To read Part Two, click here.
Let me share with you a few inspiring quotes and stories on prayer ...
Charles Spurgeon
Charles Spurgeon, a famous preacher many, many years ago said this when talking about prayer:
Prayer is the slender nerve that moves the muscles of omnipotence. To seek aid in a time of distress from a supernatural being is an instinct of human nature. I believe in the truthfulness of this instinct, and that man prays because there is something in prayer, as when the Creator gives the creature the power of thirst. It is because water exists to meet its thirst, and when He creates hunger, there is food to correspond to the appetite. So when He inclines men to pray, it is because prayer has a corresponding blessing connected to it.
It’s a good thing there is this itch in our spirit. It’s a good thing that God’s got something in there, and maybe you’ve never thought of it as being an itch to pray or an itch to spend time with God.
Susannah Wesley
Susannah Wesley, mother of Charles and John Wesley, wrote some of the famous hymns that we know. She had 19 active children, but she said she seldom gave the Lord less than a full hour for prayer. At her prayer time, she would take her apron up and pull it over her face. Her children were instructed never to disturb mother when she was praying in her apron. I think we need to make some of those aprons! Pass those out to all the moms! There’s just something about making time to pray.
Dr. Yongii Cho
Dr. Yongii Cho pastors one of the largest churches in the world; at one time his church was over a million members. Who knows that’s a big church? Who knows there’s a lot to do when you’re pastoring over a million people? He said this:
Pastoring a church with millions of members and having an extensive international ministry, I am not able to do all that I’ve been called to do without spending the minimum of one hour in prayer every morning. If I were just to get up and begin my days without spending the hours that I spend in prayer, I would only have my natural resources to depend on. Yet having spent time in prayer, I can trust the unlimited resources at God’s disposal.
So no matter what you’re responsible for, whether it’s a million people or just yourself, prayer is important. And if we don’t spend time in prayer, if we don’t spend time seeking the Lord, then really all we have are just our natural abilities, and those are largely limited.
How do we spend time with the Lord and have it be fun? James 5:16 (AMP) tells us that “the earnest (heartfelt, continued) prayer of a righteous man makes tremendous power available [dynamic in its working].” You don’t want to just pray out of your head or have some list you’ve got, some head prayers, you want to pray out of your heart. What is in your heart? What’s the desire of your heart? What is cooking in your heart? What does your heart long for? What, if God would do anything for you, does your heart want to see heaven do on your behalf?
The earnest, heartfelt, continued—keep at it. Don’t just pray one little prayer. Don’t just pray a five-second prayer, but “the earnest, heartfelt, continued prayer”—of whom? Of a righteous person. We are righteous through Jesus Christ. So you qualify, I qualify in Christ. In our lives, we need power from heaven to be made available. The Bible says that if we’ll pray these earnest, heartfelt, continued kinds of prayers, it will make tremendous power available.
In other words, you could say our prayer life will put some things on deposit. James 5:16 says that earnest, heartfelt, continued prayer makes tremendous power available. It puts it on deposit. It fills the pantry. It stores up or it accumulates some power that is available for you and me, dynamic in its working.
God's Thumbprint
You say, “I want God’s thumbprint in my life. How do these people who have God’s thumbprint in their lives; how do they get that? It’s like they just walk and the seas part for them and things just happen for them and it’s almost effortless. How does that happen for people?” It happens because somebody prayed earnest, heartfelt, continued prayers and made tremendous power available.
Another reason you'll want to pray is this: First John 5:14 says,
This is the confidence we have when approaching God, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask we know that we have the petitions that we’ve asked of Him.This is a great verse. He says if we ask anything according to His will, so He’s talking about prayer, isn’t He? If we ask for anything according to His will, we know that He hears us.
I mean, that’s just a happy thought. I’m not just talking to the clouds; I’m not just talking to the ceiling; I’m not just talking to myself; I’m not just in a room all by myself praying. If I’m praying anything according to His will, He hears me. I think that is just a cool thought. And it’s an amazing thought that God could tune out everything else that’s going on and hear us, individually and at the same time.
So, hopefully, something inside you has gotten stirred up and you are thinking, “I’ve got to pray. I need to have some earnest, heartfelt, continued prayers going on. I need to pray according to His will, according to His Word, because He hears me if I do. And He says He promises that if I know that He hears me, I know that I have the petitions that I have desired."
Let's take God up on His promises and pray!
“Call to me and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things which you do not know.” (Jeremiah 33:3)
For further study, I recommend my Bite-Sized Bible Study, “What To Say When You Pray.” (Coming soon!)
Copyright © 2007 Beth Jones Ministries All rights reserved.
