Whose Life Would Change?
CONSECRATED No. 79 - 1 Thought. 2 Quotes. 3 Verses.
1 THOUGHT
“As for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the LORD by failing to pray for you.”
1 Samuel 12:23
I once heard someone ask the question, “If God answered every prayer you prayed today, how many people’s lives would change besides your own?”
If many of us are honest, the answer would be… not many.
While navigating the cares and difficulties of life it is so easy to fall into the trap of self-focused living. We pray for direction. We pray for provision. We pray for our own personal growth or sanctification. None of which are evil or wrong, but oh how easily such prayers can become all-consuming.
Before we know it, we’ve been caught in a cycle of self-focused prayers.
My grandfather used to love to use the analogy of the Dead Sea in regard to the Christian life. The Dead Sea contains so much salt that nothing can live in it. There’s no life to be found anywhere in its waters—no fish or plants.
Why is this the case? Because the Dead Sea has no outlet. Water flows into the Dead Sea, but no water flows out—so the salt that’s deposited by the waters flowing in never escapes. And it builds to the point of killing all life.
A life in which there is no outflow will soon become spiritually dead. Nowhere is this more true than with our prayers.
Here is the truth I hope we lay hold of today: Our prayers become powerful the less they become about us.
I am often struck by how often both Jesus and the New Testament writers reference how they’ve been praying for those they’re speaking to. Paul only references praying for himself once (1 Corinthians 12:7-9), and he twice solicits prayers from fellow believers for his situation.
However, he references his depth of prayer, thanksgiving, and intercession on behalf of those to whom he’s writing thirty different times—ten times more than he prays for himself or asks for prayer for his own situation.
I think that’s probably a pretty good ratio.
A PRAYER:
Oh Lord, help us get our eyes off of ourselves. Help make our prayers powerful and effective for your kingdom. We want to move mountains with our prayers. We want to see countless lives, cities, and nations changed by our prayers. Help us get our eyes—and prayers—off of ourselves today. Amen.
2 QUOTES
“We never know how God will answer our prayers, but we can expect that He will get us involved in His plan for the answer. If we are true intercessors, we must be ready to take part in God’s work on behalf of the people for whom we pray.”
- Corrie ten Boom
“A Christian fellowship lives and exists by the intercession of its members for one another, or it collapses. I can no longer condemn or hate a brother for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble he causes me. His face, that hitherto may have been strange and intolerable to me, is transformed in intercession into the countenance of a brother for whom Christ died, the face of a forgiven sinner.”
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
3 VERSES
This is one of my favorite passages to pray for others:
14 For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Ephesians 3:14-19
A RESOURCE
Mountain Rain by James O. Fraser has been on my reading list for a while. I’ve yet to get to it, but it has been recommended to me from multiple sources. A great read about the power of prayer.
