3 Prayer Assignments God Has Given You—Are You Fulfilling Them?

Anytime God wants to do something on earth, He looks for a person to partner with in prayer.

Before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, God asked the question, “Shall I keep secret from Abraham, my friend and servant, what I am about to do?” The entire book of Isaiah is really the prayer journal of a prophet where he chronicles God’s dealing with him concerning the future. We have the book of Revelation because Jesus spoke to John and said, “Come up here, and I will show you things which must take place after this” (Revelation 4:1).

Remember, God is looking for believers who will commit to pray. He’s looking for someone who will enter the prayer place to co-labor with Him in His plan. It is very important that we are aware of the call to pray. But it’s equally important that we recognize prayer assignments when they are being passed to us from the Father.

Three Prayer Assignments

When the Lord began dealing with me about prayer assignments, as mentioned previously in Chapter 6, He said to me that there are three prayer assignments that have been given to every believer. We are all called to: (1) pray out God’s plan for our lives; (2) pray for all people; (3) and pray for the harvest. He specifically said to me, “These three assignments will keep your heart going at the same pace as Mine in these areas.”

How you discern the heart of God matters because it affects your decision making. We are to live our lives led by God—not by circumstances, people, or the news. Prayer is one of the ways we can see into the heart of God and be led. When we are faithful to pray out God’s plan for our lives, it’s easy to be led by Him into the next phase of whatever it is He’s calling us for.

If we commit to pray for all people, we can love them the way God loves them. This is the same love that should fuel our praying for the harvest. It’s easy to lose sight of the harvest when we are busy “doing life.” But when we make His presence our dwelling place, we absorb discernment from Him and we can see what He sees, the way He sees it.

God’s Plan for Your Life of God

Praying out the plan of God for your life is one of the most important prayer assignments you will ever receive, and you are the only person who can pray this prayer and get answers. No one else can pray out God’s plan for you. People can pray for you, but you have to do the work of praying out God’s plan for your life. The reason for that is, there are things about your life He wants to share with you that He won’t tell anybody else.

The first part of God’s plan for you is that you experience salvation. The Word of God outlines the plan of salvation for us all and it includes forgiveness of sin, health, prosperity, and peace of mind. And that’s the plan of God for everyone on earth. God “wants all people to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4 NIV). And while that is an amazing plan, it’s not unique to your life. God has a unique plan for your life; and sooner or later, you have to mature to the place in God where you begin to seek Him for the details.

This isn’t a prayer that you just pray one time. It’s something that you pray continually. You’ll actually find a rhythm of praying out the plan and then walking out the plan. That’s the will of God for you: to pray out the next series of steps and then walk it out. In doing so, His thoughts for you become your actions. As you commit to the flow of prayer concerning His plan for your life, you will find yourself in the right place at the right time and with the right people.

Praying for All People

I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people—for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all people. This has now been witnessed to at the proper time. And for this purpose I was appointed a herald and an apostle—I am telling the truth, I am not lying—and a true and faithful teacher of the Gentiles (1 Timothy 2:1-7 NIV).

Paul’s instruction calls for supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks to be made for all people. I read this scripture for the first time as a teenager. I can remember thinking, This poses a big problem—I don’t even know all people. How can I pray for them? It would be humanly impossible to pray for all eight billion people on the planet. I reasoned to myself that maybe the Holy Spirit would bring specific people to my heart to pray about at different times throughout the day. But that didn’t seem to satisfy my heart.

The strategy to pray for all people is found in the same scripture. The way that we pray for all is by praying for kings and for all those in authority. Who would qualify for all in authority? That group would encompass anyone who makes decisions that affect people. That means that our assignment is to pray for governmental leaders and spiritual leaders.

I like to say it this way: the best way to pray for a group of people is to pray for the leaders. So if you want to pray for a family, pray for the leadership in the family. If you want to pray for a church, pray for the pastors and leaders in that church. If you want to pray for a nation, pray for the governmental and spiritual leaders of the nation. I think you get where I’m going. God doesn’t ask us to pray for leaders because He loves leaders more than He loves others. It’s because their decisions affect entire people groups.

Now about that time Herod the king stretched out his hand to harass some from the church. Then he killed James the brother of John with the sword. And because he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to seize Peter also. Now it was during the Days of Unleavened Bread. So when he had arrested him, he put him in prison, and delivered him to four squads of soldiers to keep him, intending to bring him before the people after Passover. Peter was therefore kept in prison, but constant prayer was offered to God for him by the church (Acts 12:1-5).

The devil knows the importance of leadership. In this passage of scripture in Acts 12, he influenced Herod to vex or harass “some from the church.” The next few verses outline those he chose to harass—the leadership. He killed James and took Peter with intentions of murdering him next. Both of these men were key leaders in the church. Their demise would send ripples across the whole movement.

The same is true today. When the enemy wants to attack a group of people or disrupt a move of God, he will target those in leadership.

The Harvest

Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people. But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd. Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest” (Matthew 9:35-38).

God spoke to me and said that we need to be praying about the harvest. This was an echo of what Jesus instructed His disciples in Matthew 9:35-38. In essence, Jesus was saying, “The harvest needs attention. Specifically, the harvest needs your attention in prayer.” Some of us know that prayer works, but we tend to only use it on our personal needs and wants. Things like food, clothes, cars, houses, career opportunities, ministry needs, and a host of other things. But Jesus said that the harvest needs to be on our prayer lists—and I don’t think He meant we should put it on the bottom of the list.

The instruction to pray about the harvest was coupled with a prayer strategy. Jesus said, “pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.” I don’t believe Jesus would give us a prayer strategy that wouldn’t work. If He said to pray this way, then it must be the appropriate prayer to pray every time and for every nation.

There is a very specific type of laborer who is effective in the harvest—one who is trained in the Bible and in the things of the Spirit. Laborers skilled in the Word and know the flow of the Spirit are postured to provide a flow of spiritual answers to the people God sends them to. Jesus said to pray that there would be a sending of laborers into the harvest. And with the sending will go the answers that those in the harvest need to hear the most.

When you pray for God to send laborers into the harvest, you are praying for God to send people who will sow the love of God and the Word of God into their hearts. You are praying for others who will come behind the sowers and water the word that they sowed with more love and additional words from the Father. God is the Lord of the harvest, and He is very skillful in reaching people’s hearts. He knows who needs to hear His word and what specific word they need to hear.

When we pray for the harvest, a supply of the Spirit is released that calls, anoints, and sends skilled laborers to speak to the right people at the right time. The anointing to pray for the harvest is organizing in nature and will frame and fashion moments, time, events, and people to create an encounter with the love of God that will draw people to Him. No matter how slick we are with our marketing, we can’t create moments that open people’s hearts to receive God like this. But when we couple our efforts with Bible-based, Spirit-led prayers for the harvest, revival is inevitable.