How To Pray For A Miricle Series

HOW TO PRAY FOR A MIRACLE

Power Through Prayer - Part 3

Luke 18:35-43

Jeff Seaman

Much of life is beyond our control. There’s just not anything you can do about it. Sometimes your best efforts aren’t good enough. Sometimes the only thing that will work is a miracle.

When do you need a miracle?

You need a miracle when the boss comes in and says, "I’m sorry. I’ve got to let you go." And it’s a month til Christmas. You need a miracle when it’s the end of the month and the bills are behind due and there’s nothing in the checkbook.

You need a miracle when your marriage is falling apart and communication has gone dead and you wonder if it’s going to make it.

You need a miracle when a doctor comes in and says, "I’m sorry. There’s nothing else we can do."

The fact is, you need miracles all the time in your life. When you read about these miracle, you find all these very ordinary people had miracles happening in their lives. They’re all through the Bible. You read that and say, "Why doesn’t God work that way in my life?" The answer is, He wants to. He wants to work that way in your life.

Today I want us to look at "How to Pray For a Miracle". There are some conditions, pre-requisites, principles you need to follow in order to see God work to His fullest in your life. We’re going to look at the story about the blind man that Jesus healed. From it we get five principles about how to pray for a miracle.

1. You need to be Passionate. Pray with all your heart. Pray what’s really on your heart.

2. Be Persistent. You’ve got to keep on praying until the miracle happens.

3. Be Precise. We see this also in the story of the blind man. He knew exactly what he wanted. Be exact, be specific, be precise in your praying.

4. Be Positive. Expect God to act if you’re going to see a miracle in your life.

5. Be Grateful. I know that bothers some of you that I’ve got four "P"s and one "G". So for those of you who are stuck on alliterations... be Praiseful.

1. BE PASSIONATE.

Put your whole heart into it. When you pray, pray with intensity, pray with feeling, pray with urgency. Have you noticed that when your kids ask you for things, that they don’t always want what they say they want. You take your kids to a toy store right before Christmas and say, "Give me some Christmas gift ideas". Matthew wants everything. "This and this and this but I really want this." Now I know what he wants. As a parent you listen for the tone of the voice.

God listens for the tone of your voice. Some things you say you want you really don’t want that badly. You don’t even want them badly enough to pray for them twice. You need to be passionate.

This man was. It says in Luke 18: 35 "As Jesus approached Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging. When he heard the crowd going by he asked, `What’s happening?’ They told him, `Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.’ He called out [literally, "he cried out"; Living Bible says "he began shouting"] `Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!’" He’s pleading here. He’s got passion. He knows exactly what he wants and he’s saying it with passion.

The first problem you and I have in prayer -- I have it and so do you -- is what I call lipservice praying. It’s when you pray but your heart’s not in it. You’re just mouthing words. You don’t really feel it. You don’t really care about it. Vain repetitions is what Jesus called it. Phrases: "Bless the gift and the giver... Bless this food to the nourishment of our bodies ... Help us to have a great day ... God bless America... " etc. etc. The longer you’re a Christian, the easier it is for you to slip into lipservice praying. You’ve learned all the phrases.

Have you ever set down at the dinner table and said, "Let’s pray" and you bow your head and you smell the food. You think, "Let’s get this over quick!" You just rattle out something and it means nothing. Do you ever do that? I do. I had a professor in seminary who had a little boy and one night they were getting ready to pray. He said, "Let’s join hands" and the little boy said, "Daddy, can I be the one tonight to talk to our plates?"

You need to pray with passion. When you don’t pray with feeling it means you’re not being honest to God. Honest praying has feeling in it. When we’re not praying with feeling, we’re usually praying what we think we ought to pray not what is really on our heart.