Seeing God's Love Through His Power And Our Prayer Series

Seeing God’s Love through His Power

and our Prayer

Daniel 10:1-3, 10-14

Illustration

Slide 1

Missionary – Herbert Jackson

Got a car that would not start without a push.

Had kids start him off each day by giving him a push

Left car running or parked on a hill while he made rounds

Slide 1 Did this for 2 years

Due to an illness in their family, they had to leave

New missionary came

Jackson explained car procedure

New missionary looked under hood and found loose connection

Tightened it and car started right up without push.

Because Jackson did not know much about cars, he was unable to harness the full power of the starter on the car.

I think there are a lot of Christians that have a loose connection and we fail to see the love that God has poured out on us by making His power available to us through prayer.

We pray and there seems to be no effect from our prayers.

We wonder if God really hears us or if He really does control things.

Or if He really does love us?

Last week we began talking about the love of God. We talked about his sovereignty even in the midst of our suffering and how we can trust Him and trust his sovereign control even when we are suffering.

This week I want to talk about how we can see God’s Love for us through His Power and our prayer.

I think part of the problem is a misunderstanding of what prayer involves.

Like the loose connection on the car, if we only understood more about how God has ordained prayer to work, we would have more effective prayer lives.

Today – looking at Daniel

Had powerful and effective prayer life

Want to draw out principles so we too can experience a powerful and effective prayer life.

Slide 2

Daniel 10 begins

Daniel 10:1-3; 10-14 (page 634)

1 In the third year of Cyrus king of Persia, a revelation was given to Daniel (who was called Belteshazzar). Its message was true and it concerned a great war. The understanding of the message came to him in a vision.

2 At that time I, Daniel, mourned for three weeks. 3 I ate no choice food; no meat or wine touched my lips; and I used no lotions at all until the three weeks were over.

Slide 2

Verses 4 – 9 talk about the vision Daniel sees and it’s affect on him. Continuing in verse 10, he says

10 A hand touched me and set me trembling on my hands and knees. 11 He said, "Daniel, you who are highly esteemed, consider carefully the words I am about to speak to you, and stand up, for I have now been sent to you." And when he said this to me, I stood up trembling.

12 Then he continued, "Do not be afraid, Daniel. Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them. 13 But the prince of the Persian kingdom resisted me twenty-one days. Then Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, because I was detained there with the king of Persia. 14 Now I have come to explain to you what will happen to your people in the future, for the vision concerns a time yet to come."

Daniel’s prayer had a powerful effect.

His prayer put into action angels from Heaven who engaged in spiritual battle.

What if God showed his love to us by making His power available to us? What if things could be affected by our prayers from the way they would otherwise be if we hadn’t prayed?

Just think of the things that could happen.

Think of the effective church we would have.

Think of the people who would be saved.

Think of the powerful witness we could be to this unsaved world if we only could pray like Daniel did and have God’s power made available to us?

Think of the close relationship with God we would have.

That Power is available to us. God has ordained that our prayers can influence His power. We can pray and unleash the power that God in His sovereignty has made available to us.

Now don’t misunderstand. God is not some Genie at our beck and call. But at the same time He has given us prayer as a way to affect things in His creation.

I want to see what we can learn from Daniel’s prayer so that we can see His love and experience a more effective prayer life.

The first thing I want us to see if we are going to have an effective prayer life is that