The Power Of Prayer Series

How many of you are inspired by Art? Motivated by music? Stirred by a poem? Touched by colors, patterns, and designs? Moved by nature? Changed by Relationships? In a very similar way – we should be inspired, motivated, stirred, touched, moved, and changed by our Prayer Life.

Prayer – The Whisper of the soul in search of harmony with the heart of God.

Do you ever wonder why your prayer life feels like “Gone with the Wind”, in black and white, stuck on replay? Perhaps you have memorized your prayer lines so well that, like Gone with the Wind, it feels like you’re praying to the Wind and not the Word. “I Can only Imagine” how wonderful our prayer life would be if we upgraded “The Godfather” – and prayed in high definition, to God the Father. Prayer is one long overture. No, you don’t have to audition in order to speak to God. Everyone has a part. Everyone has role. Everyone has a prayer, which is always heard, no matter how simplistically it may be spoken. But sometimes, we stumble over the dialogue to get it just right, we become too afraid to pray – especially out loud, in front of others, our audience. But there is no perfect dialogue and prayer is not about impressing an audience. But as we pray, we gain confidence, and more importantly, we gain a connection with God.

That’s the only reason it might be wise to add new screenshots of creativity to our prayer life. A fresh approach to prayer won’t affect our ratings with God, but a colorful background may add dimension to our relationship with the Great Producer - the Majestic Composer.

And together we will discover that every prayer has 4 dimensions:

1. glorify Him 2. Build a relationship with Him 3. Align our hearts with Him and His holy and perfect will 4. Rejoice in Him – because of answered prayer

The Real Power in Prayer is in simply praying. Like Nike – just do it! Power appliances are useless unless we plug them into a power source. God is our power source. And that power source is Alive – He is a live wire - listening and answering the prayers of his children. But He can’t answer prayers that aren’t being uttered.

The Mystery of prayer connects God to mankind

The Power of prayer changes our frame of mind

Prayer changes us. If we don’t believe that – we might as well stop right here. Because if we don’t believe in the power of prayer – there’s no reason to pray. There’s no reason to make prayer a priority. There’s no reason to pray without ceasing.

From the time my children were little, we got on our knees every night and prayed to God. I found out years later from my son that he was trying to run from God when he was a junior in high school. But, it was impossible. God would not let him go. When I asked him why God wouldn’t let him go. He said, “You can’t run from God when you’re on your knees every night praying with your mom.”

I cried. Yes, cried tears of joy. I never knew my son was fighting God and that our prayer time was that glue that would not let him go. You see, “Prayer is the glue that fastens our heart to God and focuses our mind on God.”

What’s the best way to love another person? Pray for them. Pray with them. Jesus set the example for us – he often prayed for others and with others – and even now – He is at the right hand of the father praying – interceding – for us.” If Jesus felt the need to pray – and still feels the need to pray – to intercede for us - should we do less than Him? I think not.

“Prayer is the breath of the soul in sync with the song of the Savior”

*Prayer isn’t a haphazard – throw up a few words to the pie in the sky and hope he hears and answers. And, like I said, our goal in prayer should never be to impress others.

The message God has laid upon my heart today isn’t about upgrading our prayers to impress, it’s about splashing our prays with creativity to grow – to grow in our relationship with Him - to move past the mentality that prayer is simply an avenue to ask God for what we want. Prayer is so much more.

There are many ways to Power-Up our prayer life, we can’t cover them all, but let’s look a few.

First – we can address God in numerous ways.

The manner in which we approach His holy throne stimulates our mind in a particular direction. Most of us have a pat beginning we’re comfortable with. But instead of saying Dear Heavenly Father or Dear God every single time we pray, what about: