Author: debo

We all want to know the secret to powerful prayer. What really is the best kind of prayer the best answer I know for that question is…the one that is needed at the moment. God has given us the keys to the kingdom and has shown us how we can pray to change circumstances on the earth. It is important that we know that prayer is our responsibility, and at the same time, it is a privilege. The God of the universe wants us to communicate meaningfully with us. How amazing. Living a life with God at the center makes prayer as natural as breathing. A need arises, talk to God. Something praiseworthy happens, thank God. It isn’t the last resort, it is what we do first. We abide in Him, and we will bear much fruit. Our prayer life will be fruitful when His Words abide in us.

I want to encourage you more than ever, line your prayers up with the Word of God. Know what God says on a topic and pray according to the will of God. Pray with all the different kinds of prayer. Be specific when you pray, and expect things to change. Prayer changes things, but it also changes people. Choosing to be a person of prayer will change you. Let’s pray effectively, to accomplish what God wants to have done on the earth! II Tim 1:6 tells us to fan the flame and stir ourself up! Hold fast and follow the pattern of wholesome and sound teaching. Guard and Keep the precious and excellent truth which has been entrusted to you to be an effective pray-er. Make a commitment today to make prayer more of a priority in your life!

It is easy to be distracted, and lose focus. God wants us to be attentive and listen. We are to listen an be familiar with His voice. You get to know someone’s voice by being around them, and listening. It says in John 10:4,5 that I know His voice, I won’t follow the voice of a stranger. Listening is more than hearing with your natural ears. He that hath an ear, let Him hear. Mark 7:16 If any man has ears to hear, let him be listening and let him perceive and comprehend by hearing is how it is stated in the Amplified Bible. God knows how to speak to you! He spoke through a donkey in Num 22, so surely He can handle speaking to and through you! Be attentive, and pay attention! He’ll bring the Word to your remembrance – John 14:26. The important part of remembering it is having it in your heart to begin with. That is why we are to hide His Word in our hearts. Get the Word in! Jesus will take what is God’s and reveal it to you! John 16:14-15. If we’ll be teachable and attentive to His Words, He will teach us if we will listen! I John 2:27. It is proof that we are God’s sons and daughters when we are led by His Spirit. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God. Rom 8:14
Pay attention to God in your prayer life by stopping, looking and listening. He needs our spirit to be quiet and concentrating on Him, and our ears and eyes attentive to what He wants us to see and hear. If we want our prayer to be effective, we must stay vitally connected to the vine, and whatever you ask will be yours. John 15:5-7 What a promise! Today remember to pray for our nation and the many issues we are facing. God is bigger than it all!

I don’t want to miss anything that God has for me! I want my eyes wide open. Today we’re going to talk about how important it is for us to be watchful, or to look and see what God is doing. In John 5:19-20,30, Jesus said that He did what He saw His father do. God discloses, or shows Jesus everything that God Himself does. He isn’t hiding from us! He wants us to see, so keep your eyes open. There are clues for you to find, just by having your eyes open.

The Holy Spirit wants to lead and guide us and will lead and guide us to the truth if we are willing to stop, look and listen. (John 16:12-13) God can impress images on your heart – pray those things that He shows you. He can put a word in your heart and give you insight that you wouldn’t know by your natural mind. During a time of prayer today, I was impressed to call a friend of mine who today needed God’s intervention. I wouldn’t have known that other than by the Spirit of God.

It is important that we don’t try to make something happen or try to impress others with how spiritual we are. It’s not about us, it’s about Jesus! Relax and let the Spirit of God do His work in you! The gifts of the spirit and the leading of the Holy Spirit are for us today as it says in I Cor 12. They are given to believers. The Spirit divides them to every person as he wills or desires. Be alert and have a heart of expectation – and be ready with your eyes open! Be a watcher! Every time I hear or sing the song, Open the Eyes of My Heart Lord, I remember the scriptures that God wants to show us great and mighty things. I want my eyes open! Let’s pray effectively and see God do great things on the earth.

One of the best ways to pray is to be Spirit led while praying. Instead of just following a list, or going through a set pattern, it is good to stop, look and listen to the Holy Spirit and let Him direct your prayers. Today we’re going to look at the importance of stopping, taking time and just giving ourselves a moment to be still in God’s presence. When we quiet our heart, we can be prepared to hear effectively. If we want our strength renewed, the Bible says in Is 40:31 for us to wait on God and we won’t be weary and we won’t faint! Is 30:15-18 – says that in quietness and confidence we will find our strength, and there is a blessing for all who earnestly wait for Him. Is 64:4 says that eyes have not seen, and ears have not heard what God has prepared for those who wait on God. Is 49:23 says we will not be ashamed when we wait on God. Busyness and activity can keep us from hearing from God. We can look at Mary and Martha and see a visible example of this. Martha’s timing was off. She was busy when she should have been still. It was time to lay aside busyness and concentrate on what was most important at the moment. Don’t miss your visitation with God because of busyness! A friend of mine say this, busyness isn’t of the devil, it is the devil. Don’t let the enemy or activity steal your time with God. Two final scriptures today are found in Ps 37:7 where it says to rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him. And probably one of my favorites when it comes to stopping to listen is found in Ps 46:10 where we are told to be still. God wants us to know that He is God. He sees the big picture, He knows all the details, and we can rest in Him. How encouraging is that!

Have you ever noticed how many different kinds of prayer are listed in the Bible? With this week’s emphasis on prayer, I’m going to give you a quick overview of the top 8 kinds of prayer.

1) Casting Your Cares Prayer: Don’t Worry, be Happy! I Peter 5:7 Don’t worry about your life Matt 6:25-34. Rom 4:21 God is able to keep His Word and do what He promised. It’s not refusing to think about them, it is giving them to God, and then replacing them with faith in God’s Word. They key is cast and leave in God’s care!

2) Consecration – Choosing God’s will over my own – Jesus exemplified this in the Garden, Paul ran with endurance the course before him, choosing God’s will over his own Gal 2:20 .

3) United Prayer – Lifting up your voice to God in one accord – Acts 4:24 Dramatic changes in a church, in people groups, and countries, with the result of an open heaven where there is no opposition in the spirit realm.

4) The Prayer of Praise, Worship and Thanksgiving – Heb 13:15 Power is released as we worship God and God deserves our worship! He is worthy! It is a great way to be plugged into power. Worship is the language of faith- you believe, you pray, you worship, you receive. Paul and Silas sang praises and praised the power down! –Doors are opened, and bands are loosed in worship.

5) The Prayer of Faith – Mark 11:22-24 There is a praying part, and a saying part. Get God’s Word on it (know what you believe), then begin by asking the Father in Jesus Name, speak directly to the Father. Thanksgiving follows, because you believe you receive as you pray.

6) The Prayer of Agreement – Matt 18:19-20 When two or three agree there is a symphony created with our prayers – Every pray-er must be following the same conductor. Ecc 4:9-12 A three fold cord is not easily broken. Power is multiplied

7) The Prayer of Supplication – heartfelt fervency – earnest, sincere, desperation for God to move. Phil 4:6, by prayer and supplication, not a casual request, a great desire. Supplication is asking fervently for what you earnestly desire.

8) The Prayer of Intercession – Ez 22:30 Someone to stand in the gap, loving someone else enough to interecede until they get what they need.

Each prayer has it’s place and it is good for us to know which prayer to pray in each circumstance. How encouraging to know that effectual, fervent prayer produces great results.

Intro:
This week our nation has set aside one day to pray. The National Day of prayer is on Thursday. Hi, this is Dorette Schaal with an encouraging word for your day. I don’t know if there is anything more encouraging than knowing someone is praying for you. I am always so thankful for the people who are praying for me! We’re going to talk about effective prayer this week, and making the most of our time in communication with the Father. The Bible tells us to pray without ceasing, or to always be in an attitude of prayer, so this week especially, I encourage you to take time to pray, and to pray effectively. Don’t forget to pray for our leaders and our nation. We really do move forward, when we are on our knees.

Prayer is our vital connection with the Father. There is nothing better than being connected with the Father. Our life, our source of strength, our everything, comes from that connection. Prayers that prevail or accomplish are the kind of prayers that we want to pray. The kind of prayer that works is the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man or woman, because it makes great power available, effective in its working. (James 5:16 AMP) There are prayers we can memorize, or there are times that we read our requests from a list, and pray right down the list. But the best kind of prayer I know of is the one that is needed at the moment, and no one knows what is needed better than the Holy Spirit. Here is how I listen to the Holy Spirit when I pray.

It is really very simple, and like the famous author’s book title, everything I ever wanted to know about…. being spirit led in my prayers…. I learned in kindergarten. It is really three steps…Stop, Look, Listen, just like what we learned in kindergarten about crossing the road.

First step is stop. Push the off button! We are called to enter into the rest of God.
stopping is waiting – take a breather – give God more than just a moment of your time.
Take time to be still, and quiet your heart.

Step two is Look. Look for cues – God gives us spiritual vision. He wants to show us great and mighty things that we know not of. We need to ask Him to “show us” what we need to know, as it says in Jeremiah 33:3.

Step three is Listen! – Be a listener! The voice of God isn’t in the storm, or the wind, but in the still small voice. Jesus said in John 5:30, “Even as I hear, I judge ….. I make a decision based on what I hear.” I make this confession regularly that I am His sheep and
know His voice. Stop, look and listen as you pray effectual, fervent prayers that avail much and touch heaven to change things on earth.

