When we truly encounter God’s Word, our spiritual eyes open and our hearts become awakened. We cannot stay under the power of God’s Word and go back the same. There are Christians whose experiences in life are the antithesis of their faith and the Word of God. For example, they may believe that they are not supposed to be oppressed by Satan as Christians, yet they experience continual satanic attacks and manipulations. They believe they aren’t supposed to be sick or have infirmities in their bodies, yet they are hardly in good health. Something is wrong.
Prayer is one of the greatest treasures for Christians. Prayer is not bringing a list of needs before God. Petition is part of prayer, but it goes beyond that. In prayer, we can communicate to a deity, the Almighty God. Everybody needs assistance in some areas of their lives. , If you are not a Christian, you do not have access to God so you need to depend on man to help you. There is no other option. God created us in His image, so He made us spiritual beings in order to be able to have access to Him. Animals do not have a spirit so they cannot commune with God. Our spirits were cut off when Adam and Eve sinned against God. That broken relationship is restorable when we come to the Saviour because through Him, we become born again and our spirit is made new (2 Cor 5:17).
God communicates His peace through prayer. When the Apostle Paul was in prison, he had several things he could have chosen to worry about. He could have worried whether he would ever be released, whether he would live or die. But instead, in Philippians 4: 6, he encouraged all to be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.
Paul and Silas were put in a Philippian jail. Philip was a city in modern-day Greece. “Now it happened, as we went to prayer, that a certain slave girl possessed with a spirit of divination met us, who brought her masters much profit by fortune-telling. This girl followed Paul and us and cried out, saying, “These men are the servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to us the way of salvation.” And this she did for many days. But Paul, greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And he came out that very hour. But when her masters saw that their hope of profit was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to the authorities. And they brought them to the magistrates and said, “These men, being Jews, exceedingly trouble our city; and they teach customs which are not lawful for us, being Romans, to receive or observe.” Then the multitude rose together against them, and the magistrates tore off their clothes and commanded them to be beaten with rods. And when they had laid many stripes on them, they threw them into prison, commanding the jailer to keep them securely.Having received such a charge, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks.” Acts 16:16-24. We see in this passage that Paul and Silas’s mission that day was to go and pray. On their way, there was a demon. The demon aimed to stop them from going to pray. Demons function better when inside a body. As spirits beings, they cannot function properly in the natural world. They are more effective when they enter a body. When demons enter a body, the human vessel often does not know it.
When Jesus told Peter He was going to die according to Scripture, Peter dared to rebuke Jesus. Peter had just had a revelation of Jesus. Matthew 16: 16-17, “Simon Peter answered and said, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ Jesus answered and said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father Who is in Heaven.” Jesus affirmed that the revelation Peter had received came from the Father. This tells us that Peter was saved right there. If Peter had died there and then, he would have gone to Heaven. He was saved. However, a few moments later, Jesus told them of His mission of going to the cross to die. “From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day.” (Vv. 21). When Peter heard that, he responded by saying, “Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!” (Vv.22). Immediately Peter spoke, Jesus responded, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offence to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.” (Vv. 23). The question here is, did Satan enter into Peter was just planted the thoughts into him? The Bible didn’t tell us, but we know the words of Satan became the words of Peter. Peter set his mind on the things of men, and Jesus rebuked him for that. I brought this up to remind us that we are not far from Satan as we think. We can be preaching the gospel and speaking for the devil at the same time. We can be unbelieving believers. Had Jesus not rebuked Peter, we would never have known that those words were not the words of Peter but the very words of Satan. Christians should pray every day because prayer is submission to God. If you don’t pray, you are a proud person. We feel that you can control situations and do not need God in your life. A prayerless Christian is a prideful Christian. If you do not pray, your flesh is the one in charge of you, but we are told that to be carnally-minded is dead. (Rom 8:6). Peter was carnal, and you and I can be very sensual as well. Prayer helps us stay focused on God. We can be in tune with God to hear Him better in worship. Therefore, those who do not pray much are very sensual. They are not sensitive to the things of God. If you want to know the will of God for your life or His will regarding any situation, you must be someone who enjoys praying or who spends time with the Lord. This is the only way we can grow and know the mind of God in every situation.
