How Much Do You Love?

If you look at your calendar, you will see that today is the last day of the "LOVE" month...you know, the month with that made up holiday called Valentine's Day (it must be made up since the banks were open).  On that day, we are to express our love for those special people in our life with flowers, candy and mushy, sentimental greeting cards that pledge our undying love.

Now, while I am one who believes that it is good to express our deepest and most affectionate love on Valentine's Day, we need to do that with all of our days. It is not the giving of things that lets those we love know that we care for them; rather it is how we care for them in our prayers that shows our true and deepest affections.

Just look at Scripture and Paul's writings in Colossians 1: 9-14 that says, " For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sin."

It is evident in this Scripture the great love that Paul has for the Colossians believers because he is praying for them in an intercessory mindset...He is doing what God has called each of us to do...Pray for those we love and intercede for them...CONTINUALLY!!!!

We are called by our Heavenly Father to love others and there is no greater way (short of giving up our own life) to show our love than to pray and intercede on the behalf of those we love. Does your spouse know how much you love them? Are your praying DAILY for God to work in their life as He helps them to grow in the knowledge and admonition of the Lord? Do you have a child or children that know how much their Mom or Dad loves them because DAILY and without CEASING, your are praying for God to work and have His way in molding your child into a child of the King....making them like Jesus because of your intercessory prayers. There are many ways, most of them admirable, in expressing our love for our family, our spouse and our friends; but there is none better than the example set by Paul as he prayed for those believers.

Why not show your love today in a very real way, in a very quiet place.... simply get on your knees and take those you know to the Throne Room of Heaven to intercede for them with your Heavenly Father. It will touch the heart of a loving Father and He will hear and answer your prayers...for He LOVES THEM EVEN MORE THAN YOU!!!! Make today the day that your love breaks through and shows those most special to you how much your really care...for your intercessory prayers will be answered and God will be glorified.

Praying for those I love...Continually on my knees,

WPQ

Poem for the day:

There are those in our lives

We love with all our heart....

And no matter what they do,

It's been that way from the start.

But we are called to share a greater love

One that draws us close and keeps us there

As we lift up the ones we love

And intercede for them in prayer.

We must take them to Jesus

And when we come on bended knee;

The hand of God will protect them

And the devil, he will flee.

For who can stand against Him

And the angels gathered there;

All because we sought His face

Through our intercessory prayer.

WPQ © January 2018

Learning to Pray...Six Ingredients for Effective Prayer

If you ask most believers, "How's your prayer life?", the common response would most likely be a blank stare or eyes lowered in dismay and guilt since they know it is not what it should be. But that kind of thinking tells me that those who might respond in such a manner see prayer as a duty and not as a lifeline.

As we've been learning, our prayer life is a thermometer for our relationship with our Father...not only about how we interact with Him, but how He interacts with each of us. If we recorded our prayers, we would see that most of them are primarily about ourselves and what we want or need. We keep asking but nothing happens; so pretty soon we don't spend time in prayer at all! But, effective or answered prayers must comply with God's operational procedures...if we don't pray as God instructs, then we can't really expect Him to answer.

So how should we pray so that our prayers will be effectively answered by a loving God? Unless we understand the essentials of prayer, we will go to God only with our "wish list" and treat Him as some big "genie in a bottle". Our prayers will be self-centered and about what God can do for us and not what we can do for Him...so let's look at six ingredients that lead to answered prayer.

Since prayer is about our relationship and our ongoing growth as a child of God, Scriptures tells us that in the Gospel of John, Jesus said, "And whatever you ask in my name, I will do it, so that the Father will be glorified in me." (my paraphrase John 14:13) This sounds like the "genie in the bottle" mentality at first glance; but broken down into its parts...first we ask "in Jesus name."

That means when we pray in Jesus name, we pray in accordance with His CHARACTER....and Jesus never prayed for ANYTHING outside of God's will. If we pray SELFISHLY for our "lustful" desires or because we think we deserve what we are asking for...I can assure you the answer to your prayer will be "NO!!!" However, if we pray for something that Jesus would want for us as a child of God, then we pray correctly..."IN HIS NAME."

