Weekly Message from Pastor Satish Kumar

Week 08-17-08  

“ NEVER STOP PRAYING” (1 THESS. 5: 17)

Welcome to the house of the Lord for praise and worship. As we are aware this
week we are going to spend two days in fasting and prayer as a new school year
begins for our children. As we prepare ourselves for the same it is our earnest desire
that we focus on what we plan to do during these days. We are coming together
for prayer and let’s seek the favor of God on our families, church and community.
Let’s seek God. Let’s pray fervently. E M Bounds puts it rightly:

"PRAYER has to do with the entire man. Prayer takes in man in his whole being,
mind, soul and body. It takes the whole man to pray, and prayer affects the entire
man in its gracious results. As the whole nature of man enters into prayer, so also
all that belongs to man is the beneficiary of prayer. All of man receives benefits in
prayer. The whole man must be given to God in praying. The largest results in
praying come to him who gives himself, all of himself, all that belongs to himself,
to God. This is the secret of full consecration, and this is a condition of successful
praying, and the sort of praying which brings the largest fruits.

The entire man must pray. The whole man, life, heart, temper, mind, are in it.
Each and all join in the prayer exercise. Doubt, double-mindedness, division of the
affections, are all foreign to the closet character and conduct, undefiled, made
whiter than snow, are mighty potencies, and are the most seemly beauties for the
closet hour, and for the struggles of prayer.

The men of olden times who wrought well in prayer, who brought the largest
things to pass, who moved God to do great things, were those who were entirely
given over to God in their praying. God wants, and must have, all that there is in
man in answering his prayers. He must have whole-hearted men through whom to
work out His purposes and plans concerning men. God must have men in their
entirety. No double-minded man need apply. No vacillating man can be used. No
man with a divided allegiance to God, and the world and self, can do the praying
that is needed"1.

There is no particular strategy for prayer or method of praying except the act of
prayer. It could be in words or song or the musings of our heart, which are translated
into words by the Spirit and taken to the Father who has given us access to
Himself by the death of His Son Jesus Christ. So, let’s come near in eager expectation
with faith and purity so that God may look down on us with favor.

1Bounds, Edward M.: The Essentials of Prayer. Grand Rapids, Mich. : Baker Book House, 1991, S. 6

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