{"id":1126,"date":"2016-04-20T13:26:03","date_gmt":"2016-04-20T13:26:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/?p=1126"},"modified":"2017-01-31T22:17:33","modified_gmt":"2017-01-31T22:17:33","slug":"will-you-pray","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/?p=1126","title":{"rendered":"Will You Pray?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Years ago I began intercessory praying.\u00a0 I read a book entitled, \u201cRees Howells: Intercessor\u201d.\u00a0 You can read\u00a0it free HERE<\/a>.<\/p>\n

After reading Rees Howells biography, I began focusing on intercessory prayer.\u00a0 When people made prayer requests in the church meeting, or to me personally, I added them to a mental list.\u00a0 I also prayed about the needs of people in ministry and our nation\u2019s leadership.\u00a0 I reached the point that I was praying for several hundred people.\u00a0 It became a task to keep up with all the names and answers to prayer, so I purchased a notebook to record everything in.<\/p>\n

Presently, Cheryl and I\u00a0intercede for thousands of people each morning.\u00a0 It is sometimes very difficult, especially when an emergency wipes out our prayer time.\u00a0 However, for many years I have never failed, even when very sick with flu, to pray through the prayer manual each day.\u00a0 I keep a copy of my prayer manual on my tablet and smart phone.<\/p>\n

I mention our intercessory ministry here, not to bring honor to us, but to encourage people to pray.\u00a0 Most professing Christians do not pray\u2014they say prayers, and short ones at that.\u00a0 If they would begin to actually pray each day for people who request prayer, they would develop an intercessory ministry.\u00a0 Interceding for the believers and lost souls to be saved is one of the basic duties of a Christian.<\/p>\n

Although I have always prayed and believed it to be essential to a victorious life, the addition of intercessory prayer has been a great blessing.\u00a0 I seem to be more aware of the presence of God during intercessory prayer than in my regular prayer time.\u00a0 I usually begin praying when I wake up.\u00a0 I\u2019m still groggy with sleep and do not feel like praying, but I don\u2019t want to waste the time.\u00a0 Later on in the morning I begin the intercessory prayer.\u00a0 Then I pray periodically throughout the day and when someone calls or messages me with a prayer request.<\/p>\n

I am convinced that prayerless Christians are responsible for the mess our world is in today.\u00a0 We all fight battles, but prayerless people are either in constant battles or total defeat.\u00a0 They have compromised and are in denial to avoid the consequences of their spiritual destitution.\u00a0 Those consequences are rapidly arriving.\u00a0 If they could not pray in relative peace time, how are they going to pray when the dark storm arrives?<\/p>\n

I encourage everyone to pray.\u00a0 If you want to draw near to God, communication is the only way.\u00a0 I do not mean Contemplative Prayer.\u00a0 Contemplative Prayer is not even prayer and subjects one to demon possession.\u00a0 True praying is talking to God.\u00a0 He speaks through the Holy Spirit to people who take time to speak to Him.<\/p>\n

I try to avoid the overuse of maxims, but I must quote the British evangelist, S. D. Gordon.\u00a0 He wrote, “An open life, an open hand, open upward, is the pipe line of communication between the heart of God and this poor befooled old world. Our prayer is God’s opportunity to get into the world that would shut Him out.” (Quiet Talks on Prayer)<\/p>\n

Gordon also wrote, \u201cMan\u2019s willingness is God\u2019s channel to the earth.\u201d\u00a0 God never forces anything on us.\u00a0 He wants obedience that comes from willingness.\u00a0 I believe it was Charles Finney that said, \u201cDesire is not the same thing as willingness.\u201d\u00a0 When we become willing, it means that our entire will is invested in something or someone.\u00a0 It involves commandeering the will, often tearing it from something else it \u201cwills\u201d to be involved in, and pouring it into something that pleases God.<\/p>\n

Gordon wrote about praying people, \u201cThey have not time (to pray). It must be taken from something else. This something else is important, very important, and pressing, but still less important and less pressing than prayer.\u201d (Parenthesis mine)<\/p>\n

I encourage everyone to pray.\u00a0 Boldly and authoritatively \u201ctake\u201d time from something or someone else.\u00a0 Pour your will into keeping a set period each day with praying as the priority.\u00a0 Make praying as much of a necessity as eating, sleeping, bathing, and every other essential thing that you do.<\/p>\n

Our world is in terrible condition.\u00a0 Christians, the ones who have access to God, are the only people that can do anything about this crisis.\u00a0 If we don\u2019t act, it would be like the great majority of the medical professing refusing to do anything during a terrible catastrophe with thousands of people critically injured.<\/p>\n

There are presently 7.4 billion people on this earth.\u00a0 The vast majority are desperately lost and in danger of eternal death. \u00a0The entire world is in moral and spiritual decadence.\u00a0 Our nation is in a great crisis.\u00a0 There is a cultural war between Christianity and unveiled wickedness.\u00a0 The blunt truth is that no one will be unaffected by this conflict.\u00a0 Christians need to wake up to the duty and benefit of praying.\u00a0 Christ Jesus said to His disciples before His crucifixion, \u201cWhy do you sleep? Rise and pray, lest you enter into temptation.\u201d (Luke 22:46)<\/p>\n

My fellow believers, it is time that we performed our critical duty to pray.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Years ago I began intercessory praying.\u00a0 I read a book entitled, \u201cRees Howells: Intercessor\u201d.\u00a0 You can read\u00a0it free HERE. After reading Rees Howells biography, I began focusing on intercessory prayer.\u00a0 When people made prayer requests in the church meeting, or to me personally, I added them to a mental list.\u00a0 I also prayed about the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,9,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-for-the-remnant","category-the-importance-of-prayer","category-uncategorized","post-preview"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paIm2N-ia","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1126"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1126"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1410,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1126\/revisions\/1410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.truthkeepers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}