The Power of Prayer

[Book of Jeremiah]

John Mulinde delivers this message to the Body of Christ on the subject of "Desperate Prayer." There is nothing more important than our prayer lives. Satan does not mind if the church involves itself in acts of charity, programs, building projects, social gatherings but when the people seek holiness, repentance, prayer and fasting? All of hell goes on alert to stop it. Why? Because the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much with God. The power of Prayer is unlimited. Prayer changes us. Prayer changes everything. It is prayer that moves the hand of God.

It is written:

If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. Now mine eyes shall be open, and mine ears attent unto the prayers that is made in this place.
2 Chronicles 7:14,15

 

[Book of Jeremiah]

One of the great teachers that we can learn from on the subject of prayer is E. M. Bounds. His book, The possibilities of Prayer is excellent. This is an audio message and reading of Chapters 1 - 6 from E.M. Bounds book on Prayer. Listen to this:

 

[Book of Jeremiah]

This true story is a reminder of why we must learn to pray - this is the testimony of a man named George Lennox who lived in 1887. Listen to this:

 

[Book of Jeremiah]

This is a writing from A.J. Gordon. He writes, We believe that there are those in our own time who have humbly sought, and manifestly obtained this gift of prevailing prayer. If the larger majority of Christians, either through wrong teaching, or indifference have willingly consented to surrender this primitive birth-right of the church, and have learned to say without emotion to the sick, that lie at their doors, thy bruise is incurable, and thy wound grievous, there is none to plead thy cause that htou mayes be bound up: There are some who are more jealous for the Lord's honor in this matter. Because they believe that the miraculous gifts are for all ages. They have thought it not covetous to seek them for themselves - and yet not for themselves but that through them the Lord might still show forth his glory. And why should it be thought and incredible thing that they may have obtained what they have sought?

- A.J. Gordon

 

[Book of Jeremiah]

The free online book pdf file for E.M. Bounds book. This is a classic and your prayer life will surely be blessed for reading it.

https://faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/te...formation/texts/bounds_powerthroughprayer.pdf

 

[Book of Jeremiah]

You know the value of prayer: it is precious beyond all price. Never, never neglect it.
--Sir Thomas Buxton

Prayer is the first thing, the second thing, the third thing necessary to a minister. Pray, then, my dear brother: pray, pray, pray.
--Edward Payson

PRAYER, in the preacher's life, in the preacher's study, in the preacher's pulpit, must be a conspicuous and an all-impregnating force and an all-coloring ingredient. It must play no secondary part, be no mere coating. To him it is given to be with his Lord "all night in prayer." The preacher, to train himself in self-denying prayer, is charged to look to his Master, who, "rising up a great while before day, went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed." The preacher's study ought to be a closet, a Bethel, an altar, a vision, and a ladder, that every thought might ascend heavenward ere it went manward; that every part of the sermon might be scented by the air of heaven and made serious, because God was in the study.
--E.M. Bounds

 

[Avatar4321]

If the Devil says you cannot pray when you are angry, tell him it is none of his business, and pray until that species of insanity is dispelled and serenity is restored to the mind - Brigham Young

 

[Book of Jeremiah]

Prayer by L. Ravenhill

One day I was at a conference with Dr. V. Raymond Edman of Wheaton College, one of the greatest Christian educators in this country. He told us of an experience he had while he was in Ecuador as a missionary. He hadn't been there long before he was sick and dying. He was so near death that they had already dug his grave. He had great beads of sweat on his brow and there was a death rattle in his throat. But suddenly he sat straight up in bed and said to his wife, "Bring me my clothes!" Nobody knew what had happened.

Many years later he was retelling the story in Boston. Afterward, a little old lady with a small, dog-eared, beaten-up book, approached him and asked, "What day did you say you were dying? What time was it in Ecuador? What time would it be in Boston?" When he answered her, her wrinkled face lit up. Pointing to her book, she said. "There it is, you see? At 2 a.m. God said to get up and pray - the devil's trying to kill Raymond Edman in Ecuador." And she'd gotten up and prayed.

Duncan Campbell told the story of hearing a farmer in his field who was praying. He was praying about Greece. Afterward, he asked him why he was praying. The man said, "I don't know. I had a burden in the spirit and God said, 'You pray; there's someone in Greece that is in a bad situation.' I prayed until I got a release." Two or three years later the farmer was in a meeting listening to a missionary. The man described a time when he was working in Greece. He had been in serious trouble. The time? Two or three years ago. The men compared notes and discovered that it was the very same day that God had burdened a farmer, on a little island off the coast of Scotland, to pray for a man in Greece whose name he didn't even know.

