Last year, I (Theresa) mainly focused on two things in the Word. First, I read slowly through Song of Solomon. This isn’t a scary book. It is a beautiful picture of Jesus and His church. It gives us insight into the truth of how God thinks and feels about us which can keep us steady as we go through different seasons of life. If you struggle with this book, I highly recommend taking the truths found in these verses and finding New Testament Scriptures that show the same truth. I also recommend taking a phrase or two at a time and turning them into prayer. I thank God for the truth or ask him to help me obey, and then I also ask God about the phrase and ask Him to show me more about it. I have done this same thing with this book over many years, and each time I see and gain new things I never had before. I have found this book is essential to our journey to loving God wholeheartedly and being transformed into His image. If this is something you want to study more of I recommend Mike Bickle’s free Song of Songs study.
Praying the Prayers of the Bible
Also, something I began last year and am continuing to do this year is to study the prayers of the Bible. Because I am prayer leader and desire that believers would engage in prayer, I wanted to dig deep into the prayers in the Bible. There are no greater prayers that we can come up with than the prayers in the Bible! I have been reading a book called “Praying with Paul” by D.A. Carson and taking one prayer at a time and going deep in it, and then trying to pray that same prayer when I prayer lead or pray on the mic in the prayer room! I continue to see and learn things about these prayers that I have never known or seen before! I decided to start with what we call the apostolic prayers, which are the prayers of the apostles found in the New Testament. There are many other prayers in the Bible I take time to study, but these prayers are the ones we most often use in the prayer room. These prayers were originally prayed for the church in a particular city, so they are especially helpful as we pray for the church in our city, but they can be used to pray for just about anything. This is the prayer sheet we use currently at IHOPKC with the Apostolic Prayers & Prophetic Promises.
