Tag Archives: prayer

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What Real Prayer to God Is About

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What Prayer to God Is About

What is real prayer all about? The following story illustrates what real prayer isn’t. Morris Davis was put in jail for “praying.” It all began when Davis was picked up and charged with arson. After his arrest, he was taken to a room at the police station for a lie detector test. Thinking he was alone, he prayed that old familiar prayer, “Lord, let me get away with it just this once.” But a policeman overheard his prayer and submitted it as evidence against him. The lower court ruled that this was a private conversation and therefore could not be submitted as evidence. The Canadian government, however, appealed this ruling and the Court of Appeals decided that it was admissible evidence because prayer is not a private conversation, since God is not a person.1 It’s nice to know what prayer isn’t but we also can and should know what it is.

[Tweet “The Lord is able to address each person who waits on Him at the Throne.”]

#S5-008: Is Praise and Thanksgiving Pillars of Your House? [Podcast]

 

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Three Areas We Need to Be Prayer Smart In

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Three Areas to Be Prayer Smart In

Pastor Jim Cymbala shares his experience with us: After I had been pastor of Brooklyn Tabernacle for about a year, the church had grown to fifty people, but we were facing problems: little money, few people coming to faith in Christ. One Tuesday afternoon, I sat in my cubbyhole office on Atlantic Avenue, depressed. I knew that later that day, fifteen people, at most, would come to church to pray. How could God call me and my wife to this city not to make a difference? I wondered. I walked into our empty, little sanctuary and recited to God a list of my problems: “Look at this building, this neighborhood … Our offerings are laughable … I can’t trust So-and-so … There’s so little to work with.” Then the Holy Spirit impressed upon me, “I will show you the biggest problem in the church. It’s you.” In that moment I saw with excruciating clarity that I didn’t really love the people as God wanted me to. I prepared sermons just to get through another Sunday. I was basically prayerless. I was proud. I fell on my face before God and began to weep. “God, whatever it takes, please change me. I would rather die than live out some useless ministry of catchphrases.” The Brooklyn Tabernacle began to turn around, and twenty years later, we are still learning about the tremendous power of prayer. Every Tuesday evening many hundreds of people come together simply to pray. 1 The Bible is our prayer book. In it are truths which will help make us smart in the fine art of prayer. Here are three truths which will help you.

[Tweet “It is a very good idea to read the scriptures about what you are praying about before you pray.”]

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How to Gain A Quality Prayer Life

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How to Build A Quality Prayer Life

Two Christian men lived near each other. The first was a farmer. Since there had not been any rain for several weeks, the farmer got up one morning and prayed for rain. His next-door neighbor was also up early, but he was praying that it would not rain, because he was taking an unsaved friend fishing that morning.1 One person’s prayer was answered, the other one was not. Is answered prayer just like rolling dice? You know hope that sevens come up? Or is there some truths from the Word of God which we can act on to help us build a quality prayer life and get the answers God promises in His Word?

[Tweet “The Bible give us clues and remedies to the disease of unanswered prayer.”]

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Simple Spirit Lessons on Prayer and Being Led

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There are multiple ways to be led by the Spirit of God. Here are some truths you might ponder in this area of being hearing God and allowing Him to lead you in your everyday life. Some of these lessons may help accelerate your learning curve and make your life more effective and fulfilling. Consider the following.

[Tweet “Being Spirit led must be your focal point because you only maximize what you emphasize.”]

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#S3-033: How to Pray Practically for Presidents and Kings [Podcast]

How to Increase the Presence of God in Your Everyday Life

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Someone once said these words concerning prayer. “Prayer should be the breath of our breathing. The thought of our thinking. The soul of our feeling. The life of our living. The sound of our hearing. The growth of our growing. Prayer in its magnitude is length without end. Width without bounds. Height without top. Depth without bottom. It is unlimited in its breadth. Exhaust-less in height. Fathomless in depths and infinite in extension.” How can we pray practically for those who are over us politically? We’ll take a look at the subject of prayer and praying and how it applies to our walk with God.

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[Tweet “Few and feeble prayers are always a sign of a low spiritual condition.”]

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#S3-027: How Do You Pray for A President You Don’t Agree With? [Podcast]

How to Increase the Presence of God in Your Everyday Life

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Praying for your President, or the leader of your nation is the obligation of every child of God. In the area of prayer, there are many good Bible principles to learn and incorporate like Matthew 5:44. One of these principles is praying for people as opposed to praying against them. What we often do is they bring our sense of what we think is right, politically, into the Throne Room. Our sense, at times, is incorrect. We are not the standard of right. Jesus is.  Unless we have scripture for what we say we believe, then all we have is opinion. Be careful in these areas. How do you know that God holds your viewpoint? You just assumed that God is Republican. He’s not. You assumed God is Democrat. He’s not. He’s nineteen thousand billion miles above all of that. So, when praying for your president learn to pray the Plan not your Passions. We are workers together with God. Find out from Him what you should pray for. That’s where the hearing part comes in. God wants to hear His word in your mouth.