It may seem the Lord gives you strange things. I don't care. If the Lord tells you something, carry on with what the Lord tells you.

Who Shall Ascend to the Hill of the Lord?"

There's another experience Duncan Campbell told about when he was working in Scotland.

"I couldn't preach," he said. "I couldn't get through to God. The heavens were solid. It was as though there was a 10 ft. ceiling of steel." So he quit trying to preach. He asked a young man named John Cameron to pray. The boy stood up and said, "What's the use of praying if we're not right with God?" He quoted the 24th Psalm, "Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord?"

You can't approach God unless your hands are clean, which means your relationships with others are clean and your heart is clean. "Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord? He who has clean hands and a pure heart..." (Psalm 24.3-4).

After the boy recited Psalm 24 he began to pray. He prayed 10, 15, 20 minutes. Then he suddenly said, "Excuse me, Lord, while I resist the devil." He turned around and began to tell the devil where to go and how to get there. He fought for all he was worth. You talk about having on the armor of God and resisting the devil! When he finished resisting the devil, he finished his prayer. He prayed for 45 minutes! When he finished praying it was just as though God had pulled a little switch in heaven. The Spirit of God came down on that church, that community, on the dance hall at the other end of town, and the tavern on this end of town. Revival was born in that prayer!

 

[Book of Jeremiah]

In an old town in Ireland they'll show you with reverence a place where four young men met night after night after night praying for revival. In Wales, there's a place in the hills where three or four young men only 18 or 19 years old met and prayed night after night. They wouldn't let God go; they would not take no for an answer. As far as humanly possible they prayed a revival into birth. If you're thinking of revival at your church without any inconvenience, forget it. Revival costs a lot.

I can give you one simple reason why we don't have revival in America. Because we're content to live without it. We're not seeking God - we're seeking miracles, we're seeking big crusades, we're seeking blessings. In Numbers 11, Moses said to God, "You're asking me to carry a burden I can't handle. Do something or kill me!" Do you love America enough to say, "God, send revival or kill me"? Do you think it's time we changed Patrick Henry's prayer from, "Give me liberty or give me death," to "Give me revival or let me die"?

In the 30th chapter of Genesis, Rachael goes to Jacob and throws herself down in despair. She says, "Give me children or else I die." Are you willing to throw yourself down before God to seek the spiritual birth of spiritual children in our country?

People say, "I'm filled with the Holy Spirit." If the coming of the Spirit didn't revolutionize your prayer life, you'd better check on it. I'm not so sure you got what God wanted you to get.

We've said that prayer changes things. No! Prayer doesn't change things. Prayer changes peopleand they change things. We all want Gabriel to do the job. God says do it yourself - with My sufficiency and My strength.

We need to get like this woman, Hannah. What did she do? She wept, she was grieved, she said she had a complaint, she fasted - and she prayed.

Jesus, the anointed of God, made prayer His custom. Paul, with his background and intellect, depended on prayer because he said he was weak. David, the king, called himself a poor man and cried to the Lord. Hannah prayed for a son and gave birth to a prophet. The prayers of a handful of young men sparked revival.

There's nothing more transfiguring than prayer.
-Leonard Ravenhill

Prayer by L. Ravenhill

 

[Book of Jeremiah]

The Scriptures say that the disciples went to bed, but Jesus went to pray - as was His custom. It was His custom to pray. Now Jesus was the Son of God - He was definitely anointed for His ministry. If Jesus needed all that time in prayer, don't you and I need time in prayer? If Jesus needed it in every crisis, don't you and I need it in every crisis?

The story goes that a group of tourists visiting a picturesque village saw an old man sitting by a fence. In a rather patronizing way, one of the visitors asked, "Were any great men born in this village?" Without looking up the old man replied, "No, only babies." The greatest men were once babies. The greatest saints were once toddlers in the things of the Spirit.

C. H. Spurgeon was converted at the age of 16 and began preaching in London at the age of 19. When he was 27, they built him a tabernacle seating 6,000 which he packed twice on Sundays - that's 12,000 - and once on Thursday nights. How? He waited on God. He got alone with God. He studied...and he prayed.

