Energizing your Prayer Life
Illus.
THE STATS ON PRAYER
A Newsweek poll several years ago titled "Is God Listening?" indicated that 54% of those the magazine surveyed prayed on a daily basis - 25% said they pray to God once a day and 29% more than once a day.
87% believed that God answers their prayers at least some of the time. Even so, unanswered prayers did not deter them from praying. 85% insisted that they could accept God's failure to grant their prayers. Only 13 percent declared they have lost faith because their prayers went unanswered. 82% don't turn away from God even when their prayers go unanswered. 54% say that when God doesn't answer their prayers, it means it wasn't God's will to answer.
The things people pray for include health, safety, jobs, and even success, valid or not. 82% said they ask for health or success for a child or family member when they pray. 82% believed that God does not play favorites in answering prayers. 79% said God answers prayer for healing someone with an incurable disease. 75% asked for strength to overcome personal weakness. 73% answered that prayers for help in finding a job are answered. On the lighter side, 51% agreed that God doesn't answer prayers to win sporting events. 36% never prayed for financial or career success.
Gathered polls are a collection of opinions and we know opinions are all over the place on any given subject. Clearly from reading Newsweek’s poll and their statistics on prayer, we can see that most people’s prayer life is all over the place.
Most peoples prayer life, religious activities or relationship with God, are based upon their mothers, their fathers or some other individual who may have taught them or poured into their life and maybe even unintentionally miss led them, in the forming of what they think their prayer can do and accomplish!
What do you think your prayers and your prayer life is capable of?
More importantly, what does the Bible say your prayers and your prayer life is capable of?
James 5:13-16 NKJ
13 Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing psalms.
If you have a need PRAY! Don’t pray small prayers, PRAY Bold prayers with high expectations!
If you don’t have a need, then sing a song of thanksgiving and praise!
14Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.
(How many times have we all came to church with a pressing need and said nothing? Not even a request for an unspoken need was uttered! The Bible says you have not because you ask not, so ask!
This scripture also advises us to not let just anyone pray for you but to go to the elders of the church, get the prayer warriors who will get in the trench with you and not watch from the sidelines, get those who have faith and are believers in the power of prayer!
If you were to get someone to drive you to a destination, you wouldn’t hire someone with inexperience would you? You would want someone with great experience who knew the route and who knew how to do what you were asking and would get you safely to your destination, right?
What happens when you follow God’s directions?
15 And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. 16 [j]Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, [k]fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.
To pray fervent prayers, I believe means to pray unrelenting prayers!
Until the hand of God moves
Until the answer comes
Until the doctor says I can’t believe it, it’s a miracle!
To accomplish this, believing anything less than Gods best is unacceptable, doubt is not an option!
Phil. 4:6,7 KJ
Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.
7 And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
The living bible says, Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything; tell God your needs, and don’t forget to thank him for his answers. 7 If you do this, you will experience God’s peace, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand. His peace will keep your thoughts and your hearts quiet and at rest as you trust in Christ Jesus.
God says when you do this, I will give you peace I will give you rest!
God knows how hard circumstances are and seem to be. That’s why the word instructs us to do and follow God’s instructions often, and how often you may be wondering?
Ephesians 6:18 NKJ says; All the time!
praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints!
TBS to acknowledge God in all Your ways!
John Wesley was known to have said; “ God does nothing in this world, but from response to prayer,”
Having the ability to pray is an amazing gift to us!
Prayer is both a privilege and a responsibility!
Your prayers, our prayers bring about change in this world, to our needs our families needs and all of our situations!
I want you to think about this?
To go places in this world and to do the things that you want to do, requires identification. To vote you have to show your voter ID card. If you get pulled over driving a car, you better have your drivers license. The world wants to see your identity and proof of who you say you are, it’s your key to proving who you are and obtaining what you want!
Spiritually speaking, it’s the same way! If you have trusted Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior, you have an identity! You have been adopted into the family of God and you have been given the identity of a son, or a daughter of the most high God!
Your identity gives you undeniable access 24 hours a day, to the throne room of God! No one can revoke or take away this privilege, it was designed by God, through and guaranteed by your relationship with Jesus His Son to be enjoyed forever!
You don’t have to worry about getting advice second handedly from someone else, or someone who is unqualified with limited knowledge. You have been given access to the council of Jesus, Gods gift of grace to the world, through the power of the Holy Spirit Of God that lives in you and makes His residence there!