The next ingredient can be found in this same verse, "that the Father may be glorified in me." So we must ask ourselves when we pray, "Who gets the glory if God answers my prayer? Will the outcome of my prayer bring honor to the name of Jesus...or do I get the credit? Will His name be praised or will others be talking about me? Is God going to be pleased and will His divine will be accomplished  with the answer to my prayer? God says through the word of His Son, that if He receives the GLORY, then He will respond to my prayer.

The third ingredient is based on our true relationship to God. The greatest commandment is "to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your mind and with all your soul." When we live out this commandment, our lives will be filled with faith from which flows our love and devotion to our Heavenly Father...so we will do what the Lord wants us to do because we love Him and He loves us. But Jesus ask His followers, "Why do you call me Lord and yet do not do what I say?"  So if we say we love God, WE KEEP HIS COMMANDMENTS....and if we don't keep His commandments, then we really don't love Him...and if we don't love and obey Him, why should we expect Him to answer our prayers? Simple logic!

The fourth ingredient is one that confronts and confounds us all. James wrote, "But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do."

When you let doubt enter your prayer life, you are in for one roller coaster of a ride. You will never know what is coming, what to give thanks for and what to continue to pray about since your ability to decipher what God is doing is based on what you see rather than what you believe...Faith helps us conquer the "highs and lows" of a tempest-tossed life and allows us to trust the hand that is on the helm; steering us to our holy destinations.

Our next ingredient is perseverance or determination...coming to a point in our prayer life that NOTHING will deter us from making our supplications known before the Lord...no matter how many times we have to pray about the same thing; WE WILL NOT BE DETERRED FROM A GODLY ANSWER TO OUR PRAYER. It is with fervency that we show God the passion of our sincerity.

And the last ingredient is a lot like trying to bake a cake with our baking powder...it's not going to rise! That ingredient is FORGIVENESS...for as Jesus taught us to pray, "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors."  He further emphasized, "If you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. (Matt 6:14)  How can we expect God to hear our prayer for forgiveness with when have failed to forgive those who have sought forgiveness from us?  We must keep an open line to the Father for Him to hear and answer our prayer; however, that line is cut in two when we fail to resolve our differences with others by holding grudges filled with bitterness....a bitter heart is a breeding ground for the Evil one and believe me, the Devil will stop at nothing to break your heart line to Heaven's throne.

The Apostle John wrote, "This is the confidence we have in 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 what we asked of him."(I John ,14-15)

So what's the summation of these 6 ingredients to effective, answered prayer...simply stated;

We pray for what we believe He wills; we ask for what will bring Him glory; we obey His commands; we do not doubt; we ask repeatedly and we always pray from a pure heart, filled with His love and forgiveness....

Now, Let the prayers begin.....God Bless!

WPQ

Learning to Pray...Day 5...Praying Presumptuously

Has your spouse ever looked deeply into your eyes and said, "Sweetheart, I know that you say you love me; but often feel like you take me for granted? Do you really love me? "

If so, then you can relate to how our Heavenly Father feels when we fail to pray. Prayer is the most intimate time we can spend with the one we say we love...God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ. But all too often we come to our time of prayer feeling a little too comfortable...lacking the full knowledge of our reliance on our Heavenly Father.

Take God's chosen people, the Israelites; all through the Bible we see them as an ungrateful and thankless people. God freed them from bondage; destroyed the Egyptian army as the Israelites fled on dry land; gathered manna sent from Heaven each morning...the list is endless of all that God did for them..yet, Scripture tells us they "forgot His benefits". They did not call on Him and because of their acts of nonchalance worship, their love and attention was diverted to the idols of the pagan lands in which they roamed. When we fail to give our ardent affection to our true love (God),  it all too often is bestowed on lesser beings (idols).

But our greatest "sin" in our prayer life is not that we don't pray or that we don't pray enough...it is that we pray all the while blinded to the blessings that we have received. We take for granted ALL that God has done for us and because He has blessed us so, we lose sight of our need for Him and our TOTAL DEPENDENCE on Him. This lack of awareness leads us to presume that all is fine and we begin to take our love relationship with our Father for granted...and this serious breach in our love relationship allows us to trivialize who God is and our need for a relationship with Jesus.

Jesus knew this could and would happen, so He instructed his disciples (you & me) to do the following in Matthew 7:7-11;  “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?  If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!

