The Power Of Prayer

Scripture: Psalm 63:1-3 O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is. 2 To see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary. 3 Because thy lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee.

The 3 layers of Prayer:

1) The Court Yard

When we first start to pray, we are all about self. All we can think about is what we want, and our guilt for our sins. We plead our case before God. In ancient Israel, this was the first place they would come to at the temple. This is where they offered their sacrifice. They would plead their case before God.

2) The Holy Place

This is where God becomes real to us. The priest would be standing here. This is where they receive atonement for their sins. Yet, sadly, this is as far as even the priests could go. Only the High priest could go further. And that was only once per year. Here it is less about what God can do for us and more about how much we only want to please him.

3)The Holy Of Holies

The Holy of Holies is where miracles happen. Before Christ died for our sins and rose on the third day, only the high priest could enter here. Jesus is now the High priest and has given us the authority to enter here. This is where we reach the presence of God. This is where we see Gods Glory.....

Our Prayer Should align with the tabernacle

Just like in the tabernacle, our prayers should go in this order. When we do this, we see how must power our prayers have. Without prayer, we get weaker and weaker until we can't resist the temptation of sin.

When we pray, our spirit awakens. All through the bible, we see God telling us to wake up. He is talking about our spirit. When our spirit is fully awoken, that is when we are in the presence of God. When we pray This is what happens:

1) We will put on spiritual strength-- Strength against satan, against sin, against temptation. Weakness will go away!

2) We will put on new Holy Garments, the garment of righteousness. Sin will not be able to touch us

3) The uncircumcised and unclean will not be a part of us. We will no longer have fellowship with the wicked

4) We will stop running here and there to find someone to pray for us or get us out of trouble. We will shake ourselves from the dust- from our misery, from our mess.We will arise and be free.

5) And then we can sit down and enter Gods rest. There will be peace- real peace, the peace of Jesus.

6) We will loosen ourselves from the grip of satan and the sin that keeps coming back upon us.

When we neglect prayer we find six horrible results:

1)Because we are not awake, we will sell ourselves to the devil for nothing.

2)We will enter back into Egypt (back into the world).

3)We will become oppressed.

4)We will be taken away like slaves.

5)We will wail and howl due to the bondage we are in.

6)The wicked will blaspheme God because us Christians are not praying as we ought.

As Jesus said in Matthew 5: 13 Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt has lost his savor, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.

We are to be different, we are to stand out in the world. Without Prayer, we are just like the rest of the world: Bland and Godless. And for that reason, the world blasphemes God. Because Gods people blend in making us hypocrites.