Power of Prayer

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The power of God is incredible.

Job 37:5 says, "God thunders wondrously with his voice, doing great and mighty things we cannot comprehend."

That is power-a power evident throughout the history of world.

He kills Uriah when he touches the ark of the covenant just like that. Easier than snapping a wishbone, He can snuff out a life with His great power.

The oceans move with such a great force--all by the design of His hands. Its power is known to us all.

But there exists no greater display of God's power than when we see answered prayer in our lives--a power that we take part in.

The truth of God's work spreads throughout all things and any lives which prayer touches. God moves with mighty power and strength as we watch and pray.

Yet how much do we believe God can do through our measly prayers? Our prayers reflect our view of God in totality.

The attitude we carry into our prayer lives with God is of utmost importance. Even more so is what we pray about. Each whispered prayer shows where our heart lies and in that, where our treasure truly lies (Matthew 6:21).

Do our prayers focus on furthering the ever-growing kingdom of God? Or do we focus more instead on that 4.0 we need on an upcoming exam?

That is not to say God does not care about our day-to-day needs. He does. But, do we care about His concerns the same way that He cares about ours? His investment in us is full and also insurmountably beyond understanding. Can we say that our investment in the kingdom of God is that great? Do our prayers and our lives demonstrate that these greater purposes sit at the forefront of our minds and center of our hearts.

To pray according to God's purposes is to know those desires and intentions of the King of Glory on an intimate and personal level. We learn this through verses such as 1 Timothy 2:4, which tells us that God wants to save all men. His heart yearns to be in fellowship and true relationship with all those that He has created. In Matthew 9:35, we see Jesus proclaiming the gospel to people in every village He goes to...God in the form of His son is spreading the gospel of the kingdom!

How do your prayers reflect that you understand the importance of seeking to bring everyone to salvation in God's eyes?

I wonder what a life would look like if we truly understood how essential sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ is. I think beyond our prayers, this would extend into much more of our lives in the most finite moments and minuscule details of our very persona.

God has a power that we cannot even begin to fathom or wrap our heads around. If we really were to want to see that power played out all around us, a good starting place would be in constant and continual prayer.

Matthew 7:7-8 tells us that if we ask it will be given to us, if we seek we will find, and if we knock it will be opened to us. 

So when we ask...how big of a movement or revival are we asking for? God possesses the absolute ability to do anything we ask of Him, so we should ask for big things.

I believe this is the idea Paul is conveying in Ephesians 3:14-21. The end of his prayer in verses 19-20 is so indicative of that. Paul is asking for an understanding that the people would be hard-pressed to obtain--the depth and size of God's love.

It seems to me that Paul is addressing a lifestyle of prayer in which we are asking God for huge things to be done...and truly expecting them to happen. There is a clear perspective on prayer for Paul that says God can do anything at all and we should pray according to this truth.

With the incomprehensible power of God comes an incredible need to have our lives used as examples of this power.

Our prayers show if we believe God has such a power that the members of the church at Ephesus would come to grasp a full sense of the love of God in its most complete form.

We have this power. If God has this power and He answers prayers, then we have the power to tap into God's power supply--which never diminishes or runs short.

As we seek God's power and endless purposes, we know with unwavering confidence that we will see answered prayers. We carry a knowledge that God is going to take our prayers and blow them into more than we could have imagined in our most ludicrous dreams.

Confidence in prayer we should have--and is essential to the fruition of our prayers. Matthew 21:22 says, "And all things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive." Believing sits right in the middle of that statement, faith is at the core. We must have a confidence in faith that God is a rewarder of those who seek Him (Hebrews 11:6) and through that, we bring our prayers before Him, knowing that God is good and wants us to be in a relationship in which we converse with Him. 

The verses before Matthew 21:22 tell us that if we have faith and do not doubt, we can tell a mountain "Be taken up and cast into the sea," and it WILL happen. Is that how we pray?

That power lies within our words. God's power is intertwined in our prayers. Let's pray with that in mind.