52 Prayer Starters
NOTE: Each of these is a direct quote from Jennifer Kennedy Dean and must be
attributed to her in print according to copyright law. Simply add (Jennifer
Kennedy Dean) at the end of each quote when you use them in your printed
materials.
1. Prayer is the most aggressive, pro-active, offensive, invasive action one can take
in any situation. Prayer reaches into the spiritual realm and accesses all the power
of heaven for the circumstances of earth. (Jennifer Kennedy Dean)
“The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary,
they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and
every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take
captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Cor. 10:4-5).
2. What God wants to do on the earth, He will do through intercessors. When God
wants to change the course events will take on their own, He searches out an
intercessor on whose heart He can place His desires. (Jennifer Kennedy Dean)
“I looked for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand before
me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found
none” (Ezek. 22:30).
3. Through an ongoing prayer relationship with the Father, He will reproduce His
heart in me, shaping my desires to match His. He will take my self-centered heart
and fasten it on Him. (Jennifer Kennedy Dean)
“Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Ps.
37:4).
4. Prayer is the means by which you will be freed from your earth-bound, timebound thinking to participate in eternity. (Jennifer Kennedy Dean)
“So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is
temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Cor. 4:18).
5. Prayer will work as God intends for it to work when it becomes what God intends
for it to be. Prayer is not an activity, but a relationship. Prayer is not a formula,
but a life. Only when we have learned to live prayer, breathe prayer, be prayer—
only then will the power promised in Scripture consistently be your experience.
(Jennifer Kennedy Dean)
“And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests”
(Eph. 6:18).
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6. Don’t focus your faith on an outcome. Instead, focus your faith on God. (Jennifer
Kennedy Dean)
“Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to the king, ‘O Nebuchadnezzar, we
do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into
the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue
us from your hand, O king. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king,
that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up’”
(Dan. 3:16-18).
7. His sovereign decree has established prayer as the bridge between the spiritual
realm—where the Word of God is settled forever and all the promises are already
‘Yes’ in Christ—and the material realm. Prayer bridges the gap between heaven
and earth. (Jennifer Kennedy Dean)
“Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10).
8. God initiates prayer. Scripture tells us that God is awakening desires, initiating
spiritual hunger, creating in His children the inclination to seek Him. When you
pray, you are opening your life to His power and provision. (Jennifer Kennedy
Dean)
“Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the
door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me” (Rev. 3:20).
9. True prayer is when God’s heart is expressed through your words. Prayer in its
highest form occurs when the words I articulate, with my mouth or in my mind,
are merely the containers for God’s thoughts and desires. (Jennifer Kennedy
Dean)
“I have put my words in your mouth and covered you with the shadow of my
hand” (Isa. 51:16).
10. God’s heart is the beginning point of prayer. Powerful, earth-changing prayer
starts in the heart of God and flows through the hearts of His people. (Jennifer
Kennedy Dean)
“The LORD confides in those who fear him; he makes his covenant known to
them” (Ps. 25:14).
11. God wants to answer prayer in such a way that He will be glorified. He wants our
lives to be billboards upon which He can advertise Himself. He wants our lives to
be stages upon which He can perform. He wants our lives to be trophy cases in
which He can display His mighty deeds. (Jennifer Kennedy Dean)
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“Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honor me”
(Ps. 50:15).
12. As you are learning to live a praying life, prayer takes on a much broader
definition than “saying prayers.” Much of what prayer is accomplishing cannot be
condensed to a list. Sometimes the direct answer to a specific petition is the least
important aspect of what prayer accomplished. Most important is what has
occurred in the heart of the praying person. (Jennifer Kennedy Dean)
“May your unfailing love be my comfort, according to your promise to your
servant. Let your compassion come to me that I may live, for your law is my
delight” (Ps. 119:76-77).
13. Your need or your desire is simply His entry point into your life. In meeting your
need and fulfilling your desire, He is drawing you to deeper dependence on Him
and deeper intimacy with Him. (Jennifer Kennedy Dean)
“And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ
Jesus” (Phil. 4:19).
