If the date of salvation is already fixed by God, then why should I pray hard?
Genesis 18:32 Then he said, "Oh may the Lord not be angry, and I shall speak only this once; suppose ten are found there?" And He said, "I will not destroy it on account of the ten."
19:24 Then the LORD rained on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the LORD out of heaven..”
I write this on a day of fasting and prayer, because the fire of God’s anointing is needed to percolate into the hearts of the people and bring understanding. Stay tuned to His voice now. The deception of the devil is to keep you away from God but my desire is to see you and your family saved. Amen. It has taken me more than 3 to 4 hours to write this devotion, after intense Bible study, which you would be reading in five minutes; however, I am determined in my commitment to expound the Gospel.
Someone told me, ‘Bala, we got to patiently wait, because only in God’s time the person will be saved.” Ah! I felt this got to be explained otherwise the devil is going to keep people lethargic and irresponsible in this very important subject of salvation. Salvation isn’t magic, we got to be patient I agree, but not lazy in praying, so much so, when you slow down your intensity in praying, the devil grabs the person through calamities. Suicides, heart attacks and accidents can overtake, if you are not intense in your prayer, do not take God for granted. The devil twists the words of God and thereby today we have umpteen false doctrines; however, if you are a humble person reading the Word of God with a pure mind, God would surely reveal the truth to you. I would give few incidents from the Bible and explain this to you:
INTENSE PRAYER:
In Genesis 18, we see Abraham boldly stand in front of God and plead on behalf of Sodom and Gomorrah, he prayed, ‘will you save the cities for the sake of the fifty righteous who are in it?’ and then slowly brings the number down to 10, God agrees to his request. This is the power of intercession prayer, but alas, not even 10 righteous are found in Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities were destroyed. When you pray God listens! The idea, ‘God is anyway going to save the person only in His time’, takes the onus away from intense praying, wrestling in prayer for the unsaved person, intense fasting and also thereby takes away the guilt of prayerlessness. Spiritual lethargy finds excuses to take the tough route! (Make a note of this statement and keep it in your bedroom, so that you wake up at 5 am in the morning and pray for your loved ones without fishing for excuses.) Be warned today, when you don’t pray enough and make changes in your life too then some souls will not be saved and deliverances may not take place. PRAYER, PRAYER…PRAYER is the answer…..
Numbers 16 in the Bible gives us an account of God’s wrath and how ‘ONLY’ prayer can change a situation. Even after the bunch of Korah group were swallowed in earth quake, even after they witnessed first-hand the results of rebellion; yet, the Israelites murmured, verse 41 ‘But on the next day all the congregation of the sons of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron….” OMG! Can people be so hardhearted and brash to talk against the servants of God after witnessing such catastrophes? When they did that, God commanded Moses and Aaron to get away so that He could kill them, but Moses tells Aaron, "Take your censer and put in it fire from the altar, and lay incense on it; then bring it quickly to the congregation and make atonement for them, for wrath has gone forth from the LORD, the plague has begun!" This part is crucial, hear me:
Numbers 16:47”Aaon ran into the midst of the assembly, for behold, the plague had (already)begun among the people…” (so, any slowing down on your part is going to affect the sinners..) Listen to this, the plague stopped after Aaron prayed; nonetheless, 14,700 had already died. I remember an incident, I preached exactly the same message with passion and tears rolling down my cheek in one of our FIRE CAMPS; at the end of the message, we received a call from the family of one of the participants saying, ‘her father committed suicide by consuming poison.’ Pray fervently for the lost ones, don’t delay !
Yes, only after Hannah got up from her seat of complacency and prayed intensely and forcefully, was she able to conceive Samuel. Are you hearing me? Flippant, nonchalant, powerless prayer achieves nothing, remember when your situation is grim and serious, you got to pray more and press more. Can I remind you of the prayer of Jesus at Gethsemane, “And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.”(Luke 22:44)
WORD OF GOD
There is power in the Word of God, so they got to hear the Gospel, I remember leaving my children with my husband to take them to church, while I waited in my friend’s place to take her entire family to church, the travel to the church was not pleasant though, everything possible happened to stop us, there were hassles in parking the car also, we made it anyway. Many miracles happened in that family after that, someone has to make a sacrifice and take an effort. It’s the Word of God that brings faith for salvation: “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17) “How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed,,” Rom 10:14
PRAYER OF THE RIGHTEOUS
James 5:16 “Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.” So, we understand that there are rewards when we walk righteously, despite the loss and sufferings that goes with it. God hears their prayer! We cannot remain dishonest, unreliable and wicked and expect our prayers for the salvation of our loved ones to be heard, is anyone understanding please? You can get saved but still gossip, get angry, fight, smoke, drink, be vengeful, merciless, create confusion, slow to forgive and much more; so be fruitful for effective answers for prayers.
