When to pray

Someone has said, “If you are swept off your feet, it’s time to get on your knees.” Scripture backs up this claim. In its pages we find ample evidence that prayer can dramatically change situations, people, and sometimes even the very course of nature.

• Nehemiah prayed before he made a request to king Artaxeserxes for materials to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem (Neh 2) , and the Lord gave Nehemiah favor with Artaxeserxes, granting his every request!
• Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, was a king after God’s heart, yet one day he awoke to find himself surrounded by a coalition of armies bent on destroying Judah (2 Chron 20).  Jehoshaphat prayed and God set the coalition forces against each other, so that Judah did not even have to fight!
• When Joshua needed extra daylight to finish off the Amorites (Josh 10), he prayed and God made the sun stand still in the sky!

In James chapter five we are given a list of times when we might pray:  when you are suffering, when you’re cheerful, if you’re sick, when you have sinned, telling us “The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much” (Ja 5:16).  Paul tells us that we should pray “everywhere, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting” (1 Tim 2:8).  Come to think of it, I think that whatever the circumstances, prayer is always a beneficial!

Join us Sunday, September 19, at 9 & 11 am, as we look into the practice of prayer.

… till the whole world hears,

Pastor Clay