Archive for the ‘Prayer’ Category

The Importance of Silence in Prayer

Friday, March 11th, 2016

importance-of-silence-in-prayer

In our society, there is so much noise. We have saturated our lives with noise from the radio, from TVs blaring, from social media, from endless other streams of noise. The constant noise and running from one place to another has crowded out our lives so much that there is no longer silence. Silence is the place where you can hear God.

If you have no silence in your life, it is not possible for you to hear God. You must reduce your noise pollution. We need to be pro-active in seeking silence and resting in silence before the Lord.

The Importance of Silence in Prayer (Video #10)

When you are praying, make sure you allow time for silence before God, just to be in His presence. This is especially true when you need wisdom from God, or you are meditating on a Scripture that you want to become real in your life. You will not be able to process spiritual things unless you relax in the presence of God in silence, in an un-rushed state. You will maximize your spiritual growth if you allow yourself to abide in silence before the Lord.

God ministers to me through prayer in the midst of silence. Silence is my favorite part of prayer because it is peaceful. I am seeking to connect with the Lord. It is sweet.

Sometimes His presence, just who He is–the fruit of the Spirit–is all you need. You get filled up with God Himself in the silence. More of God in my life is usually the answer to all my prayers. I become who I’m supposed to be. This is why Jesus says that if we ask for a loaf of bread, He will give us what we need, and He later says that what we really need is the Holy Spirit’s fresh filling, which He grants to those who ask (Matthew 7:9-11; Luke 11:11-13).

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Yield to God

Friday, March 4th, 2016

yield-to-God

What does it mean to yield to God? Why should we yield our lives to God? And how to we actually go about yielding?

In order to be saved, we need to yield our lives to Jesus as Lord. That means we need to let Him lead us, so that we are obeying Him from the heart. When we yield to God, He begins to transform us and pour His love into us so that we can love others.

You must yield your life directly to Jesus. You do not need to only live by the “letter of the law” but by the “spirit of the law.” Scripture is one way to get to know God, but if you never connect directly with God, you don’t have a personal relationship. If you love and adore Scripture but refuse to yield to God directly, you are no better than the Pharisees who Jesus said were sons of hell and a brood of vipers. They technically obeyed Scripture but lived only for themselves. Their lives were not yielded to God.

“You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about Me, yet you refuse to come to Me that you may have life.” John 5:39-40 ESV

Don’t let Scripture be an impediment to block your relationship with God. True prayer is opening your life to God, asking Him to rule over you. This is an inward thing; you’re inwardly opening and allowing God to take control of you.

Yes, yielding only to Scripture and not to God Himself will keep you powerless as you seek to fulfill the law with your own strength instead of allowing the Holy Spirit to convict you of sin. If you do not yield to the Holy Spirit, you will twist Scripture to justify sin. This is because your heart doesn’t really know God because you aren’t connected.

Jesus came to tear the veil into the Holy of Holies, so that we could have communion directly with God. When Jesus says, “Depart from Me; I never knew you…” people who loved Scripture but never yielded to God directly will scream in anguish that they never had a personal relationship. If you have been transformed in miraculous ways into the image of Christ, you are saved. If you have not been changed and transformed, ask God to help you yield to Him directly and begin to get rid of sin in your life.

How to Yield to God (Prayer Video #9)

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Praying for Your Family is Crucial

Friday, February 26th, 2016

praying-for-your-familyWhy is praying for your family crucial? Because if you do not pray for your family members, maybe no one else will.

Do you think your spouse and children will become the godly people that God requires them to be if no one prays for them? Maybe the enemy has convinced you that your prayers will not make a difference, so you’ve purposely decided not to pray.

Consider that God commands us to pray throughout Scripture, and that our prayers are a sweet aroma to the Lord (Psalm 141:2). God delights in answering our prayers (Proverbs 15:8). If we ask God for bread, will He give us a scorpion? (Matthew 7:9) No! He gives good gifts to those who ask. And who better to bless than the members of your own family, the ones living under the same roof with you?

Pray for each of your children by name, along with their character weaknesses. You will be surprised when God begins to work in those weak areas because you have committed those areas to God. Ask God how your child can overcome those areas, and if you are struggling with the same sin (like anger, for example), ask God to purge it from your life first. Then your child will see how God transforms lives in a tangible way. You can explain exactly how God set you free from the same sin, so that your child can be set free as well.

Why Praying for Your Family is Crucial (Video #8)

To follow my prayer posts, like my Prayer page on Facebook, YouTube, and Google+.

Reasons to Pray for People Right Away

Friday, February 19th, 2016

pray-for-them-right-away

When someone asks you to pray for them, pray for them right away. That person is bogged down with their burden, and there is no reason for you to leave them in their misery. It only takes you less than five minutes to lift their burden to the Lord.

Reasons to Pray for People Right Away

  1. If you do not pray right away, you might forget to pray for them. If you tell someone you will pray for them and forget, you are not a person of your word. If you pray immediately, you have at least prayed for them once.
  2. The person receives immediate comfort if you pray with them out loud right then and there. The burden is lifted and divided when you pray for someone.
  3. That person will feel loved. We are commanded to love others, and what better way to show love to our brothers and sisters in Christ than to lift them up before the Lord in prayer.
  4. If you do not pray for them, maybe no one else will. That person will continue to struggle and feel bogged down. For you to know the good that you can do, and not do it, to you it is sin. (James 4:17)
  5. Get over your own self-absorption.
  6. An unbeliever might get saved if you pray for them. When God answers their request miraculously, they will know there is a God.
  7. Sometimes there is a demonic component that you are unaware of, and you need another believer to pray for you, and the fog is immediately lifted. It’s possible that the prayer request is a secondary issue, and that demonic oppression is the primary issue. If someone is asking for prayer, make sure to ask God if there is a demonic component, and that God would remove it from the person so that they can experience peace.
  8. If you help to remove a burden from a person, it frees that person up to minister to others.

Video #7: Why You Should Pray Right Away

To follow my prayer posts, like my Prayer page on Facebook, YouTube, and Google+.