User:Essiendave

This simple, well researched and insightful book THE POWERFUL FORCE OF PRAYER written by ''Essien Philip DAvid, highlights some of the vital/ essentials things a praying Christian need to know about prayer. It is an easy to read book. It is a book for all denominations: Catholics, Pentecostals, Methodists, Baptists, Anglicans etc. We defined, what prayer is and how prayer is made, prayer models, types of prayers, prayers transition, various forms of Christian’s prayer postures, hindrances to prayers, why do we need to pray and not keeping a closed mouth, how the powerful force of prayer brought deliverance to some people in the Bible etc.

Prayer is simply, communicating with God using His language-His word. It is the channel through which man invites God into his affairs. It is one of the powerful offensives weapons made available by God to Christians, to challenge or attack the devil and the kingdom of darkness. It’s also one of the keys of the kingdom Christ gave to us; in other to have free access to divine provisions, divine protection, and divine help of God.

'''And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven:  and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Matthew 16:19.

In essence; whatsoever you shall lock with your prayers on earth shall be locked in heaven, and whatsoever you unlock with your prayers on earth is unlocked in heaven. “Communicating” does not stop at just talking with God, but it also involves listening to God for answer and direction; hence prayer is dialogue or duologue and not monologues. However, the dialoguing must be an active dialogue and not passive. Whenever we pray, God speaks to us in return, most often He does this through His written or spoken word, or by speaking into our ears through a still small voice, or through prophesy and revelation, or through dreams and visions, or by instant miracles; confirming the answer to our prayers. According to God’s general, David Ibiyeomie, “effective Prayer can be achieved by asking God to intervene in a given situation on the basis of His word,” i.e. by reminding God what His word says concerning a given situation. It is worthy to note that, God has no store house for prayers, and therefore He has no prayer bank where prayers of saints are accumulated or stored, awaiting answers. He gives answer to every prayer we prayed, that is in line with His word. The Bible verses shown below explain this point.

'''Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not. Jeremiah 33:3.  If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. John 15:7.

O thou that hearest prayer, unto thee shall all flesh come. Psalms 65:2.  Verily I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Matthew 18:18.'''

If our prayer is not answered, it means that we did not pray according to His word and will, or it could be that our aim of praying is for selfish reasons.

'''Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts. James 4:3.

'''Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart. Jeremiah 29:12-13.''' '''

Whenever we pray, our prayer should not be limited to our pleasure and selfish desires alone. A request that must have speedy and accelerated answer must be rendered in a way, to increase God’s kingdom and purpose on earth.

The Lord asked us to bring our strong reason before Him when we pray, Isaiah 41:21.Our strong reason is not, take for example “father the reason why you must bless me is because I am your servant” or “father you must bless me because I pay my tithe regularly.” Even though these reasons are genuine, but they are not a “must” reasons for God to bless anyone. So, when we try to bring our strong reason before Him, we should try all we could not to let our reasons showcase our self-acclaimed good works before Him, rather we should tender our strong reasons in such a way that will showcase His own goodness and righteousness. Therefore, when we pray, we should re-echo back to God His word. For example we should not say “God you must bless me because I pay my tithe regularly” we should rather say “father your word says if I pay my tithe, you will open the windows of heaven and pour me blessing and the scripture cannot be broken, therefore, bless me oh Lord.” We receive effective answer to our prayers when we pray; reminding God of what His word says.

The question is how much of the word of God does an average Christian stored within? Most often, the level of our success in getting our prayers answered depends largely on the amount of the word of God we stored within. John 15:7 says:

“If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.”

The challenge with many Christians is not with the ‘A’ part of that scripture. As shown in the bible in Galatians 2:20, we are crucified with Christ yet we lived, and we are sited in heavenly places with Christ far above all principalities and powers Ephesians 1:21, (as true believers, we are already abiding in Christ as born again child of God). The ‘B’ part of that scripture is where many Christians find difficulty in achieving “and my word abides in you.” No prayer made outside the word of God will get effective answer.

My prayer life got transformed when I discovered the basic truth in John 15:7, that, the level of my success in prayers depends on the level of the word of God I am able to store within and used when praying. I now spend more time studying the word of God, spend time memorising it, spend time knowing where the word of God is located in the Bible, and spend time to see how I can apply the word while praying to solve any challenges I am facing. Let me get this across, one's success in getting prayers answered does not depend on the hour one puts in, praying. One's success in prayers depends on how much of the word of God one is able to present to God, as a strong reason for Him to send answers back. Just because brother “A” spends 10hours praying everyday does not means his prayer is going to have more effective result than that of brother “B”, who is spending 1hour everyday in prayers. I must emphasis here that, it is very good to spend long time in the presence of God fellowshipping in prayer, but it is not the long hours that guarantee answer; it is how effective we put our time in the presence of God into positive use.

'''Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week; I give tithes of all that I possess. And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for everyone that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted. Luke 18:10-14.'''

