Real Prayer Series

2015.02.01.Real Prayer

William Akehurst, HSWC

What is Prayer?

Quotes about Prayer

• When you can’t put your prayer into words, God hears your heart.

• Prayer is asking God to align you with HIS will, rather than asking Him to be aligned with yours.

• P.U.S.H. Pray Until Something Happens

• To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing. ~ Martin Luther

• Prayer does not equip you for greater works.

Prayer is the greater work. ---- Oswald Chambers

• Prayer Warriors Pray without Ceasing. 1 Thessalonians 5:17 Pray without ceasing.

Prayer is…

Speaking, communicating, talking to our Creator and Redeemer.

1. Prayer is a vital key that connects us to our heavenly Father.

2. Prayer is a privilege and our responsibility. It can move the hand of God in situations where there is no other hope.

3. Biblical prayer is crying to God out of the depths of scripture. It is pouring out our soul before God.

4. “Prayer is like the dove that Noah sent forth, which blessed him not only when it returned with an olive-leaf in its mouth, but also when it never returned at all.”

James 5:16b The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

• When a person is RIGHT with God, the power of his sincere prayer is tremendous!

• The conditions for that promise: When a person is “righteous”, right with GOD and prays “effectually fervent”, sincerely.

• Effectual fervent prayer is the hardest kind of work there is to do. Not only does it take more out of a person than any other kind of work, we have to handle ourselves with a strong discipline to make time for effectual fervent prayer.

KNOW HIM

We must understand and know to WHOM it is we pray.

The Creator of the universe. The I AM, the ETERNAL ONE who was, and is, and is to come.

Who is this being who holds the power over everything that exists? Who has the power of the impossible?

The HOLY ONE in whose presence we find ourselves as sinful beings unable to stand before HIM.

KNOW YOURSELF

Then, we must understand who WE are in HIS presence.

We fall short of HIS glory.

Fear and Trembling. Reverence and Awe.

How can we put into words who we are before the ONE who made us?

1 Corinthians 11:28 But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup.

Communion note: When we take of the elements of communion, we take the cup and bread in observance of our relationship with HIM. In prayer, we must know who we are before HIM.

We must also know who we are before HIM in CHRIST JESUS, who by HIS loving act of sacrifice and our confession and believing in what HE did, gave us the right to be called GOD’s children.

As we look through the bible, we see many people of prayer. Abraham, Issac, Jacob, Moses, David, Solomon, Jeremiah, Daniel. We can study their prayers and learn from how they interacted with GOD.

Our natural tendency is to shrink back when it comes to praying for the impossible.

• The problem is that we rest the power of prayer too much upon ourselves.

• We think that we are the ones making things happen in prayer.

• Instead we are to see ourselves as instruments in the Lord’s hands for accomplishing his purposes through prayer.

• Prayer is an act of obedience and privilege for the believer.

• We are commanded to pray. But we are also invited to bring our needs before the Lord.

• We are to anchor ourselves in his faithfulness and promises.

• We are to see that the very fact that God commands us to pray is a foundation for effectiveness in our prayers.

The Power of Fervent Prayer

• Peter was in prison awaiting his execution. The Church had neither human power nor influence to save him. There was no earthly help, but there was help to be obtained by the way of Heaven. They gave themselves to fervent, importunate prayer. God sent His angel, who aroused Peter from sleep and led him out through the first and second wards of the prison; and when they came to the iron gate, it opened to them of its own accord, and Peter was free.

• ‘Prayer has divided seas, rolled up flowing rivers, made rocks gush into fountains, quenched flames of fire, muzzled lions, disarmed vipers and poisons, marshaled the stars against the wicked, stopped the course of the moon, arrested the sun in its rapid race, burst open iron gates, released souls from eternity, conquered the strongest devils, commanded legions of angels down from heaven. Prayer has bridled and chained the raging passions of man and routed and destroyed vast armies of proud, daring, blustering atheists. Prayer has brought one man from the bottom of the sea and carried another in a chariot of fire to heaven. What has prayer not done?’