The Power of Prayer V

At the National Day of Prayer Task Force, where I serve at the Senior Director, we developed a simple acrostic to help people remember the basic concepts of prayer:

Praise
Repent
Ask
Yield

Before we request anything of the Father, we worship him with heart felt words of praise. If you need help in this, locate a chapter within the book of Psalms and read it to the Lord. Shirley Dobson, Chairman of the National Day of Prayer, in her book, Certain Peace in Uncertain Times, writes, “He invites us into conversation with Him because it brings Him pleasure. That’s sometimes a little hard to believe, isn’t it? The holy and perfect and all-powerful ruler of the universe enjoys our prayers of praise? But the proof is in the Scripture: ‘The prayer of the upright is His delight’ (Proverbs 15:8 NKJV). God actually delights in and pursues our worship.”

Here is the model Christ left for us:

“But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. This, then, is how you should pray:
Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed be your name,
Your kingdom come,
Your will be done
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
Forgive us our debts,
As we also have forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from the evil one.”
Matthew 6:6-13

As you can see from this very powerful prayer, Christ makes sure that we cover the much needed points in our conversation with the King. We praise Him for He alone is worthy to be praised. We ask for forgiveness of our sins so that there can be nothing hindering us from receiving the blessing of response. We ask for those things that we need. As you grow in your relationship with the Father, you will be able to understand how to pray in His will. James tells us in chapter 4, verse 3, “When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” Paul states that, “if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that” (I Timothy 6:8). Then he we yield to His will. God may say ‘NO’ to your requests and even allow you to go through suffering. “Endure hardship with us like a good soldier of Christ Jesus” (II Timothy 2:3). “Keep your head in all situations, endure hardship” (II Timothy 4:5). “Do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering…but rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed” (I Peter 4:12). We will discuss more about the answer ‘NO’ later on.

If you have never read the works of E.M. Bounds, I encourage you to do so. He spent countless years of his life dedicated to exploring the depth of prayer. He tells us, “the most important lesson we can learn is how to pray. Indeed, we must pray so that our prayers take hold of God. The man who has done the most and the best praying is the most immortal, because prayers do not die. Perhaps the lips that uttered them are closed in death, or the heart that felt them may have ceased to beat, but the prayers live before God, and God's heart is set on them. Prayers outlive the lives of those who uttered them – outlive a generation, outlive an age, outlive a world.”