14. You cannot know the desire of your heart until you know the heart of your desire.
Usually, what we describe as “the desire of my heart” is really a secondary desire
orbiting around the true desire. What we think we desire is really the way we have
imagined the true desire will be met. We often mistake the desire of the moment
for the desire of our hearts. Give Him access to your heart. He will peel back the
desire of the moment and show you the desire of your heart. To the desire of your
heart, there will always be a resounding “yes” from heaven. (Jennifer Kennedy
Dean)
“Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a
fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give
good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good
gifts to those who ask him!” (Matt. 7:9-11).
15. God has a good, loving, and productive purpose for scheduling waiting periods
into the prayer process. When He has called on you to wait, it is because the wait
is necessary to the outcome. He is doing something during the waiting period that
He could not do without it. (Jennifer Kennedy Dean)
“I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope” (Ps. 130:5).
16. His desires poured into our hearts so that they become our desires—this is the
secret of powerful and effective prayer. (Jennifer Kennedy Dean)
“My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his
work” (John 4:34).
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17. It is His pull on our hearts that causes us to desire Him. Our longing for Him is
but the echo of His longing for us. (Jennifer Kennedy Dean)
“This is love: not that we loved him, but that he loved us… We love because He
first loved us” (1 John 4:10, 19).
18. Through a consistent, daily intake of His Word, God will reveal His heart and
direct our prayers. His Word becomes the mold in which our prayers are shaped.
(Jennifer Kennedy Dean)
19. The person who is abiding in Christ has desires that are God-shaped. Out of the
life that is abandoned to God and His purposes flows the prayer that God has
promised to answer. (Jennifer Kennedy Dean)
“If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish and it
will be done for you” (John 15:7).
20. Power flows from purity. Seek purity and you will find power. (Jennifer Kennedy
Dean)
“Who may ascend the hill of the LORD? Who may stand in his holy place? He
who has clean hands and a pure heart” (Ps. 24:3-4).
21. The Spirit’s quiet whisper
Bids me bow before Your throne
‘Til my heart’s deepest yearnings
Are the echo of Your own.(Jennifer Kennedy Dean)
“Be still, and know that I am God” (Ps. 46:10).
22. Faith is not knowing how God will bring His will into being; faith is knowing that
God will bring His will into being. God’s ways are not our ways, but you can be
assured of this: He is faithful and trustworthy and your heart can safely rest in
Him. (Jennifer Kennedy Dean)
“All the ways of the Lord are loving and faithful to those who keep the demands
of his covenant” (Ps. 25:10).
23. He does not have “one size fits all” answers. God’s agenda is always bigger than
the immediate circumstances. The immediate circumstances are going to merge
with an eternal agenda. (Jennifer Kennedy Dean)
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“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the LORD. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways
higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isa. 55:8-9).
24. We seek God through the spiritual disciplines. By engaging in the spiritual
disciplines, we keep our lives open to God so that He can do in us and through us
what He desires. He can fulfill His purpose through us when we are accessible to
Him. (Jennifer Kennedy Dean)
“I cry out to God Most High, to God, who fulfills his purpose for me” (Ps. 57:2).
25. The same scripture is received as “milk” by some and as “meat” by others. Some
believers, it seems, have not ingested enough of the Word to develop a mature
spiritual digestive system. They can only access what they can skim off the
surface. Others, though, have taken in enough spiritual food that their spiritual
digestive systems can metabolize meat. They can access the deeper, more
substantive truths in God’s Word. How have they reached this maturity? The
writer of Hebrews puts it this way: “…who, by constant use, have trained
themselves…” (Heb. 5:14). Do you want to move on from milk to meat? Make
constant use of the Word of God. (Jennifer Kennedy Dean)
“We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to
learn. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to
teach you the elementary truths of God's word all over again. You need milk, not
solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with
the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by
constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil” (Heb. 5:1114).
26. To live in intimacy with God, we must build into our lives the discipline of
solitude and silence. We must respond when the Lover of our souls calls us to a
place of solitude to be alone with Him. (Jennifer Kennedy Dean)
“Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak
tenderly to her” (Hos. 2:14).
27. The promise of prayer is a transformed heart. Through the ongoing flow of prayer
we are brought into contact with the Father’s heart. As we behold His glory, we
are changed into His image. Our lives begin to reflect Him. Our desires begin to
reflect His desires. The promise of prayer is a heart that matches His. (Jennifer
Kennedy Dean)
“And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being
transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the
Lord, who is the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:18).