So when we pray as "God's children", we pray to our Father because we belong to Him and He wants to give us the things we need and even the things we may want...but when we become too comfortable and presume that God will always give us His blessings even when we don't ask, we break the heart of God as He ask each of us, "My child, I know that you say you love me; but I often feel like you take me for granted? Do you really love me? "

Yes, we can let God's goodness become our excuse to neglect Him and so because we are "so blessed", we can become insensitive to our need for His continued grace and mercy showered into our lives. When this happens our relationship fades and we become distant; so we pray only when we have to, when it's convenient or when we have a real need or in the midst of one of life's storms. So what's the answer to avoiding losing touch with our "true" love?

DO NOT PRESUME GOD'S GRACE...dive deeply into God's word; journal His blessings in your life and speak to your family and friends of his goodness. Take time to praise Him every day and remind yourself that He is ever present in each step you take.

Do what the Master told us to do...keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking and in so doing, you will pray with an ever-growing confidence as you call to mind the goodness shown to you by your Heavenly Father.... and in this,  you will always be reminded of your deep longing for His grace and His love for you, HIS CHILD!

Loving the Father...Dwelling in His Grace through prayer,

WPQ

Poem for the day...

Don't even think to start a day

Until you take the time to pray;

So go into your secluded place

And ask the Lord to send His grace...

Then shower Him with love and praise

And give Him thanks for all your days.

Seek His will so that you may know

He leads you where He wants you to go.

And should you pass a door that's locked

Take time to stand before and knock;

For all the blessings He has for you

Are waiting to see what you will do?

For the Father has so much to share

With those who come to Him in prayer.

So let Him know your hearts' desire

Is to burn for Him....A HOLY FIRE!!!!

WPQ  © February 2019

Learning to Pray...Day 4...

Growing Faith, Increasing Power

I don't know too many people, male or female, that are not the least bit interested in having MORE POWER...whether it's "horses under the hood" or being able to tell others "when to jump and how high" ...we all seem to be searching for more power.

But when we pray, we often feel powerless...and today we are going to look at why. I would ask you to consider the following passage, and though it is rather long, it's most powerful in its conclusion. In Mark 9:14-29 we read:

When they came to the other disciples, they saw a large crowd around them and the teachers of the law arguing with them. As soon as all the people saw Jesus, they were overwhelmed with wonder and ran to greet him. “What are you arguing with them about?” he asked. A man in the crowd answered, “Teacher, I brought you my son, who is possessed by a spirit that has robbed him of speech.  Whenever it seizes him, it throws him to the ground. He foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth and becomes rigid. I asked your disciples to drive out the spirit, but they could not.”  “You unbelieving generation,” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy to me.” So they brought him. When the spirit saw Jesus, it immediately threw the boy into a convulsion. He fell to the ground and rolled around, foaming at the mouth. Jesus asked the boy’s father, “How long has he been like this?”“From childhood,” he answered. “It has often thrown him into fire or water to kill him. But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us. "If you can’?”said Jesus. “Everything is possible for one who believes.  Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”  When Jesus saw that a crowd was running to the scene, he rebuked the impure spirit. “You deaf and mute spirit,” he said, “I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.” The spirit shrieked, convulsed him violently and came out. The boy looked so much like a corpse that many said, “He’s dead.” But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him to his feet, and he stood up.  After Jesus had gone indoors, his disciples asked him privately, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?” He replied, “This kind can come out only by prayer.” (my emphasis)

Jesus had given his disciples the power to heal and had sent them out before to heal in His name; but here, with the religious rulers taunting them and a large crowd looking on in dismay, they were powerless to do what Jesus had taught them and instructed them to do. Jesus could surely see the pain and suffering in the face of the father, pleading for Jesus to make his son whole and demon-free. But even in his desire to see his son healed, he said to Jesus, "IF YOU CAN?'...to which Jesus responded, EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE FOR ONE WHO BELIEVES!

And then, as only Jesus could do, he used the power given to Him as the Son of God, He cast His eyes toward Heaven, and though no word left His lips, I am quite sure that He prayed for God the Father to heal this young boy. Then in a loud voice for all to hear, He rebuked the demon, called him out and cast him forever away from this young lad. Taking him by the hand, he gave back to the father the son that had been lost for so long. But it is the next portion of this Scripture that brings us to our lesson today...when Jesus explained that casting out this kind of demon takes PRAYER.

