It isn’t always easy to know how to pray for something new in your life, sometimes you don’t know where to start.
What are discipleship prayers? Discipleship prayers come in two forms: prayers for your discipleship walk and prayers for you as you disciple others. Prayers for your discipleship can include prayers to deny the flesh, take up your cross, follow Christ, abiding, and following Christ. A prayer for yourself as you disciple others might be prayers for the nations, teaching, rebuking, faith, and relationships. Their purpose is to ask God to help you grow in these areas and to bless you as you disciple others.
I don’t always think of prayer and discipleship being closely related, however, praying for discipleship in your life is vital to your relationship with God, and fellow believers. These are some ways to get started…
5 Prayers for My Discipleship Walk
One of the areas that we can pray for is our own walk of discipleship with the Lord. As his disciples, there are several things we can be praying for as we attempt to walk out his will for us daily including prayers to deny the flesh, take up your cross, follow Christ, abiding, and following Christ.
1) Prayer to Deny My Flesh
Lord, you are so good to me. I don’t deserve your love and grace but I am so thankful for it. Your ways are higher than my ways and your thoughts are higher than my thoughts. Please help me submit fully to your lordship in my life. Give me the strength to resist the desires of my flesh.
Help me to deny myself, and relinquish all that I have, and all that I am for you. Destroy my attachment to this world so that I can fully rely on you in every situation.
I want to develop a strong relationship with you and to be your disciple. Help me to continue to pursue this goal every day, and to help others do the same. I give my entire self over to you Lord. Amen.
So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.
Luke 14:33 ESV
2) Prayer to Take Up My Cross
Lord, the sacrifice of your son is a precious gift. I don’t deserve it, and I could never have earned it. Thank you for your grace and mercy and love to give it to me anyway. You gave up everything for me, even though you were pure and righteous, and I am full of sin.
Thank you for breaking the chains that kept me in bondage to sin. Thank you for the freedom I now have in you.
I want to follow your example as your disciple. Help me to also give up everything and take up my cross. I don’t want to live in slavery to my flesh, I want to embrace the freedom that you paid for with your blood.
I want to pursue my relationship with you fervently, with no attachment to the things of this world, not material things, family, jobs, money, or even my life. Help me to take up my cross daily. Amen.
And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.
Matthew 10:38 ESV
3) Prayer to Follow Christ Wholeheartedly
Lord, you are all-knowing and full of wisdom. Your plan is masterful. Help me as your disciple to follow you in every thought, word, and deed. Give me a heart of obedience and trust that I would not get wrapped up in my doubt or what I think is the right choice.
Help me to recognize that your good and perfect will does not always look the way I think it should, but that doesn’t make it any less good or any less perfect. I desire to be your disciple and follow you all the days of my life. Please give me the strength to do that. Amen.
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.
John 10:27 ESV
4) Prayer for Abiding
Lord, you are the master gardener. You know what is best for your harvest. Help me to abide in you so that you might abide in me and I could be in a good relationship with you. Thank you for sending your son to make that relationship possible.
I know that to be your disciple I need to take the time to be with you and to build a stronger relationship with you. Help me to spend time in your Word so that I understand your teachings and your character. Help me to be in consistent prayer and worship with you.
Lord, even in the seasons of waiting, when it feels like nothing is happening. Lord, help me to abide. I just want to be with you, Lord. Amen.
So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
John 8:31-32 ESV
5) Prayer of Priority
Lord, you are my God. You take priority over everything in my life. I am your disciple and I will put you first. Lord, help me to leave everything behind for your sake. Help me to hold fast to your truth, your commands, and your desires for my life.
You are the most important thing. There is not even a second. You are the only priority in my life. Help me to view everything else only through you as my one priority. Help me to stay grounded in what I know to be true and reject anything that is a lie. Amen.
Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.
Luke 14:25-26 ESV
5 Prayers for Discipling Others
Another area that we can pray for is our role as we disciple others. As we are furthering the kingdom through discipleship of others there are several things we can be praying for including prayers for the nations, teaching, rebuking, faith, and relationships.
6) Prayer for Discipleship in the Nations
Lord, it is your desire for everyone to know you. Help me to be a part of that. Help me to be a good disciple for your kingdom and give me the grace to disciple others. Help me to advance your kingdom every day.
Lord, reveal to me my weaknesses and give me the strength to grow in these areas so that I am a better example to those that I disciple. Send me out into my community, my country, and all over the world to disciple others and show them how to grow near to you.
Help me to remember that I am your tool for accomplishing your plan. You are the one who is working in their lives and drawing them to yourself.
Help me to commission those that I am discipling to follow your calling on their lives. Help me to prepare them to go out and make disciples themselves so that your church can be grown around the globe.
God, prepare the hearts of those who will become your disciples to have ears to hear and understand, and that they would become strong followers of you.
I love you Lord, help me to show others how to love to too. Amen.
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.
Matthew 28:19-20 ESV
7) Prayer for a Spirit of Teaching
Lord, you are the ultimate teacher. You have modeled for us through your son how to disciple your people. Help me to learn from that example and put it into practice.
Holy Spirit, as I disciple my brothers and sisters in Christ for your kingdom, help me to be attuned to your voice. Give me the words to say so that your message would be taught.
Help me to learn how to disciple your people in a way that they can understand and that will help them grow. Amen.
8) Prayer for Faith
Lord, you are faithful to me. Your glory outshines everything. Help me to step out in faith for your kingdom and to challenge those I’m discipling to do the same. Do not allow us, your disciples, to grow complacent or prideful. Challenge us to step out in faith and depend on you fully for all that we need.
You are worthy of our trust. Your plan is perfect. Cast out all doubt that would hold us back from stepping into all that you have called us to do. We are your servants, help us to be obedient to your Holy Spirit’s convictions.
You are God above all creation. You are all powerful, all knowing, and always present. We give you all our adoration and praise for your grace and mercy in our lives. Amen.
9) Prayer of Rebuking
Lord, you are my Father. I am your child, and your disciple. Please put people in my life that will keep me accountable as such. Bring people who will rebuke me and my actions into my life so that I may continue to take on better, the image of your son.
Help me to have the strength, courage, and conviction to rebuke those that I am discipling. Work through me to keep them accountable so that they can grow to be more like you. It is not always easy to rebuke Lord, but it is so important to how you teach us.
Lord, give us open hearts to receive rebuking in our lives with grace and humility. Give us the strength to accept that word and act on it. Help us to seek you in this dark world. Amen.
Afterward he appeared to the eleven themselves as they were reclining at table, and he rebuked them for their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen.
Mark 16:14 ESV
10) Prayer for Healthy Relationships
Lord, your love for me is overwhelming. I am in awe of your grace in my life. You forgave me of my sin long ago, before I even committed it, in order that I may be in a relationship with you.
Lord, help me to develop good, Christ-centered relationships with those I am discipling. Help me to extend your grace and love to them in all things. Bring people into our lives that will help us to grow into better disciples, and help us to be that person for someone else.
You are faithful beyond measure and I thank you for my relationship with you. I am so blessed. Amen.
Keep On Praying
Continue to pray daily for growth in discipleship in your life, and as you grow more confident, begin to pray your own words into your circumstances. Come before the Lord humbly. Remember: he listens to your prayers.