Wish I Could Help, But All I can Do Is Pray…

I have heard this statement so many times, even among faith-filled forgiven followers of Jesus Christ, that I am now beginning to understand WHY our nation (and the world) is morally collapsing and God is no longer the foundation of this country.

People are seeking something or someone to heal their broken hearts and tragic lives.  We as God’s chosen are obligated, not just incidentally asked, to pray for everyone!

Throughout the history of the true church, the only time change or revival happened was when God’s people prayed.

Why do so many believers think of prayer as a last resort?  Why do so many think they have to read some self-help book on how to pray effectively?  Why do so few spend time alone on their knees before God Almighty in earnest prayer?

The God of Creation gave us His Holy Word to speak to us (if we read it) and made it possible for us to speak to Him through our Mediator and Savior Jesus Christ.

C.H. Spurgeon once said, “Prayer pulls the rope down below and the great bell rings above in the ears of God. Some scarcely stir the bell, for they pray so languidly; others give only an occasional jerk at the rope. But he who communicates with heaven is the man who grasps the rope boldly and pulls continuously with all his might.”

2 Chronicles 7: 11-16:  Thus Solomon finished the house of the LORD and the king’s house. All that Solomon had planned to do in the house of the LORD and in his own house he successfully accomplished.  Then the LORD appeared to Solomon in the night and said to him:  “I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for myself as a house of sacrifice.  When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people,  if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.  Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayer that is made in this place.  For now I have chosen and consecrated this house (**) that my name may be there forever. My eyes and my heart will be there for all time.”

Mark 11: 15-18:   And they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple.  And he was teaching them and saying to them, (**)”Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.” And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and were seeking a way to destroy him, for they feared him, because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching.

1 Timothy 2:1 “ I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men;”   KJV   “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people,”  ESV

James 5: 16 ” Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed . The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.”

“To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than being alive without breathing”

Martin Luther King Jr.

****For anyone who would like to watch one of the most Spirit filled messages I’ve ever heard, here’s a link.  The original message was delivered at a Praise Conference in October of 1994 by Jim Cymbala, a pastor from Brooklyn.  It’s almost an hour long, but I must say, it’s an hour well spent!  http://youtu.be/U79YOKje2zU