You have authorization! You have been given authority! Over what you might ask?
Luke 10:19 NKJ
Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you.
We have been given authority over what? All the power of the enemy! Far too many Christians act like they’re in the minority. It’s time that we realize what we truly have been Given!
We have been given authority over all the power of the enemy! That means there is nothing that the accuser can do to us, or throw at us, that we do not have the authority to come against and overcome!
Well you don’t know what and how the accuser has been working in my life! Doesn’t matter! If you are willing to receive, believe and realize what God has given to you, there is nothing that come against you unless you let it!
Far too many Christians have let what I call the shunes rule and reign in their lives.
Depression, Oppression, demoralization and a host of other negative and nasty tricks the accuser continues to hurl on a daily basis at the world!
All those things are by the accusers design to shun us from the word, the light and the power God has both promised us and given to us, guaranteed by the Cross!
The power that we have been given by none other than God himself allows us to rid ourselves of these unwanted demons and spirits!!
The only spirit that should be allowed in our lives is the Holy Spirit of God!
Illus.
Now if you don’t think what I’m telling you is true, imagine this;
It’s like being in an old house without air-conditioning. You open a window to let in fresh air, but there’s a rip or a little hole in the screen. And at first maybe one or two flies come in and it’s no big deal.
But then they start to multiply and maybe other insects discover the way into the house. And it begins to get hot outside and you open another window only to discover it also has a worn out screen, but you think you have to open the window because you can’t stand the heat and the drama caused by the heat.
And before you know it, you have an uncontrollable infestation in your house with no foreseeable solution and you begin to think you’ll just have to learn to live with it and you get used to it to the point you become an extension of the infestation, spreading what you’re experiencing on a daily basis. With your family, your friends and your world!
That’s how it is with the accuser! That’s why there so many depressed people in the world. That’s why there’s so much oppression in the world. That’s why there’s so much to doom and gloom in the world.
That’s why someone who offers hope in a positive message is so quickly dismissed, falsely accused or made out to be unreliable in what their positive testimony message offers!
God has given us power over all of the enemies of truth! It’s high time that we started to act like it, realize it, pro claim it, walk in it and lived it!
We have been given a Position in God’s Kingdom!
Ephesians 1:19-21 TLB
19 I pray that you will begin to understand how incredibly great his power is to help those who believe him. It is that same mighty power 20 that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God’s right hand in heaven, 21 far, far above any other king or ruler or dictator or leader. Yes, his honor is far more glorious than that of anyone else either in this world or in the world to come.
Understand and realize God’s power has been given to you to help you! The same power that raised Christ from the dead has been given to you!
Ephesians 2:4-7 NKJ
4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus
We have been raised with Christ, we have a position with Christ in the heavenly‘s, we have been raised up so that in the ages to come he might show his exceeding riches of his grace and his kindness towards us in Christ Jesus!
Friends that was written 1000’s of years ago, we are living right now in the ages to come and as long as we’re alive, God promises to show us His Grace!
We have been given a prominent position, it’s time to realize what we truly have been given! We have a heritage, we have an inheritance, we are a son or daughter of the most high God!
The word says we are seated with Christ in the heavenly’s, which means far above all the circumstances and situations that we go through!
When we are bombarded and feel like we’re lost in a circumstance or situation, we need to realize God has already made a way of escape from that circumstance or situation.
If we will realize the position that we have been already given, we can expect to watch at rest with Christ, our needs being met and exceeded by the riches God has given to Jesus to lavishly distribute to all those who profess their love for Him!
Illus. by Michael McCartney
"Some years ago in the great State of Minnesota, the Granary of the West, there came a scourge of grasshoppers that threatened to destroy the whole wheat crop. The Governor, who was a very devout Christian, called upon the people to observe a day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer for the removal of the plague. Secular papers laughed this action to scorn, and derided the idea of an appeal to God. Spring came, the wheat appeared and the grasshopper with it, and then the secular press said, 'What is the result of your day of prayer?’ But after a little while as the grasshoppers grew, there came a parasite that not merely made the grasshopper impotent to destroy the wheat, but also impotent to propagate or reproduce itself. And from that day there has been no scourge of grasshoppers in the State of Minnesota."
Whatever the situation is, or whomever the person is that you’re praying for today. God would have me tell you that nothing is too hard for him and nothing is impossible for him who believes in the God of all possibilities!
