Read Psalms 141-146. These psalms are all prayers. Look for the kind of things prayed for there. Look for statements made about God as reasons for prayer.