KB - 100Sample

Stronger

When the people of God come together to pray, it is not a sign that God is about to show up—it is a sign that He is there. God is moved by prayer. I believe that; yet, there are still few things that cause such great contradiction in my life like prayer. How can I say I know its power, its significance, and its necessity while repeatedly forgetting to do it? We wouldn’t dare use that logic with oxygen—recognize its necessity but routinely forget to inhale it. But we do with prayer.

Author and pastor John Piper said, "A prayer-less Christian is like a bus driver trying alone to push his bus out of a rut because he doesn't know Clark Kent is on board." Prayer is dealing with God Himself. When we neglect it, we must then ask ourselves, “What does that say about my understanding of who God is?” Do I find myself regularly throwing up brief, heartless, cowardly prayers without thought? Not asking Superman to lift the load would be just as negligent of his power as merely asking him to call a tow truck while you continue to push. The problem is we either don’t know, or know as we should, the powerful potential of prayer.

Prayer connects us to our source for: power, forgiveness, restoration, healing, discernment, growth, joy, peace, and dependence. It links us with our source for everything! To not pray is to, in effect, say to God, "I got this." But we never really "have it." In reality, we can't even breathe on our own. Prayer humbles us. It embraces our dependency and humbly welcomes the presence of God into our affairs. Today, let us not sleep on the power of the one we have access to through prayer. Take your sin, your guilt, your repentance, and your request before Him. Converse with God. He wants to listen. He is stronger.

Prayer:

However distant we may seem from Him, let [me] go to Jesus, and ask Him to lay His hand upon [me] and restore [me]. In the same way, if any of our families and friends are spiritually dead, let our cry to Jesus be, "Come and lay Your hand on her, and she will live!" (Puritan prayer)