What demons are you dealing with today? Are Satanic forces at work in your life and no matter how hard you try, you cannot pull down the strongholds that leave you powerless and ineffective for the Kingdom? Is your church just running in place, at a loss of how to fulfill the Great Commission? For too many of us in the church, we are much more concerned with activities rather than immersion in prayer...and it is that lack of prayer and our lack of faith that leads to our lack of POWER! It has been said, "Much Prayer, Much POWER! Little prayer, little power."

Here's the bottom line...God gives power to those who believe; who demonstrate their faith by their necessity to pray...and in prayer they believe and are TOTALLY DEPENDENT on the faithfulness of our Heavenly Father. The outcome or answer to their prayers does not alter or change their faith should they not be happy with the results...THEIR FAITH IS IN THE FATHER AND HE ALWAYS GIVES IN ACCORDANCE WITH HIS WILL.

Prayer is our way to show our TOTAL dependence on God. It is saying, "Lord, this is more than I can handle and I am powerless and totally dependent on you. I can't but I believe YOU can; so I put my faith in you and I believe you will."  The writer of Hebrews tells us that it is impossible to please God without FAITH...and it is our faith that tells us we can TRUST our God.

Faith and prayer are so intertwined that the more we pray, the more we trust we have. And the more trust and faith we have, the more we are infused with the power of God's Holy Spirit...and it is that power and our faith that will help us to overcome the evil one in this world...

 Prayer + Faith = POWER for the child of God! Don't leave home without it....

Powered by Prayer, Faithful forever,

WPQ

Learning to Pray... Day 3... Praying Appropriately

It seems for most Christians that I know, they consider prayer almost a sub-standard way of showing their love and affection for their Heavenly Father. What do I mean by such a statement?

Well, for one thing, prayer seems to be the most elusive discipline that we embrace in our walk with Christ. We always seem to find other things to do rather than pray. In fact, our mentality seems to be, "it is better to be doing for Christ rather than being for Christ." That is why so many believers often use prayer as the last resort rather than the first thing they do when dealing with hardships ...like just starting a new day. We have all assumed at one time or the other that "getting things done" by being productive is what God wants us to do...but often nothing could be further from the truth.

The truth is God wants to get to know you intimately and there is nothing that brings you closer to the Almighty than prayer...it is where we can become one with His Spirit. Prayer is more than closing our eyes to "meditate" on God; it is our unique opportunity for personal examination; to see ourselves as God sees us and yet showers His love on us regardless of who we are or what we've done. True, intimate time spent in prayer shows not a weakness; rather it empowers us to enter the very Throne Room of our Creator and there make our petitions known. Doing so teaches us patience; gives us insight into the heart and mind of God; empowers us with endurance and allows us to deal with any matter and know that God will be there to help us cope with ANYTHING!!!!

But we need to prayer appropriately...and that can be very tricky sometimes. What do I mean by "praying appropriately"? Christ shared with us how we can pray appropriately in the gospel of Luke in the 18 chapter, which reads; "To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector.  I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’  “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’  “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” (verses 9-14)

These two men went to the temple to pray...the Pharisee praying so that all would see..the tax collector praying hoping no one would see. The tax collector knew where he stood in his relationship to a high and holy God and would not even let himself look toward Heaven as he begged for God's mercy; however, the Pharisee raised his hands (my conjecture) toward Heaven and in a loud and pompous voice thanked God that he was better than those all around him. What is wrong with that picture?

When we come to God in prayer it is NOT to sing our praises and tell Him how good and righteous we think we might be...NO! It is just the opposite.... for we are there to tell God how holy and righteous we understand Him to be and to ask Him to make us more like our Savior, Jesus Christ. WE ARE TO SING HIS PRAISES EVEN BEFORE WE MAKE OUR REQUESTS KNOWN!

So when you come to your time of prayer each morning, in your secluded spot, void of the distractions of your world, do as the tax collector and HUMBLE YOURSELF before the Maker of Heaven and earth. There, in the stillness of that moment, confess your unworthiness to even utter the name of Jesus or call upon the name of the Most High...pray with the appropriate spirit that says you are nothing in the eyes of God and HE IS EVERYTHING in your sight. It is only when we humble ourselves that God can use us in His work; it is only then that He can give us the desires of our heart and it is only then that we become TRULY connected to our Heavenly Father as we pray in the holy name of JESUS...THE NAME ABOVE ALL NAMES!!!!

