James 5:16-18 (NLT)
“Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results. Elijah was a human as we are, and yet when he prayed earnestly that no rain would fall, none fell for three and a half years! Then, when he prayed again, the sky sent down rain and the earth began to yield its crops.”
Praise the Lord everyone !! It's a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord.
We give God thanks for this new month of February and for the preservation of our lives!
As I waited on the Lord in prayer this week on what He wanted to say as a word of encouragement, He reminded me of the importance of prayer. Drawing closer to the Lord through prayer helps us to offload the burdens that we tend to willingly and unwillingly carry day by day. Many of us can testify that at some point in our relationship with God, we felt discouraged because answers to our prayers are sometimes delayed. While meditating on the word of God, I heard in my spirit “the righteous prayer availeth much.” The revelation of His words reminded me of an occurrence months ago at the grocery store. While checking out at the register, a cashier whose line I often went through approached me and said, "Thank you!” I looked at her puzzled as to why I was being thanked. She continued however to state that I had prayed for her in the past and how the Lord had answered the prayer. The young lady started rejoicing as she was saying “I am married now, God bless you and thank you.” To be honest, I didn’t remember right away when this happened or even what I prayed for, but my response to her was, “To God be the Glory!”
Many times as believers we pray and ask God to intervene on behalf of others, but what joy it is to see the answers being manifested. Revelation 12:11 states, “And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony.” At that moment, her testimony became a confirmation for me, and then I heard, “DON’T STOP PRAYING.” Even if we can’t see what the Lord is doing, the Word of God reminds us to pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17).
The Lord desires for us to have a closer walk with Him. Through prayer, we are able to unlock a beautiful treasure within us. This treasure is a gift that can only be given by God, through the Holy Spirit. The scriptures tell us in 2 Corinthians 4:7(NLT), “We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure.” This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves. The prophet Elijah was human just like us, fragile and frail. Without his faith and the great power of God within him, his prayers would not have been answered. Elijah prayed earnestly, again and again, believing that His God would deliver. He didn’t STOP! He continued praying, exercising the power within to bring to pass the request made unto the Lord, of which he prevailed.
Daniel is another great example, who consistently prayed three times a day. The Bible tells us in Daniel 6:10 (NLT), “But when Daniel learned that the law had been signed, he went home and knelt down as usual in his upstairs room, with its windows open toward Jerusalem. He prayed three times a day, just as he had always done, giving thanks to his God.” Sometimes like Daniel, we receive reports that disturbed us. We may have prayed for someone that has been sick, depressed, or bound to the cares of this world. You may have been praying to the Lord in secret for years for your family to be saved. You might be wondering, Lord, are you still hearing me? No matter the outcome, the Lord wants to remind us today, “DON’T STOP PRAYING.” Daniel prayed for 21 days and he waited for an answer which seemed to have been held up. But like Daniel the Lord is going to answer your prayers and His Celestial Angels are going to fight and bring you your answer.
The Lord Jesus, who came to die for our sins, fully God and man, said to the Apostle Peter, “But I have pleaded in prayer for you, Simon, that your faith should not fail. So, when you have repented and turned to me again, strengthen your brothers (Luke 22:32, NLT).” The Lord Himself, gave us an example of the importance of praying for one another so that our faith would not fail. Therefore, it's essential that we don’t neglect meeting together (going to church), to encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near (Hebrew 10:25).
People of God, as we continue our journey by faith, we are believing the Lord for a closer walk with Him day by day. Let us seek Him with an understanding that there’s no better place to be, than to be in the presence of the Lord.
So, how do we pursue a closer walk with Jesus? The Bible tells us in Matthew 6:6 (NLT), “But when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to your Father in private. Then your Father, who sees everything, will reward you.” The Lord also tells us in Hebrew 11:6,” …Anyone who wants to come to Him must believe that God exists and that He rewards those who sincerely seek Him.” In order to gain a close walk with Jesus, it comes from wholeheartedly exposing ourselves consistently to reading and meditating on His word, being obedient to what God tells us to do, serving and being consistent in prayer.
God desires for us as His children to have an intimate, sincere, compassionate and consistent LIFE-LINE communication with Him. By doing this, His perfect will for our life will be accomplished. If we should STOP praying, we would break our spiritual life line connection with the Lord Jesus Christ. We want God to be the center of our heart beat daily when we arise. There is a song I learned as a child growing up in church, and a few verses of the song says, “He’s my reason for living, he’s my source of survival every minute of the day, give me Jesus.”
Let us earnestly pray together for this to be our heartfelt desire. For David declared, “One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to enquire in his temple (Psalms 27:4, KJV).”
According to R.A. Torrey in The Power of Prayer, “Prayer will reach down, down, down into the deeper depths of sin and ruin and take hold of men and women who seem lost beyond all possibility or hope of redemption, and lift them up, up, up, up until they are fit for a place beside the Son of God upon the throne.”
Love you all and my prayer for you today is that you, "DON'T STOP PRAYING!", even in the hardest moments of your life.
Please take the time to read the scriptures throughout.
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