Praying His promises - back to Him!

We are beginning our studies in the book of Ezra, and we've mentioned the need for revival and renewal in the lives of the captive Jewish people, and in our own lives, too. We noted last time that God has promised renewal in His Word. We discussed the transforming power of His Word, and our need for repentance, as well.

We just touched on an interesting concept that some of us may not be familiar with, and I'd like to dive in today. It's when we pray His promises back to Him. We remind Him of His words and His promises, and "keep after Him" asking for answers and results.

How do we do this?
I'm glad you asked! This is a wonderful practice that can grow our faith and our joy in our Savior, Jesus Christ.
We have head knowledge of this:

For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God. (II Corinthians 1:20)

But we need to have heart knowledge, too, and this is how to get it!!

Let's look at some of the wonderful promises about God's redemption and forgiveness of sinners:

"I have swept away your offenses like a cloud,    your sins like the morning mist. Return to me,   for I have redeemed you.” (Isaiah 44:22)

Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord, (Acts 3:19)

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.  (I John 1:9)

The first thing to do in this step-by-step explanation (I'm indebted to the writings of author/blogger Rachel Wojinarowski for the simple instructions that I have used here) is to read the verse out loud. Read it to God, in other words.  When we read a verse out loud, we are voicing God's Word. We're reminding Him of it, and He is pleased! Hey, He doesn't need the reminder.... that's not what this is all about! He loves to see that we are searching, and reading, and learning His Words! So, in our prayer time, we can pause and read the verse aloud.
Let's choose Acts 3:19 (above) for right now.
Go ahead!
Read it aloud.
In our prayer, we can ask Him to give us a deeper understanding of what the verse means.

Next, we can rephrase the verse in our own words -- either out loud or in writing. Sometimes I will speak it aloud, and other times I will write out a summary or synopsis of the promise I'm studying. It may look almost like the original wording, but sometimes I will substitute a word that makes it a little easier to understand. That's where reading more than one translation will help me.
In Acts 3:19, the words "times of refreshing" caught my eye. I started to pray this back to God, and said, "Help me Lord, to wait for the time of refreshing. I feel like I need it so badly. Help me to wait on your timing, Lord." I had a much better outlook on my day!

The next step as we meditate and pray is to define a term in the verse. Let's look again at "refreshing" in Acts 3:19. What could times of "refreshing" mean? In my own life, I was asking for Him to reinvigorate; I asked for Him to rejuvenate; I wanted Him to stimulate and revitalize me. All of these were more active words that I could really get my head around - they helped me to prayerfully ask Him for exactly what I needed.

Another thing that is helpful is to think about synonyms for a word or words in the verse. Let's move to I John 1:9:

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.  (I John 1:9)

Let's try this with the word "faithful" first . . . He is trustworthy, He is dependable, He is staunch, He is steadfast, you get the picture? We are reinforcing the meaning of the word in our own finite minds. Let's try it again with "purify" in the verse. The thesaurus can help here: "absolve" us from all unrighteousness, "cleanse" us, "redeem" us, "exonerate" us..... after thinking prayerfully about these different words, we can pray that phrase to God with our word substitutions, and again ask Him to help us remember and understand fully -- and then thank Him for all those meanings of the word.

Now, Satan doesn't like it one bit when we delve deep into the Word and spend more time in prayer! After all, we are building muscles in our faith when we do these things. He will want to attack us at every turn. He will lie and twist things and cause us to lose our focus. We must know God's Word in order to fight against the devil.
Using the example above, I John 1:9, perhaps Satan will come at us and make us start to remember past sins -- try to make us lose sight of the fact that God is faithful to forgive and to purify -- try to cause us pain and start the ferocious vine of doubt sprouting in our minds. He will use thoughts like this to sidetrack us. He doesn't want us to have joy and peace, and he certainly doesn't want us to spread the gospel of cleansing and mercy, either.
It's then that we need to know God's Word and be able to refocus our thoughts and our day. When the devil throws our past sins in our faces, we can counter with other verses (and our faith muscles):

“I, even I, am he who blots out    your transgressions, for my own sake,
    and remembers your sins no more." (Isaiah 43:25)

As far as the east is from the west,So far has He removed our transgressions from us. (Psalm 103:12)

Don't forget to thank the Lord again for His Word, and the reminders of His love that we find there!

Lastly, write things down. Write down the concern, the verse of promise, the date, and any thoughts that occur to us. Keep this handy and add to it as the Spirit prompts us. When a month from now, or a year from now, we look back at our list or our journal, we will see answers and reasons to praise Him for His promises that we prayed back to Him!