Humbly praying for His Mercy & Grace,

WPQ

Poem for the day...

Many times we struggle

With the start of another day;

As we seek to know the Father's will;

As we bow to Him and pray.

We come with  hearts heavy laden

Cumbered with our load of cares;

Seeking  to know His compassion

And to leave those burdens there.

There to lay at the foot of His throne

The pains of a broken life.

To know our God is bigger than

Our woes and life's constant strife.

So when we call on that precious name;

The name of the most Holy one;

We will find our strength in Jesus....

As we pray in the name of God's Son...

IN JESUS NAME WE PRAY....AMEN!

WPQ © February 2019

Learning to Pray...Day 2

In the three years the disciples spent with Jesus, they learned many things; but the one thing they asked Jesus to teach them... "Lord, teach us to pray."

Did they seek Jesus' instructions in this matter because of the emotion with which He prayed, His passion, His brevity or His simplicity? Was it the inflection in His voice or the tenderness with which He prayed that brought about this request? I think not. I believe they sought to pray like Jesus because they saw how VITAL prayer was to the one they had committed to follow. They saw Him model prayer at every turn, even though the Bible only tells of five times that Jesus prayed with them within ear shot. But, Jesus did teach them to pray and He began that lesson by saying, "When you pray...."

You see, for Jesus, it was not a matter if you want to pray or you think you might pray or even when times get rough you should really pray...it was a foregone conclusion that prayer would be a vital part of our lives as well. Jesus expected prayer to be the natural, ongoing desire of our new life in Him. Paul, the great apostle, also chided us to "Pray without ceasing..."  or "In everything...pray." Jesus expected us to follow His example that He modeled by rising early in the morning and going to a deserted place, there to commune with His Father... a trait His disciples witnessed in His life every day.

Yes, we should begin EVERY DAY with prayer as our launching pad as we lift our praise to our Creator and make our desires, hopes, concerns and inner thoughts known to a loving, caring Heavenly Father. Prayer should not just be a 911 emergency call to God as we plead for Him to see us through some crisis.

A quality prayer life should have an established time and an established place. Jesus told His followers, "When you pray, go into your room..." Jesus wanted his disciples to know that we do our best praying when we are alone with our thoughts and in tune with the Holy Spirit who will make our prayers known to God. Jesus was warning them not to pray as the Pharisees, who prayed loud and long in the presence of others...and the use of repeated words in no way guarantees that your prayer is heard. Rehearsed prayers have little value since it is just repeated words, usually void of feelings or convictions. Unrehearsed prayers, offered in spontaneity, are the ones that catch the listening ear of the Father.

Jesus often left His disciples as stated in Mark 1:35 which reads, "Very early in the morning, while it was still dark; Jesus got up and left the house and went off to a solitary place, where He prayed."  If it was important for our Lord and Savior to find such a place to spend time in prayer with His Father, how much more should we find a place where we can be alone with God and privately open our hearts to Him?

Now, I know that we all lead busy lives which can leave us tired, stressed, frustrated, irritated and often annoyed with anything and anyone... we need to rest and let the restorative power of prayer heal and calm our troubled soul. It is in this quiet place, alone with our Father that such healing and peaceful renewal can begin. Prayer brings about an inner peace that truly passes our abilities to understand. When we surrender our problems, worries and frustrations to our Father in that quiet place that we go to pray, we are telling God that He matters more than our problems. As we truly seek His will through prayer, God can clear our minds so that we might see what His solution may be and we can commit to follow His will in all things. Prayer does not make us better because we choose to pray...Prayer makes us better because it makes us surrender...In prayer, if we pray as Jesus taught the disciples, we pray....

Our Father, who art in Heaven;

Hallowed be Thy name. (He Is Sovereign)

Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done

On earth as it is in Heaven. (That's surrender)

Give us this day our daily bread (Our dependency)

And forgive us our debts

As we forgive our debtors.(Our repentance)

Lead us not into temptation;

But deliver us from evil.(Our assurance)

For Thine is the Kingdom and the Power

And the Glory ....Forever ! Amen. (Our Hope)

Prayer makes a difference in the lives of those for whom we pray and in our lives because we pray. Don't let another day go by without establishing your time to pray; your place to pray; and your "why" you pray....Remember, PRAYER CHANGES THINGS...and you in the process!