Prayer by L. Ravenhill

 

[HUGGY]

 

[Book of Jeremiah]

The Bitter Battle Over Fifth Beatle Billy Preston s Estate Houston Press

On Nov. 21, 2005, the man known as "The Fifth Beatle" lay on a hospital bed, dressed in street clothes, thrashing and gasping for air. Billy Preston had just arrived at the Intensive Care Unit at Daniel Freeman Marina Hospital in Marina del Rey, Calif., rushed there from the Canyon, a nearby drug-rehab center. A large, frustrated nurse wrestled with the legendary, 59-year-old organ player (and native Houstonian), struggling to fit a black oxygen mask over his face. Eyes wide with fear, Preston dodged his head back and forth, unable to breathe.

Holding his hand at his bedside was Preston's manager, Joyce Moore. She tried in vain to calm him down.

"I gripped him tight and said, 'Boo, you gotta relax,'" Moore says. "I thought he was having a panic attack. I kept saying, 'Breathe with me...breathe with me.'"

But it wasn't a panic attack or the pangs of crack withdrawal. Years of drug abuse had culminated in malignant hypertension and pericarditis, the internal drowning of the area around Preston's heart. He mustered the strength to push the mask away, look up at Moore and painfully utter his last words: "I...can't!"

Suddenly Preston's eyes rolled back, and his grip loosened. The monitors flatlined. Even after doctors drained the fluid around his heart, he didn't wake up.
_________________
It's a terrible thing to be dying and not know Christ. The fear, the sudden panic and absolute terror of that moment cannot be underestimated, Huggy. It is a moment of reckoning, one is caught unaware, the devil always whispers in the persons ear - you can serve God later - but today? Eat, drink and be merry! Take some more drugs, have another drink, another cigarette, you can serve God tomorrow........but tomorrow never comes and then one day? It is too late. Too late for Billy Preston. It isn't too late for you, you know. I am praying for you and believing God will do something wonderful for you, to reveal His great love for you and bless you in some way that you will know that only Jesus could have done that for you. I am praying that the LORD reveals His great love for you and that it will be just the assurance you need to surrender your life to him and serve him until the day you meet Him face to face. It is too late for Billy Preston. But it isn't too late for you. It still isn't too late for you, Huggy.

 

[Mr. H.]

I believe that I once witnessed a miracle after months of fervent prayer.

And that's all I have to say about that...

 

[TheOldSchool]

I believe that I once witnessed a miracle after months of fervent prayer.

And that's all I have to say about that...

Me too. It came out of my butt.

 

[Mr. H.]

I believe that I once witnessed a miracle after months of fervent prayer.

And that's all I have to say about that...

Me too. It came out of my butt.

 

[TrinityPower]

Hey I have that 45!!

 

[featherlite]

Prayer works in expected, incredible ways. Im sure some could find a logical reason for it, Ive tried and Ive sometimes thought it was a waste of time. Its not.

. but its not like google, you wont get a load of options 20 seconds.

 

[Book of Jeremiah]

Michael Boldea Jr. began a teaching called Lord, Teach us to pray in 2012. The series covers the many types of prayers and examples of those prayers in the Bible.

Here is part 1.


THURSDAY, MARCH 1, 2012
Lord, Teach Us To Pray! Part 1

Introduction

True men of God come in all shapes and sizes. They differ in their temperament, level of education, nationality, eloquence, and preaching style. Although men of God differ in many ways, there is one trait, one virtue, one unmistakable similitude they all share. Every true man if God is a man of prayer. Throughout the Bible we find men of prayer, men who knew the importance of spending time with God, of speaking to God, and having uninterrupted fellowship with Him.

Some were warriors, some leaders of men, others prophets, others kings, but everyone whom God counted as His own, was a man of consistent prayer. For men such as these, men who saw the power and felt the presence of God, prayer wasn’t something they did when they had nothing else to do; it was a priority in their lives, and a practice which defined them.

The entire construct of this series began to take shape as I was reading my Bible one morning and happened upon a passage in the gospel according to Luke.

Luke 11:1, ‘And it came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, that one of His disciples said to Him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.’”

At first glance, it is by no means an earth shattering scripture, nothing that would reshape the thought process of believers, nothing that would overwhelm an individual to the point of repenting for not spending more time in prayer, but as I began to ponder this verse, and the ensuing implications thereof, I realized how fundamentally relevant it is for the life of every believer who desires to have a strong and vibrant spiritual walk.

