Prayer Fuel

Pray as the Lord leads you as you read today’s verse

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:3) ESV

Tunisian testimony

I am a young man from a typical neighborhood in Tunis and a new believer in Christ. I ask for your prayers. My parents are divorced, and my brother, and I lived with our mother until our father took the house, all our money, and the truck I used for work. He hates us. My pain is so great that I have trouble focusing on God’s goodness. I want to share the Good News, but I feel stuck in bitterness and despair. Please pray that I experience healing, peace, and freedom through Christ. I deeply desire to forgive my father, but it feels incredibly hard. Pray that God will help me forgive and heal my heart.

Praying with insight

Islam is a works-based religion. The more faithfully Muslims practice the five pillars of Islam, the better their chances are of entering paradise. Today, as we pray through Matthew 5:3 for Muslims in Tunisia, focus especially on how essential poverty of spirit (humility) is in entering the kingdom of heaven.

For believers

Dina did everything she could to make herself clean before God, including wearing the niqab, her traditional Muslim head covering. She was so confident in her own righteousness that when she met a Christian, she agreed to read the Bible so that she could prove to him that it was wrong. But God met her during those days and showed her how completely impoverished she was before a holy God. She surrendered to Jesus and now lives in humble circumstances so that she can more effectively share the Good News with others. Pray for believers to be led by the Holy Spirit in how to model these words of Jesus to be “poor in spirit” in their neighborhoods, workplaces, families, and communities.

For the lost

Hejer said yes to being a housecleaner for one more household. The extra money would get her one step closer to the amount she needed to pay for the government-subsidized omra (pilgrimage to Mecca). Her life had been a hard one, filled with manual labor, the death of a baby, the disappearance of a grown child, and the struggle to support her living children through her low-wage house cleaning. She thought that if she could make this trip to Mecca happen, then she could take back a little bit of her sense of powerlessness and improve her chances of going to heaven when she died. Pray for Hejer and the many like her to become “poor in spirit,” recognizing their complete inability to earn God’s favor.

For the church

Throughout the Muslim world, churches and believers within those churches are viewed as inferior. Often, they have fewer rights and resources than the Muslim majority around them. Pray for the church body in Tunisia to take comfort in Jesus’ words that “theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” May they intentionally engage the Muslims around them with the Gospel, bringing multiplication and growth as the early church did, rejoicing in their weaknesses because Jesus’ power is made perfect in them.

For areas of influence

Pray for places of education in this area. Pray for students who hope that an education will lead to better jobs and better lives than their parents had. Pray for the Spirit to meet them. Pray for Him to simultaneously show them their immeasurable worth as image-bearers of God and that the “riches of his glorious inheritance” are only for the poor in spirit.

Declaration of the scripture

We declare your teaching, Jesus, that the poor in spirit are blessed among these people, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. We pray for you to multiply disciples throughout Tunisia who have such a clear identity in you that they can humbly live out what it means to be “poor in spirit.” Finally, we pray for ourselves. Please make us poor in spirit.

Pray as God leads as you watch this video from Tunisia