“Just a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down…” ~ Mary Poppins
How amazing is it, that God gives us one of His most powerful weapons of warfare and we drag our feet to use it. We sigh as if it is an “inconvenience” and that it will “take time to do this” or we feel – “it’s a drag…” That we actually have to gear ourselves up to do this. What weapon am I referring to? I’M REFERRING TO THE HONOR OF PRAYING. INTERCEDING. Or we just give people who ask us to pray lip service… “I’ll pray for you…” But then it goes down low on our totem pole of things to do on our task lists.
HOW DARE WE!!!
God has entrusted us with storming the walls of Heaven with one of the most POWERFUL weapons of spiritual warfare – PRAYER. We have NO idea how many prayers from our ancestors or family members brought us to the point of salvation? WHO PRAYED FOR YOU???? You may not even know the answer to that! Someone(s) prayed for you!
Ol’ Slewfoot would try to keep you so busy with trivial life interruptions (that are in the grand scheme of things – JUST that) so that we become caught up with the worries of this world to take time to do what is needed most. PRAYER.
Beloved – WE NEED TO PRAY. WE NEED TO INTERCEDE. This is a crucial part of putting our faith into action. JESUS TAUGHT ON THIS! This is NOT something (especially as the days grow shorter) that we should be slacking on. PRAY! However Holy Spirit leads you – PRAY! Whoever and whatever He puts on your heart – PRAY! Those prayers could be the breakthrough that is needed to combat spiritual principalities in high places! Those prayers can be the hand of Christ reaching through the darkness and grasping the hand of someone whose tomorrows have JUST about come to an end!
It is NOT God’s WILL for ANY to perish! Your intercession on behalf of a loved one could BE the difference in where they spend eternity! If you are a born-again, blood bought believer – You have a DUTY to pray! Prayer is JUST another term for conversing with God. We make it so much more difficult than it needs to be. Communing with God on behalf of a situation or person. When you really think about it – it is a privilege! God has opened up your spiritual eyes for a time SUCH as this!
Holy Spirit should be softening your heart, giving you words of discernment when it comes to the people you are surrounded by each day. Each day is another opportunity for us to intercede on our jobs, in our families, in our communities, for our nation. Oh my! There is SO much to pray about! The older I get, the more frustrated I become because there are so many hours in the day and most of our day is spent doing temporal things – when there is so much I want to pray about. Breakthroughs I want to see! So we pray God – help me to remember that my first duty is to YOU and the work YOU have called me to do. Show me areas that You need me to intercede throughout the course of every day You give me! Give me the words to pray! Jesus already taught us HOW to pray (and you can find that in Luke Chapter 11 beginning with verse 1.
Jesus also said with regards to prayer:
“When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men… But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father who is in Heaven.” (Matthew 6:5-8)
Don’t pray out just out of a sense of duty – because then it won’t be sincere. You will think of it as a chore. Pray out of COMPASSION and if you don’t feel that compassion, pray Holy Spirit will GIVE you the compassion to pray and intercede. And He will.
Recognize that satan does NOT want you to pray. He doesn’t want you to intercede. The Bible tells us in James 5:16 “The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.”
Did you get that? POWERFUL AND EFFECTIVE. Recognize that he will try to dissuade you from praying. The time is short and the devil knows it. God is calling you (and me) to pray.
Praying is really an act of faith. Do YOU believe that “Greater is He that is in you than he that is within the world?” (1 John 4:4). Do you TRUST God? Praying is entrusting God with whatever is on your heart.
What this world needs now – is PRAYER sweet PRAYER. (I know the song says love sweet love – but if you love someone; if you are concerned for someone – you SHOULD be praying for them). When I googled the question “how many times is prayer mentioned in the Bible?” It said, “There are 367 specific Bible verses on prayer. This does not include the word, “ask.”
And here is the thing – when you really contemplate our call to pray, you come to the realization that God has given you the means to bring all those worries, concerns and desires to Him. He is basically saying, “TALK TO ME! WHATEVER IS ON YOUR MIND IS IMPORTANT TO ME! COME SIT WITH ME A WHILE. LET’S DISCUSS THIS. LET ME BE THERE FOR YOU. SPEND TIME WITH ME. I WANT TO KNOW WHAT’S GOING ON WITH YOU!”
And oh the beauty of being a vessel for Him. The beauty of knowing that God works through people to cause a turn-around of situations to save souls and have His will go forward in POWER throughout the world. PRAYERS MAKE A DIFFERENCE. Oh yes!
So next time someone asks you to pray for them. Next time Holy Spirit presses something upon your heart to lift up – know that you have been given an awesome responsibility of intercession. The awesome privilege of bringing something BEFORE the Father, either for yourself or for someone else.
And the demons tremble when the realization of the weapon God has entrusted you with is activated and used. YOU are a prayer warrior in the makings. Jesus paved the way to allow you to boldly come before the Father in prayer. Thanks BE to God.
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