Praying without ceasing...Communing with my Father,

WPQ

Learning to Pray....

For the last several weeks, I have been reading and studying a book I received from the Billy Graham Evangelistic Ministry, written by Franklin Graham and Dr. Ross Rhoads. It is entitled, ALL FOR JESUS-A Devotional.

In my journey through this little book, I have gone down the road of  Service- God Can Use Anyone; climbed the mountains of Discipleship-The Basics and Discipleship- Beyond the Basic; crossed the plains of Assurance-The Certainties of Our Faith; and now find myself exploring the caves of Prayer- Access to the Heart of God...and that's where I would like to hang my hat for the next several days as I write about this wonderful expression that draws us closer to our Heavenly Father when we bow to pray.

The first question that might come to mind is what is Prayer...really? Most of us would say it is our desire to communicate with God so we can let Him know what's on our mind, what we need and oh yes, thank Him for His love and provision in answering our former prayers. All in all, that might, at least at face value, be a fair assessment of prayer for many believers. But for those who want a deeper and more satisfying relationship with Jesus, this barely scratches the surface. So my desire in my next few writings will be for us to take a closer look at PRAYER.

If we turn the word Prayer into an acronym, it might read as follows:

P....Personal...It is when we come to God, stripped of our self-righteousness, ready to bare our soul and hungering for His touch and feelings of closeness.

R...Removed...It is when we enter our sanctum, shut out the woes and worries of this world and concentrate on who God is and on our RELATIONSHIP with our Heavenly Father.

A...Assurance...When we pray, we find assurance in our relationship with God because our faith tells us that He is listening and waiting to know our heart for Him.

Y...Yearning... Bowing in humility when we pray expresses our yearning to be near Him, to be more like Him and to draw nearer to our Creator and our Savior as we seek His will for our life.

E...Energizing...When we pray, we leave the Throne Room of God, having left our cares, troubles and worries at the His Feet and we become energized and encouraged to be a servant, working diligently for the Master.

R...Relational...Our prayer life has a DIRECT EFFECT on who we are in Christ and how we either value or devalue what Christ did for us...and how his Spirit lives in and through us as a Child of the King!

Yes, outside of reading the Word of God on a daily basis, there is NOTHING more vital to the growth and maturity of our life in Christ than the time we spend in prayer with our GOD. When you think about it, our prayer really does nothing for God...it probably sounds a lot like a bunch of spoiled children whining about what the need; what they want or how if God would only do such and such, our lives would be so much better ...and thus, we would be more likely to follow and obey. Now, I don't know this to be true; however, I have seen in my own prayer life over the years that I tend to pray more when I need something from God or I want Him to fix something in my life that I can no longer control...Neither of these are relationship building ways to pray.

So...how do we access the heart of God through prayer?  Are there some "secrets" or "special words" that trigger the ears of God so that He will listen intently to our prayers? And how do we get God to answer our prayers and how boldly should we be praying anyway?

Come back over the next week or so and I will seek to share what I have learned through the pages of this little book and through my own life experiences that have had a profound effect on how and when I pray....I believe this little series can truly make a difference in your prayer life which may very well make a difference in your daily walk with God!

Praying for direction...Going where He leads,

WPQ

Poem for the day...

Oh, the power of prayer is

A wondrous, glorious thing.

It can set the captive heart free

Once again to sing.

It can lift the burdened soul up,

Though loaded down with care.

You must never underestimate

The mighty power of prayer.

For the Father has instructed

Those called by his name;

To put our faith and trust in Him,

His promises to claim.

We can carry our burdens to His throne

And prayerfully leave them there;

Our lives are changed, our burdens lifted

Through the power of our prayer.

So when life's storm clouds gather

And your heart is full of pain,

Just pray to the Father and like a gentle rain,

He'll wash away your anguish;

He'll vanish every care;

He'll grant your every heart's desire

Through the Power of your PRAYER!

W. Patrick Queen    Excerpt from "Bent….but not Broken"

Check out the Series

LEARNING TO PRAY

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