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| The Power of prayer |
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| Written by Doug Craven | |
| Wednesday, 07 October 2009 | |
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The Power of Prayer Acts 12:1-7 At the beginning we read that the church is being persecuted. Herod puts a Christian leader to death. He finds that people seem to enjoy watching this man die; and this event helps increase Herod’s popularity, so he has Peter arrested and he has him scheduled to be executed. And the entire church begins praying for him!!!!!! Then the tragedy turns very dramatic as an angel appears and wakes Peter from his sleep and leads him out of the prison. It is a spiritual sort of event as even Peter doesn’t know if it is real, a vision, or just a dream. The angel and Peter walk up to the gates of the prison and the iron gates open by themselves. But then the event turns to a lighter scene, in some ways the feeling you might have like a comedy. The whole church is praying for Peter’s release, and what is the church’s response when they see Peter is to think, “That can’t be Peter – he’s in jail. We’re here praying for his freedom, so he can’t be free.” Sometimes people and the church struggle with what to do about prayer, or how to go about prayer, or even whether we should have any expectation of prayer working. So, what lessons can we learn from today’s text about when we do pray? We should pray frequently and with intensity. The Apostle Paul relates in First Thessalonians, “Pray without ceasing.” Paul told us to pray without ceasing, and by that he didn’t mean that we should be on our knees all the time, or living like Monks in a monastery. He meant that we should be in an attitude of prayer, so that even as we talk with others, part of our mind is in communion with God. Or we can find time during our day to allow part of our mind to be in quiet relationship with God. Prayer is an action that we should do more frequently and with intensity as the church did for Peter as told in this text from Acts And when we pray, we should expect God to respond. Look at the Bible and you will find many times when prayers were answered. We remember these stories so well. Issac prayed for a child with Rebecca and it happened. Moses, standing before the Red Sea, prayed for Israel to cross over on dry land. David prayed for strength, and was able to defeat Goliath. And the church prayed for Peter and he was delivered from the hands of the King and with the help of the angel escapes from the prison. The Bible promises that God will hear our prayers. It never says that God will obey our orders – or take on negotiations like: “I will do this if you do this other for me”…and sometimes that is the way we treat prayer. A theologian once said, “Our prayers often reduce God to nothing more than a Cosmic Bellboy, who is neither very bright, nor very reliable.” So let us understand that when it comes to prayer, let us do so often and with intensity and seek the will of God, in God’s not our own. And we must believe that God can make “it happen”; whatever it is, if we pray in the proper understandings. And we know that if we do so in this way God will respond. Amen. ...Doug Craven |
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