In order to understand the gravity of the aforementioned verse, there are certain truths concerning the life of Christ, as well as the lives of His disciples that we must take into account.

The first thing we must take into account is that the Disciples of Christ were those few blessed men who knew Him best while He walked the earth. They walked with Him, they ate with Him, they spend days on end being taught by Him, and they witnessed His life of ministry from beginning to end, to glorious beginning again.

These were men who had seen Jesus walk on water, these were men who had seen Jesus open blind eyes, and heal lame men, men who had witnessed all that He had done by the power with which He was endowed, yet when it came to asking something of Him, when it came to requesting a special privilege of sorts, it was prayer that they requested Jesus teach them.

The disciples did not ask for Christ to teach them how to cast out demons, how to heal the sick, how to walk on water, or how to open blind eyes. They saw the life of Jesus, they saw the power of Him, and they deduced that the most important and vital thing they could ask of the Christ, was to teach them how to pray.

Notwithstanding the numerous miracles they saw Jesus perform, notwithstanding the stirring sermons they heard Him preach, notwithstanding the character they saw in Him throughout the three years they were together, the one thing that stood out above the rest, the one thing that they witnessed Jesus do so often and so passionately that they too wanted to know how to go about doing it effectively, was the solemn act of prayer.

Jesus prayed a lot and His disciples couldn’t help but notice this! When in public His prayers would be short, but we often find Him off on His own, praying, often times through the night, communing with the Father, having the blessed fellowship that can only come about by the act of prayer.

The second thing we must take into account is the knowledge the Disciples of Christ possessed concerning His forerunner, and that John had also taught his disciples to pray. Prayer was not some newfangled thing that Jesus introduced upon His entering ministry. It was not the equivalent of gold fillings or oily hands for that age, but rather a foundational aspect of worship. By the time Jesus came on the scene, prayer was an accepted practice stretching back for thousands of years, from the very beginning of creation onward.

There are many types of prayer, and a variety of ways in which we can pray. Throughout this series we will study these aspects of prayer, define what prayer is, and also learn from the prayers and prayer lives of certain individuals within the word of God.


Homeward Bound Lord Teach Us To Pray Part 1

 

[Book of Jeremiah]

Part 2

Homeward Bound Lord Teach Us To Pray Part 2

FRIDAY, MARCH 2, 2012

Lord, Teach Us To Pray! Part 2

Introduction continued...

If the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray, then the logical conclusion we can come to, is that prayer can be taught. No, I am not talking about formulaic prayers we memorize as children, or prayer books from which we read every night. If we desire to learn how to pray as the Disciples of Christ did, then all we need do is ask Him to teach us, with true desire and sincerity of heart, and in His goodness, via the Holy Spirit He will do just that.

Many believers want to be taught, but at the same time are reticent because they are afraid of what they might learn. There is always familiarity with the status quo, as well as a certain level of trepidation toward anything new, especially something we know will require exertion on our part. We like things the way they are, but one glance at the current state of the church will confirm, and vividly so, that we can’t afford to remain in the condition we are in.

Yes, often times the word of God contradicts our preconceived notions of certain doctrines or practices, and when this occurs we have no choice but to lay aside our own opinions and embrace the truth of God’s holy word.

The literal translation of the word disciple is learner. If we are in word and deed disciples of Christ, then we learn that which Christ teaches us, and practically apply it to our lives. Jesus is the greatest teacher to have ever walked the earth, and also the most thorough teacher to ever exist. He leaves nothing to chance, He holds nothing back, and if we desire to be His disciples we must humble ourselves, submit to His authority, and learn from Him.

Beyond the literal definition of disciple, beyond being a learner, a true disciple is also an adherent, or an imitator of their master. In short, disciples learn the teachings of their master, but also imitate his actions, doing that which their master does, in the hopes of becoming like him.

Being a disciple of Christ requires more than throwing a dollar in an offering plate, or going to church when we have nothing better to do. Being a disciple of Christ requires a lifelong and protracted commitment, it requires self-renunciation and it requires complete obedience of Him.

If we are disciples of Christ, then we must imitate Christ, living as He lived, doing as He did, obeying what He taught, that we might become and be able to do that which He promised us we would.

 

[Book of Jeremiah]

Homeward Bound Lord Teach Us To Pray Part 3