August 9, 2016

PRAYER THOUGHT:  Referring to those in Bible days who prayed earnestly, E. M. Bounds said, "Everything then, as now, was possible to the men and women who knew how to pray.  Prayer, indeed, opened a limitless storehouse and God's hand withheld nothing."

Colossians 4:2 NKJV - "Continue earnestly in prayer, being vigilant in it with thanksgiving."

Commentary:

For those of you who read this I want to do something out of the ordinary.  I want to share with you how the Lord is working in my life.  This whole subject of "earnest and vehement" praying has taken hold of my heart.  For the past couple of years I've been asking God for the souls of the people who live or work in my neighborhood.  I've always felt it was my responsibility to minister to those who were so close.  My family and I weren't allowed to purchase the house we live in merely to live in!  We were meant to reach out to the people who were within earshot of our front porch!  In the last week I've prayed for contact and opportunity to build rapport with as many as possible.  Besides those I've reached out to already I found five people on my front porch last week!  Then I took a short walk this evening and encountered five more of my neighbors for meaningful conversations!  A prayer and a "God Bless You" went to each one and further prayers now for more pointed conversations soon!

God is a prayer-answering God, but He's waiting for people who will pray so He can answer!  He isn't impressed with our short fifteen second blurt in the morning "Hey God, please bless me and my family today.  Please keep us safe and may your will be done.  And, oh yea, bless the missionaries!  Amen!"  How do you expect Him to respond to that?  You think you're "blessed" and "kept safe" because of that kind of praying?!  You better be thankful for His mercy and grace! 

God holds us to a greater responsibility!  His eyes are on the lost all around us!  He's not interested in making your life "good" just so you can sit in your easy chair, watch three to five hours of TV every night, gorge yourselves on "gut filling goodies" and watch you go off to sleep with hardly a "O yea, God, thanks for your blessing today" before you start snoring!  And we wonder why our lives know little of God's awesome power!