6 Bible Verses That Teach Us What To Pray For

Here are 6 Bible verses that may help you to know what to pray for. Which verses could you add that would be helpful?

Luke 11:2a “Father, hallowed be your name.”

When the disciples came to Jesus they didn’t ask, Lord teach us how to preach, teach us how to heal, or teach us how to multiply bread and fish but they asked Jesus to teach them how to pray so they knew how important prayer was. Here Jesus begins with what is typically called the Lord’s Prayer with hallowing or revering or reverencing God’s name. God seeks to have His name be held to the highest form of respect and to honor (hallow) His name and why shouldn’t He? He is God and there is none like Him.

Luke 11:2b “Your kingdom come.”

This also is part of The Lord’s Prayer and we are to seek for His kingdom to come. Jesus was responding to the disciples request for how to pray and so we should be praying for God’s kingdom to come and of course that means praying for the King of that kingdom to come and that would be Jesus Christ. When we seek for the kingdom to come we seek to have the knowledge of God fill the whole earth, as it will someday (Hab 2:14).

Ephesians 6:19-20 “and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak.”

Paul asked the church at Ephesus to pray for him that the words might be given to him when he opens his mouth and to proclaim the gospel boldly as he ought. This is a very good thing to pray for because when I am witnessing I need all the help I can get to say what needs to be said and to do it boldly and to use the right words in proclaiming the Savior to the lost. Paul also asked the Thessalonians to pray for him so that the Word of God may be speedily accepted and honored (2 Thess 3:1).

Second Thessalonians 1:12 “We pray this so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Most students of the Bible know that God seeks to be glorified. Jesus prayed to the Father to have His own name glorified and that is what Paul writes to the Thessalonians about. We should pray that God is glorified because Jesus prayed “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you” (John 17:1). We know that is the will of God to have His name and Jesus’ name be glorified.

Ephesians 3:14-17 “For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love.”

Paul bowed his knees (prayed) before the Father that we might be strengthened with His power by His Spirit so that Jesus will dwell in our hearts in order that we could be “rooted and grounded in love.” That is something that we ought to pray for our fellow saints and for us.

Romans 10:1 “Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved.”

Is there any doubt that Paul’s desire was that the “they” who he prayed for to be saves where his fellow Jews (see Romans 9:30-33) because that is what God’s Word teaches us to be praying for. God desires none should perish (2 Pet 3:9) and that should be our desire too. How many godly mothers who for years prayed for their lost children finally came to faith is too many to count. The Bible clearly teaches us that we should pray for the lost.

Conclusion

The Bible teaches us to pray for the lost, to pray to have Christ and His love in us, to have God be glorified, that the gospel be proclaimed with boldness, that God’s kingdom and the King of that kingdom would come and that God’s name be hallowed or revered. There are more things that the Bible teaches us to pray for so why not read the Word and find out which other things we ought to be praying for are.