Paul and Silas spent just one night in prison. They had a choice to moan and complain about how unfair they had been treated, but instead, they prayed. It was in that prayer that the earth shook. “Suddenly there was a great earthquake so that the foundations of the prison were shaken, and immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone’s chains were loosed.” (Acts 16:26). I like the word “suddenly.” It means “swiftly”, “unexpectedly”, “abruptly”, or “quickly.” This is the essence of prayer. If we want to see an “earth-shattering” miracle, we must pray. God has unlimited power and desires to intervene in our lives, but the only thing that stops us from seeing the glory of God is the lack of prayer. Had Paul and Silas not prayed, nothing would have happened. Before they took them to prison, they beat and flogged them. Paul later encouraged us to walk by faith and not by sight. (2 Cor 5:7). Is it not interesting that the same Paul who told us not to be carnally minded also told us to walk by faith? He practised what he preached. The answers to our prayers come unexpectedly, and this is why we must not stop praying. The same Apostle Paul tells in Ephesians 3:20 that God can do exceedingly abundantly above all we ask or think, according to the power that works in us. Our prayers limit God’s unlimited ability. The amount of water we get depends on the size of the valve. If we have a more oversized valve, we will access more water. We don’t see the importance of a valve in the modern world because we have access to so much water, but there are much bigger valves in the villages where people queue for water. Everyone wants water quickly to save time. We do not see the power of God in our lives because our prayer valve is not that big, so we see tiny drops of miracles. However, spending more time in prayer would make us flow abundantly in God’s goodness.
“But you, beloved building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit” (Jude1:20). The believer who prays allows himself to exercise his spirit and grow, just as an athlete trains to toughen his muscles and increase stamina. Generally, the term “building up yourself “means constantly growing or increasing in an area and becoming much better than before. Prayer is the channel through which one is spirituality built. The ability to remain sharp and spiritually alert can only be sustained through prayer. Where there is prayerlessness, there is a consequential collapse of one’s spiritual strength. As the lifestyle of prayer builds you up, you begin to have renewed boldness and are filled with more of the Holy Spirit. The adversary plans to keep the sons of God in constant fear. One of the enemy’s strategies is to stop the believer’s prayer life and keep him satisfied with little fellowship with God. Walking in the principle of prayer builds you up, fills you up and gives you boldness in the face of any challenge. You can face life and whatever it throws at you. When you walk in the principles of prayer, nothing shakes you because you know how to catch God’s attention!
“Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the Heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit.” (Jas 5:17-18). One man whose life was defined by prayers was Elijah. His prayer life gave him authority even over the climate as human as he was. He ceased the rains for three and a half years in Israel and, after this, prayed again, causing the heavens to open for a mighty downpour fire from Heaven and challenged the prophets of Baal. His life and the power that followed his ministry validates the authority and power a believer has through prayer.
The believer who prays persistently walks inconsistent power and control. You only realize the power you have available to you when you take charge in prayer. The power of your prayer is not in the words you utter or how long you pray. Instead, the power resides in the God who is being prayed to. This power manifests as you pray, and it causes things to happen and situations to change. I have seen the power of prayer at work in my life. I have seen prayer shift the phase of a person’s life and place them at the top. I know what prayer can do. Do not take any prayer opportunity for granted. This empowers you and causes shifts in the spiritual realm that manifest either instantly or according to the course of time in the natural realm. Your prayer carries power. “Now it came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, that one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.” (Lk 11:1). Jesus’ life and ministry were marked by prayer. Constantly, He communicated with His Father and often sought a solitary place for this. He admonished his disciples to pray. When we pray, we release power from Heaven to our situation. The disciples petitioned the Master to teach them how to pray, and He did. The disciples had heard Jesus teach and perform many miracles. Yet, their hunger was not for the miracles, anointing or the powerful messages He could preach but for His prayer mantle. “Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (Matt 26: 41).
Are you watching? Are you praying? We watch to pray; we don’t watch to talk about it or gossip with it. Keep watching and keep praying. In Heaven, there are unlimited resources. God has so much more for all of us and we simply cannot exhaust all that He has. If God has everything and is willing to bless us, why do we find it hard to pray? Prayer is a very important concept in the life of the Christian but because we do not understand or know what happens, we end up losing faith in God. “So, Jesus answered and said to them, “Have faith in God. For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says. Therefore, I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.” (Mk 11:22-24).
