Power In Prayer

"Confess your faults one to another, and pray for one another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." - James 5:16


Have you ever heard the phrase "the power of prayer?"  Have you ever stopped and thought about the reality of that phrase?  If we are not careful it is so easy for us to take those words for granted.  Prayer is our conduit to access the power of our Heavenly Father that is available to us through Jesus Christ.  Prayer is not something that we are to take lightly or that we are to just do occasionally.  However, I am afraid that we ALL are guilty of both taking it lightly and just doing it occasionally.

Prayer changes things and it changes us!  I know that is a very simple statement, but it is so true.  As you and I begin to pray and pour our hearts out before our Heavenly Father, our hearts begin to change as we commune with Him.  Even if our circumstances never change, our hearts have been changed, and that will change how we view our circumstances or how we handle our circumstances.  The quality of your spiritual life will be in direct proportion to the quality of your prayer life.  This is why we have so many people in our churches that are struggling spiritually, because the quality of their prayer life is low or non-existent.

Instead of turning things over in our minds, we must learn to turn them over to the Lord in prayer.  You and I have the tendency to try and figure things out in our heads, constantly going over it again and again trying to figure out what to do.  What we need to do is to quit worrying about our next decision, quit replaying events over again in our minds, and give it to the Lord and ask Him to lead the way for us.  We must learn to constantly and consistently pray about all things, great and small.

Will you continue to ignore the power that is available to you through prayer?

"When prayer has become secondary, or incidental, it has lost its power. Those who are conspicuously men of prayer are those who use prayer as they use food, or air, or light, or money." M.E. Andross

Prayer For Today:

Heavenly Father, help me to bring everything to You in prayer; my hopes, my dreams, my doubts, my fears, and my burdens. Lord, may others see my utter dependence on You for everything in my life. It is my desire to devote my life to a life of prayer. Father, may I bring all things to You and may I trust Your will to be accomplished in areas of my life. In Jesus name, Amen!

Denying Yourself

"Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me." - Matthew 16:24


Why is it that we are so quick to quote John 3:16 and talk about God's love for us but we don't like to talk about what Jesus said in Matthew 16:24 or Luke 9:23?  I believe that we like to skip over verses like Matthew 16:24 and Luke 9:23 because they don't sound very appealing.  The thought that God loves us so much that He gave His only begotten Son for us and that if we believe in Him we will have eternal life is a wonderful thought! However, when we think about having to deny ourselves and having to take up our cross to follow Jesus, that sounds like a bit much.

If you have not already figured it out, you are going to spend your lifetime denying self.  When you trusted Christ as Savior, you went from being self-centered to being Christ-centered.  One of the greatest temptations that you and I will face is to affirm ourselves while we follow Christ.  I'm afraid too many Christians today want a Jesus that does not impede their personal desires and ambitions.  We say "Lord, I want to follow you, but I want to stay where I am."

Most Christians today want to keep their lives unruffled, undisturbed, safe, and secure.  However, Jesus tells us that if we are going to follow Him and be His disciple that we must first deny ourselves, then we are to take up our cross and follow Him.  The startling reality of Matthew 16:24 is that most of us today are not truly following Jesus, even though we may have trusted Him as Savior.

Are we truly denying ourselves?  Are we denying all of our dreams, our hopes, our ambitions, and our desires? Are we totally surrendered to Christ in every area of our lives?

I would like to share with you three things that we all need to start each day doing:

1. Deny myself
2. Surrender to Christ
3. Live in the power of the Holy Spirit

Prayer For Today:

Heavenly Father, today may I deny myself and totally surrender every part of my life to You.  Help me to not be self-centered and focused on the temporal, but help me to be Christ-centered and focused on eternal things.  Use my life in such a way that You would receive all the honor and glory.  In Jesus name, Amen!