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[Tweet “We have incorrectly thought if we pray ‘for a wicked ruler’ we are condoning their behavior.”]

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#S3-026: Why Successful People Allow the Lord to Build Their Life [Podcast]

How to Increase the Presence of God in Your Everyday Life

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In 1787, prayer helped determine the future of our country in a significant way. The Constitutional Convention was on the verge of total failure over the issue of whether small states should have the same representation as large states. In this hopeless situation, 81-year-old Benjamin Franklin offered a suggestion. He was convinced Scripture is right when it states, “Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it” (Psalm 127:1), so he said: “Gentlemen, I have lived a long time and am convinced that God governs in the affairs of men. If a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? I move that prayer imploring the assistance of Heaven to be held every morning before we proceed to business.” p 1046 The motion carried. From then on prayer was offered each morning. The change after prayer was introduced was so dramatic that in a short while a compromise was reached which is still in effect today. 1 Successfully praying for the President and our nation’s leaders have several key elements. We begin to examine these elements in today’s Light on Life podcast.

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[Tweet “If you want to live a Holy Ghost empowered life, get used to the concept of waiting on the Lord.”]

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Why the Holy Spirit is the Great Helper of Our Prayer Life

Roaming through Romans

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Romans 8:26-27 is a mountain of Bible truth and comfort on the subject of prayer. J. Oswald Sanders in his book, Cultivation of Christian Character says these words. “It is worthy of note that the Spirit’s assistance in prayer is more frequently mentioned than any of His other offices. All true praying springs from His activity in the heart. Both Paul and Jude teach that effective prayer is ‘praying in the Holy Spirit,’ which has been defined as praying ‘along the same lines, about the same things, in the same Name as the Holy Spirit.'” 1 In today’s post, we take a glimpse at this all important aspect of the Spirit’s work in the life of a believer.

[Tweet “The truth is we don’t know how to pray as we should but, the Spirit comes to help us.”]

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The Role of the Spirit in the Life of A Believer

Roaming through Romans

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Gardner Taylor said that words are vehicles by which to transfer ideas from one mind to another. However, he went on to say, some ideas are so heavy that the words break down in the effort. What a blessed assurance it is to know that when words break down in our effort to transmit the deepest longings of our hearts, we have the Divine Helper through whom these yearnings find their way to the mind of our Heavenly Father. According to Romans 8:26–27 the Holy Spirit takes our inarticulate groanings and verbalizes them to the Father. Through the Holy Spirit of God who indwells you, a groan in your soul can be the most eloquent prayer you ever prayed.  1 In today’s post, we take a look at the role of the Holy Spirit in the prayer life of a believer.

[Tweet “The way to access the Spirit’s help in the prayer arena is to look to Him for it.”]

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How to Boost Your Prayer Life into the Presence of God

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Heaven is filled with a room that will surprise all of us when we see it. The room has within it large boxes neatly packaged with a lovely ribbon on top with your name on it, “Never delivered to Earth because never requested from Earth.” Prayer is not a substitute for work, thinking, watching, suffering, or giving; prayer is a support for all other efforts. So says George Buttrick, quoted in Lloyd Cory, Quote Unquote. 1 There are some steps we can take to insure heavens packages are delivered to earth. Effectiveness is the goal but how do we get there?

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Why Quantity Is Important in the Prayer Life

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Have you noticed that many times in the life of your prayer our conversations with God are more us talking at God than speaking to Him? You know if you walk up to a person and have a conversation with them and all you do is talk, talk, talk and the manner of that conversation is that way all that time, what do you think about that?” Would that annoy and disinterest you rather quickly? Prayer is a conversation between two beings that love each other. It’s a conversation not a monologue. Prayer is speaking and listening, that is what conversation is. You can become more effective in this essential Christian discipline by incorporating some practical steps into your everyday life.

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How Can You Become a Man of Understanding?

The Parable of the Sower

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D.L. Moody said these words on the subject of understanding. “It makes all the difference in the world how we look upon God. Some people fear God, but when they understand that He is their Father, that fear is gone.” 1. How we are to look upon God and God’s Word is laid out for us in the pages of the Bible. You can become a man of understanding.

This is part 5 of the Series “The Parable of the Sower?” You can find Part 1 ‘What Is the Parable of the Sower [Podcast]’ here, Part 2 ‘How Important is Understanding Jesus Parables?‘ here, Part 3 ‘What Are Fruitful and Unfruitful Places with God?’ here, Part 4 ‘In the Parable of the Sower, What Is Wayside Ground?‘.