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28. Dear friend, put away childish things—little flesh-shaped desires; short-sighted,
earth-bound understanding. Yield yourself to His bigger agenda. Let Him do more
than you can ask or even think. Let Him do His full and mighty work in you.
(Jennifer Kennedy Dean)
“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine,
according to his power that is at work within us” (Eph. 3:20-21).
29. Faith is not believing something; faith is believing Someone. Faith is not
committing yourself to an idea, but to a person. Faith is responding to the presenttense Voice of the Father. (Jennifer Kennedy Dean)
“By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his
inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going”
(Heb. 11:8).
30. Leave behind that tame, tepid, play-it-safe, follow-the-rules kind of faith. We
have been called to an outrageous faith—a reckless faith that risks everything on
the trustworthiness of God. (Jennifer Kennedy Dean)
“By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who
had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even
though God had said to him, "It is through Isaac that your offspring will be
reckoned." Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively
speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death” (Heb. 11:17-19).
31. Obedience is crucial for powerful praying. Disobedience dulls my spiritual
hearing. It causes me to lose my ability to hear the subtle nuances of His
communication. Jesus once said to His enemies, “Why is my language not clear to
you? Because you cannot hear what I am saying” (John 8:43). Do you see that
you can hear the words, but not hear the heart? Do you want to hear Him? Do you
want to hear all the layers of His words? Do you want all of Him? Then He must
have all of you. (Jennifer Kennedy Dean)
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you
obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my
Father's commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may
be in you and that your joy may be complete” (John 15:9-12).
32. Holding on to anger and bitterness is cutting off the flow of His power through us.
The scripture tells us that unforgiveness gives the enemy an opening—an
opportunity to carry out his schemes. (Jennifer Kennedy Dean)
“And what I have forgiven-if there was anything to forgive-I have forgiven in the
sight of Christ for your sake, in order that Satan might not outwit us. For we are
not unaware of his schemes” (2 Cor. 2:10-11).
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33. Think of your Spirit-directed prayers as “smart bombs” falling on enemy territory.
Your persevering prayers are systematically demolishing the enemy’s
strongholds. The air war is preparing the way for the ground troops to invade.
(Jennifer Kennedy Dean)
“The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary,
they have divine power to demolish strongholds” (2 Cor. 10:4).
34. Spoken prayer will not reach its potential unless it is grounded in listening prayer.
In listening prayer, spoken prayer is born. (Jennifer Kennedy Dean)
“I will stand at my watch and station myself on the ramparts; I will look to see
what he will say to me, and what answer I am to give to this complaint” (Hab.
2:1).
35. Brokenness is the ground from which spiritual power grows. Welcome
brokenness. Embrace it. Don’t fear or resist it. Like the kernel of wheat that falls
into the ground to die, the outer layers of your flesh—self-centeredness, pride,
self-trust—must be broken so that the life within can emerge. (Jennifer Kennedy
Dean)
“I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it
remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds” (John 12:24).
36. God engineered your salvation not only for the purpose of cleansing you of sin,
but also for the purpose of filling you with Himself. The work He is doing in
you—the breaking, the crucifying, the cleansing—all have one purpose: to
prepare His chosen dwelling place for His presence. (Jennifer Kennedy Dean)
“The priests went into the sanctuary of the LORD to purify it. They brought out to
the courtyard of the LORD's temple everything unclean that they found in the
temple of the LORD. The Levites took it and carried it out to the Kidron Valley”
(2 Chron. 29:16-17).
37. The trust of which scripture speaks is not an emotion or a doctrine, but a way of
living in which every thought, every word, every act is an expression of total
dependence upon the Father. The righteous live by faith. Faith is not something
that you get out and dust off when you want something from God. For your
spiritual life, faith is the air in your lungs and the blood in your veins; it is the
active ingredient in your spiritual composition. (Jennifer Kennedy Dean)
“Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was
strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God
had power to do what he had promised” (Rom. 4:20-21).
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38. Everything God requires of you, He has already provided for you. When God
provided a ram as a substitute for Isaac (Gen. 22:13-14), He introduced Himself
as “God Who Provides.” What does He provide? He provides what He requires.
He required a sacrifice and He provided a sacrifice. Through the Son’s indwelling
power, He has already made available everything necessary for living out your
new life. (Jennifer Kennedy Dean)
“His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through
our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness” (2 Peter
1:3).
