Praising the Lord in Prayer
It’s School of Prayer Saturday! We are going to add a section for “Praise” to our Family Photo Prayer Journals. To find out more about a prayer journal, click here: Family Photo Prayer Journal. You can always access the Prayer Journal pages by clicking on “Free Downloads” at the top of any page of my blog, then click on “Family Photo Prayer Journal”. We are organizing our Prayer Journals according to the Lord’s Prayer with 5 tabs. The first tab is “Praise”, second is “Kingdom”, third is “Daily”, fourth is “Confess” and last is “Spiritual Warfare”. We have been working on the “Kingdom” and “Daily” tabs, so it is time to work on the “Praise” section.
Whenever we pray, we should always begin with praise. This can be done in several different ways, so I recommend varying it from time to time. One day you might listen to praise songs or sing songs to the Lord. Another day you might read from the book of Psalms. One of my favorites is to read the verses from an old hymn to the Lord. My church is fairly contemporary so we don’t sing hymns very often. I had forgotten how the hymns are written is such a way as to teach a message. You can learn how to be saved, surrender to the Lord, remind yourself to spend an hour in prayer, remember the cross and many more. Most of the songs today, just don’t have much of a message. They are repetitive, without much meaning. I also dislike the Jesus is your boyfriend songs. We speak of Jesus as if he is a lover rather than our Savior. We sing songs about Jesus wanting to hold us, then we wonder why we are not reaching many men for Christ.
I have printed out several of my favorite hymns and placed them behind the “Praise” tab in my prayer journal. Rather than sing, I like to read these to the Lord, because I listen to the meaning of the songs more when I read them. You can add any song to your prayer journal you like, but I hope you will include some hymns. My favorite is “I Surrender All”. When I sing this song, I really mean it. If you don’t fully surrender to the Lord, then don’t sing this song. I believe it is sinful to sing songs in church that we don’t mean. I wonder how the Lord must feel, when we make fake promises while we sing? Another of my favorite hymns is”Sweet Hour of Prayer”. You can find the words to most hymns online. Due to copyright laws, I cannot print the words on my blog, so I encourage you to find them on the internet. Just go to Google and type in the hymn name along with the word lyric. You should find several sites with the words to your song. Copy these words and paste them into Word. Remember to paste onto a half-sized sheet in Word, if you are making a half-page journal.
I hope you will spend a daily “Sweet Hour of Prayer” with the Lord. If you pray in the morning, you will be blessed by your prayer time the rest of the day.
Prayer In Every City 
The prayer is such a very important “tool” for the Christian! We communicate all things to God in prayer. And I am a strong advocate of prayer in the school systems. We need to begin building introducing the idea of creation and God’s existence into the minds of all young children immediately. The Lord knows we’ve gotten away from it for far too long…
Bless you in your every Godly effort!
Steve Pejay
Thank you for your comments. I would like to see an after school Bible study in every school. They are legal to do as an after school club, but many don’t realize it.
Boy, try telling that to any cities and towns in the larger metro areas of California! As soon as they hear the words “prayer” or “Christ,” they flip out!
I tell you that this world grows darker and darker in my estimation every day. No doubt people don’t want anything to do with God in schools nor government…
Thanks for the comment, oh and I agree, bible study would be a very good thing if the students would go to it.
Steve
Check out the website for the “Good News Clubs”. They won a victory in the Supreme Court allowing after school Bible clubs in any school. It does have to be approved by the principal, but by federal law it is allowed. Here is the website: http://www.freedomforum.org/templates/document.asp?documentID=14691.
The ruling actually took place around 1997. A New York school lost the case and Good News Clubs won.
I thank you for this article, but is it current law? I looked on line just now and found some confusing information on the subject. Even then, it was dated in 2006.
I hope it is current law, but it sure isn’t being well publicized if it is!
Thank you,
Steve
It is current where I live in Georgia. Good News Club is in many elementary schools in my county. My church hosts the club in at least 2 elementary schools. However, we have been turned down before by a principal. It is up to the principal of the school to decide whether you can do it. There is a Christian club in my daughter’s middle school. Members of my church also hold morning bible studies in at least 3 local high schools. This is the bible belt, though.