Spiritual Emphasis on Prayer

Spiritual Emphasis on Prayer

By Pastor Gary Wayne

Text: Psalms 116:1-2

The month of September has always been a transitional month.
It’s a time of seasonal change. Weather changes, school starts, summer activity changes, etc.

So I want this month for us to take a personal look at our lives, and focus on where we can create an atmosphere for our spiritual person to excel.
We usually focus on our natural man, or flesh, and soul.

I want to look at the importance of prayer, and stimulate us (draw a circle on the floor) individually to increase our involvement with prayer.

1Th 5:17 “pray without ceasing,…”
Jer 33:3 'Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.'

Php 4:6-7 “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”

Eph 6:18 “…praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints…”

Last week we spent time looking at the fact that we are the temple of God, we are God’s house with a gate.
Isa 56:7 “…For My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations."

Ro 8:26 “Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.”

1Ti 2:1-4 “Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”

Trick question – loaded question - Do you know the #1 reason our prayers are not answered. Because we don’t pray.

We all believe prayer is important - We all believe there is power in prayer - yet prayer gatherings are the least attended meetings.

Can we enter into a “GUILT FREE ZONE?”
Why is it we don’t pray more?

I think one of the biggest lies that we believe down deep in our heart is that prayer actually doesn’t do anything.
After all, I’ve been praying and …..

So we un-internally base our belief system on our experience rather than on God’s truth.

Sit down with Holy Spirit and ask this question: “Why don’t I pray more?”
I think that with every important, powerful principal of scripture, Satan tries to twist what I believe – influence how I feel - so I will be ineffective in that area.
Has the enemy influenced what I think / feel about prayer?

What I want this morning is to emphases God’s perspective of what happens when you pray.

God says prayer is important. YOUR prayer is important!
God says prayer is effective. YOUR prayer is effective!
God says _______

What I would like to accomplish in this message is that this month of spiritual emphasis on prayer, each one of us would adjust our basic belief system about prayer, adjusting to God’s opinion about prayer.
And for the rest of this month we would daily dedicate some fresh time to pray.
My caution is that we often go too extreme with what we want to do – “every day, I’m going to pray for 1 hour.” But it’s not realistic, and after a few times of blowing it, we just give up.

Make some realistic commitments to prayer for this month.

Set your timer on your phone to prompt you through the day.
Maybe set your alarm to go off 5 min. early
Set a date with a friend to pray – not talk just talk about a problem, but pray.
Do some drive by praying for our community.
Do some “listening prayer” time. – Where I ask, God, what’s on Your heart?

What do You want me to pray about?