Lets’s stay healthy! Let agree together in prayer. Father, we come to you in Jesus name and commit to you that we will put a guard on my lips in all areas of life, but particularly for our healing. We want to speak words that are edifying and bring life and health to our own bodies and of those around us. We pray that our tongue would be a rudder to guide our life in the right direction. We repent and renounce words that have come from our mouths that have planted negative seeds. We want our lips to be filled with words of life and hope, and that your truth would bring health and life to our physical bodies.

We boldly speak Your Word, because it are written on the tablets of our heart. We pray that our mouths would be controlled by the Spirit of God and not by our flesh. We choose to honor You, praise You and adore you with our words. We magnify you with our voice and give You praise with that You are our healer. We rejoice in the provision you have made for our health.

Thank you for sending forth your Word to heal us, to forgive us, and to restore us. Thank you for giving us your Word to see the ability of God released on our behalf. We go forth in Your power to see great things accomplished through the power of your Word in our lives and everyone we come into contact with. Thank you for greater health in my life. In Jesus’ Name, AMEN.

The opportunity for sickness will undoubtedly come our way, but we must rebuke it and resist it and take our authority in Christ to rise above sickness. To begin walking in health, or to continue walking in health, let’s treat our body like the temple that it is. Let’s make preparation for good health. Send the package of sickness back to Satan marked refused and rejected! Accept God’s provision for health!

I encourage you to read and meditate on these scriptures Ps 103:2,3, Is 53:4-6, Acts 10:38, 3 John 2. If you are sick right now, put God’s Word into practice – James 5:14-15, Mark 16:15-19.

One thing I have learned in life is that each time I come up to bat in this big baseball game of life, I’m going to swing for a home run. If for some reason I don’t have 100% success each time, I’m certainly not going to get out of the game. I keep “playing” until victory comes. We are going for long healthy life, and we do realize that someday we get to experience the most wonderful win of all and that is heaven when we die. When a believer takes their last breath on earth, it is their first breath in heaven. We can celebrate any believer making it to heaven, because that is our final destination whether they make it to heaven well or sick. That principle is that heaven is a win, you can get there well or sick, but you cant make it there without Jesus. Victory is ours in Christ because of the cross. Let’s believe it and enforce that victory. I pray that you and I can believe for long, healthy, divine life on this side of heaven.

The Old Covenant made provision for health in Exodus 15:26 and 23:25,26 where sickness was removed from their midst when the choice was made to serve the Lord God. The New Covenant (Testament) is better and more excellent, because it is established on even better promises as it says in Hebrews 8:6. The Old Covenant sounded pretty good, but the new one is even better! All of the Old was fulfilled with the new. The New Covenant was instituted by Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. He went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed by the devil. Jesus didn’t go around punishing people or making them feel guilty for being sick, He made them well. It is so good to know that Jesus wants us well. That would be a good thing to say over and over again…..Jesus wants me well. Jesus suffered in His physical body for us, so we don’t have to. He took the punishment of our sin, so we wouldn’t have to be punished. That’s the wholeness God desires, spirit, soul and body! It is by His stripes that we are healed. (I Peter 2:24) Jesus wants me well. Keep on saying it, Jesus wants me well!

Prevention is better than cure. A stitch in time saves nine. A penny saved is a penny earned. A bird in hand is worth two in the bush. Make hay while the sun shines. Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise. These are all recognizable saying from yester year. These sayings have value because they teach us to be prepared. Being prepared in advance is always good advice. To be prepared, we look ahead, and make necessary adjustments so we get the desired results. It is much better to prevent a sickness than to have to recover from one. Each season brings its own TV commercials for diseases, from flu and cold season to hay fever and allergies and everything in between. You hear it on the radio, on TV commercials, and advertisements everywhere!

Instead of just buying medicine, or falling into the mentality that this is allergy or flu–season, let’s be proactive and believe for greater health, a stronger immune system, and for infections, germs and viruses to die when they come near us. The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has redeemed us from the law of sin and death. Our bodies are made to be healthy. Originally Adam and Eve were designed to be perfectly healthy. When sin entered the world at the fall of Adam and Eve in the garden, it’s ugly twin, sickness, tagged right along. Since that time, everything perfect became imperfect, everything that was whole became broken, and everything that was beautiful and was made to last forever began to decay and fade. Because of Adam, all things began dying – the death process and sickness began with an act of disobedience. But the contrary happened through the cross – In Christ, all is made alive. I Cor 15:22. Thank God for the cross and Jesus taking stripes on His back so we can escape disease! Never negate what Jesus accomplished for you.