'''The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. James 5:16b. ''' There is this saying “don’t do your service to please man, do all your service to please God only.” Likewise, don’t do your prayers just because you want to please man, do it to please God only. If all you can pray is 1hour daily, do not envy the person doing 10hours of praying everyday. Pray your 1hour daily prayer with consistency; though there is room for improvement and upgrade. Do not upgrade just because you want to please a man. Remember, He that gave the talents gave it according to our several abilities Matthew 25:15, 1 Corinthians 7:7, 1Peter 4:11. Covet the gift, but don’t envy the person that has the ability to pray long. Talking about pleasing men; going by what a writer wrote “no matter what you do to please a man, it takes some few days for you to be forgotten by that same man, when you have died.” If you like, sell all you have to help a man, when you die, the most the man can remember that you have exited is 3years. After 3years your thought begins to fade away from his memory, and your good work is overtaken by series of other events. It’s only God we would give our all, and be remembered for eternity, because He has promised not to forget our labour of love. For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, which ye have showed toward his name, in that ye have ministered to the saints, and do minister. Hebrews 6:10. On a lighter mood, I want to digress a little from the main subject. I was at a burial ceremony in Ibadan, South West of Nigeria sometimes in the 90’s. So many people gathered eulogising the good deed of the deceased. There was wailing and crying all over, to the point that I was moved within and tempted to cry. At the point when the deceased was to be lowered into the grave, one of his cousins came out from nowhere, jumped into the grave, crying, wailing and shouted at the top of his voice “you people must bury me with my brother, he is like a father to me, my own is finished, how can this good man die?” It took the intervention of 10 hefty men to bring him out and consoled him. 30minutes after the deceased had been lowered to the grave and buried; it was time for menu to be served. The entire waiters and waitresses serving the menu will get to where this young man (the cousin of the deceased) was, bypassed him and attend to other guest, thinking that he was still very deep in the mood of mourning and not ready for a meal yet. But to my greatest surprise (after he had observed that if he did not react fast, he may end up not being served any food), he shouted in Yoruba “ Kilode ti e fin gbe eba ati obe egusi yi kojami” meaning “Why are you people carrying this Eba and Egusi soup (food) passed me!?” We were all surprised. Someone summoned courage to ask him “were you not the person that wanted to die with the deceased 1hour ago?” He replied “Efun mi ni onje jare, eni ti otiku tiku”; meaning, please give me food to eat, someone that is dead is gone forever. This story shows how fast one can easily be forgotten immediately after death. So, live your life, render your service to God and do the much you can to help man for the sake of God; and do not engaged in eye service to please anybody. Eniyan to baku loni, aiye a gbagbe e, Olorun oba nikan ni koni gbagbe eni. Anyone that dies today will sooner or later be forgotten, it’s only God that will not forget His own. Back to the main subject, the truth is; many Christians still approach the throne of grace with the mindset of a servant or a sinner, they fail to approach God with a son-ship mentality; hence when they approach God in prayers, they do so in fear and guilt, and not with boldness. They do this just because they fail to recognise or realise the gravity of what Jesus did on the cross of Calvary, when He paid the price for our sins. He took all our sins and catapults us from the slavery and sinners state to a son-ship state. Even the bible gave us an example of how believers should approach God in prayers. '''Seeing then that we have a great high priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God; let us hold fast our profession. For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need. Hebrews 4:14-16.'''

Many believers will never believe that their prayer can be answered, unless they have spent long hours of lamentations and complains in prayer. Take for example; the shortest prayer anyone can remember to pray when being faced, face to face with an approaching trailer or truck is to call on the name “JESUS!” That name alone brings deliverance. Remember, at the mention of that name every knee bows. God is looking for those that will intercede in prayer, men that will use the powerful force of prayer to change their world. Most often, God cannot change situations until men pray; God can not intervene in our situation if we do not ask Him to. Is He all knowing and all doing God? Yes. Did He part the red sea? Yes. Did He bring manna and quails? Yes. Did He made water gushed out of the rock? Yes. In each of those super miracles, man had to call on God to intervene in the various difficult situations. Quoting NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI, the writer of the book; THE PRINCE, “As well as this, unheard of wonders are to be seen, performed by God: The sea is divided, a cloud has shown you the way, water have gushed from the rock, it has rained manna; all things have conspired to your greatness. The rest is up to you. God does not want to do everything by Himself, and take away from us our free will and our share of the glory which belong to us.” God is supreme, His decisions are final, but except for some few instances in the bible (of which two references are made later in this book in chapter 9), most often, God will not intervene in the affairs of men except they ask Him to. He will not do anything for man if He is not invited to do so. '''Thus saith the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker, Ask me of things to come concerning my sons, and concerning the work of my hands command ye me. Isaiah 45:11.

'''Therefore said he unto them, the harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest. Luke 10:2'''

Some may want to argue that; man cannot command his maker. But God is telling us here in Isaiah 45-11 (as simple as is it) that we can actually command Him concerning anything, but this must be done with reverence and tremble. If He is the Lord of the harvest, He should have commanded or ordered labourers to reap in the harvest. But He asked us to pray first to Him (the Lord of the harvest) to send labourers. Why would the Lord ask us to pray for Him (the Lord of the harvest) to send labourers into His own harvest? The reason is that, in most cases as stated above, God cannot do anything for man until man pray or ask Him to intervene in challenging situations. Therefore, prayer is important to God, as it is to man.