39. Every act of obedience to the voice of the living and present Jesus steadies the
heart. As a house is built brick upon brick, so a steadfast heart is built obedience
upon obedience. (Jennifer Kennedy Dean)
“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is
like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams
rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it
had its foundation on the rock” (Matt. 7:24-26).
40. As you submit to God’s work in you, the acoustics of your heart are improving
daily. The word acoustics means “the ability of an enclosure to reflect sound
waves in such a way as to produce distinct hearing.” If a structure does not have
the proper shape or dimensions, or if it is cluttered with objects that absorb or
redirect sound waves, sounds will not be distinct. God is reshaping, molding, and
cleansing your heart so that His voice will be clearly heard. (Jennifer Kennedy
Dean)
“This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!” (Mark 9:7).
41. Praise is the spontaneous and natural overflow of the inflow of His life. (Jennifer
Kennedy Dean)
“All my springs of joy are in you” (Ps. 87:7, NASB).
42. Praise is a powerful spiritual antioxidant, keeping your spiritual immune system
strong. It destroys spiritual toxins before they have a chance to do damage. Praise
changes your focus, fixing your eyes on the Supply rather than the need. Just try
to remain discouraged or hurt in the midst of genuine praise. You can’t do it.
(Jennifer Kennedy Dean)
“My mouth is filled with your praise, declaring your splendor all day long” (Ps.
71:8).
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43. As you praise, you are releasing tremendous spiritual power. Praise dispels the
enemy’s troops. Praise lays the groundwork for the display of God’s power.
(Jennifer Kennedy Dean)
“He who sacrifices thank offerings honors me, and he prepares the way so that I
may show him the salvation of God” (Ps. 50:23).
44. Outward forms of worship were intended to express true, inward worship. The
danger is that they will disguise inward emptiness. The Holy Spirit is the guard
against empty, surface religion. (Jennifer Kennedy Dean)
“Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship
the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.
God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth” (John 4:2324).
45. Jesus has pulled you into His inner circle, those to whom He will impart His
secrets. A person who is following a doctrine need not listen. There is nothing
new to know. The person who is following Christ must be continually listening.
(Jennifer Kennedy Dean)
“I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's
business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my
Father I have made known to you” (John 15:15).
46. Prayer is not a benign, feel-good, stress-relieving exercise. Prayer releases the
power of God to change the circumstances of earth. (Jennifer Kennedy Dean)
“The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective” (James 5:16).
47. Are you willing right now to open your entire life to the flow of His power? Even
knowing that His power may interrupt cherished sin-patterns or challenge
comfortable beliefs? Do you want all of Him more than you want any other thing?
You can have all of Him that you make room for. (Jennifer Kennedy Dean)
“And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power,
together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the
love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge-that you may be
filled to the measure of all the fullness of God” (Eph. 3:17-19).
48. As you live moment-by-moment in His power and presence, He will speak
through you to those around you. Jesus wants to speak His healing, encouraging,
strengthening, eternal, life-giving words through your mouth. (Jennifer Kennedy
Dean)
“The lips of the righteous nourish many” (Prov. 10:21).
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49. God is in the details. He is engineering even the smallest detail in order to
establish His divine purpose. Happenings that seem random, choices and
decisions that seem spontaneous and uncalculated, paths that cross in seemingly
serendipitous ways—all are being put in order by the Lord. (Jennifer Kennedy
Dean)
“The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD” (Prov.
16:33).
50. The kingdom of God is not idle chatter, or empty words, or even eloquent and
reasoned arguments. The kingdom of God is power. When Christ in you becomes
Christ through you, the power of God becomes operative in your world. (Jennifer
Kennedy Dean)
“But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is
from God and not from us” (2 Cor. 4:7).
51. God is able to do more than all we can ask or even conceive of. When you ask
God for the best thing you can think of, you ask Him for less than He can do.
When you feel that your request pushes the limits of His power, He wants to do
more than you can imagine. (Jennifer Kennedy Dean)
“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine,
according to his power that is at work within us” (Eph. 3:20).
52. You are the temple of the living God. You are the place where His glory dwells.
He lives in you; you are His house. He says of you: “My house will be a house of
prayer” (Luke 19:46). (Jennifer Kennedy Dean)
“Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives
in you? If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him; for God's temple
is sacred, and you are that temple” (1 Cor. 3:16-17).
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