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April 2005: Pray Like Crazy |
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April 2005 Devotional“The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and wonderful results. Elijah was a human as we are, and yet when he prayed earnestly that no rain would fall, none fell for the next three and a half years! (See 1 Kings 17:1-7 for this account.) Then he prayed for rain, and down it poured. The grass turned green and the crops began to grow again.” (James 5:16-18) What do you believe about prayer? Do you pray yourself? Have you seen God answer your prayers? Most likely, the answer to both of those last two questions is a strong “yes.” While I have heard of people who don’t pray, I don’t believe I’ve ever met anyone who prays to God who hasn’t seen him answer prayer personally and powerfully. Yet often we don’t always pray in faith, believing that God will do the impossible for us. Maybe your prayers are half-hearted – either fairly certain that God will say “no”, or unsure if he even cares about the issues in your life. Or perhaps you pray, believing in your own strength more than God’s. Does the account of Elijah’s praying above strike you as an inspiring but likely improbable story? If so, I want to encourage you to get your praying in line with true Christianity! You see, if prayer is only a weak, insipid attempt at reaching a God who is less than interested, we may as well not pray at all. But if prayer is truly a divine method of petitioning a loving and highly involved personal God who encourages us to ask – and ask boldly because he loves to respond, then prayer is a powerful tool that too often is being left in our discipleship toolbox. Remember this: God raised Jesus from the dead! And Jesus is the author of our eternal salvation! Do you believe this – I mean, do you really believe in and trust this for your life?! If so, then why should you not trust in the power of prayer? What part of the Bible are you willing to approach with scissors and cut out, as if to say “God really didn’t mean this.”? Instead, 1st Thessalonians 5:17 tells us to “pray without stopping!” In other words, we are to have an ongoing, unbroken communication with God about everything and anything. We are specifically told us to ask our Father for what we want and need with confidence, knowing that “with God nothing is impossible.” In fact, prayer is so important to God that the Holy Spirit prays on our behalf (Romans 8:26) and Jesus lives evermore to intercede for us (Hebrews 7:25). So let’s put our prayer power into action. As you know, BCC is undertaking a huge building expansion that will greatly impact our ability to reach out to the community and touch lives. It will take faith and action to bring that to fruition, but I believe God has already given his blessing to our church and keeps pouring it on! So let’s join hands and hearts in helping to reach this worthy goal. Our Women of Hope ministry is hosting a 24-hour Day of Prayer on May 13th. From 12:01am to 11:59pm, we are going to cover this day in concerted prayer. To participate, simply go on line at: http://prayercenter.hopepark.com and sign up for a prayer timeslot. The instructions are easy: Pray like crazy and believe like crazy that God wants to provide this crazy blessing to us! Remember, no one wants us to touch God’s people more than God himself – and prayer is a tremendous way to do this. Love,
Lisa Kinakin
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