Did You Pray?
Today as I began to type the prayer requests to send out I noticed there weren't that many requests to pass on. These that I send are usually just from our church family. I receive hundreds of requests every week from everywhere through contacts and prayer chains that I have been on for many years. I usually don't pass these on, but delete them from my mail after I pray over them. All the prayer chain emails I get usually have pretty pictures and I reuse them on the prayer request letter I send every Monday. I went through emails and chose one to forward on with the prettiest pictures.
As I began to delete the message, God nudged me and asked if I had prayed for each of these. I stopped, reread, and reprayed. Taking the time to pray is good and we all really should take the time to pray daily for our own needs and those of our family, as well as all the requests that we receive from others whether we know them or not. If someone request prayer, we should pray. We all are guilty of squeezing a name in every once in a while in our busy days. Someone will cross our minds and we will ask God to watch over them and bless them. This is good and I am sure God hears and answers, but we really should be just a little more devoted to our prayer time. I receive prayer requests daily and sometimes am a little hesitant to ask others to pray for me, but last week I did ask someone to pray for a family member. I said, "if they cross your mind..."He said, " I will do more than that I will take them to the cross." I loved that response to my prayer request.
I often have people who have asked me to pray to later come and give a praise report and thank me for praying. Prayer really does change things. It really works. Try it and you will see how quickly you will connect with God and know that He is listening. Pick a time out in your day to devote solely to prayer. If you have to set your clock fifteen minutes earlier in the morning and use those extra minutes for prayer, do it! God will honor the time you set aside to give back to Him.
Paul spoke of prayer when he was listing the weapons we are to use in spiritual warfare. He was a preacher who was not shy to ask for prayer for himself.
Ephesians 6
13Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 18And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.
19Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, 20for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should.
Verse 18 in KJV reads praying always.
When Peter was in prison the church prayed without ceasing. (Acts 12:5)
We are told to pray about everything.
Philippians 4:6 Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.
We should maintain a spirit of prayer always no matter where we are or what we may be doing. Our minds are constantly thinking about something no matter what we are doing. It is good to turn our thinking to praying for prayer does work.
With all this being said, instead of deleting the requests that were on with these pretty pictures today, I decided to pass them on to you. If any of these should cross your mind this week, take them to the cross. I don't know any of these people but they did ask me to pray. I am praying and believing all the promises of God for each of these requests below.
James 5:15 And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.
jbp
Please pray for a friend who has been in an extremely bad accident. My fiance Ande, who died quite a few years ago, best friend has been in a severe car accident and is on life support. Please pray for him and his wife and 4 children and families. Oh this is sooooo hard to be hearing today:( From Judy K.)
Please pray for us as neither of us is feeling very well and sometimes now I forget what to do when I am on the computer. Donna H
Keep Liz Norwood in your prayers. She goes on hospice tomorrow, she is still frightened and hasn't given up hope. I'm looking for a miralce for her. I have asked Fr. Manning to pray for her. She is too weak to go to any of these centers. The Episcopal priest will go tomorrow to pray with her and receive communion. I suggested this. Now to find a cure for this. Irene saw on tv Friday,where one man was on death's door matter of days to live and today a year later he is still here. Love, From Anna Hutcheson
Katie Souza, a precious evangelist with a special prison ministry was in an automobile accident and escaped with barely their lives. Her husband Robert was not in the car and continues to fight for the Lord on her behalf in the ministry and in prayer for his wife and other loved ones. Please pray for the restoration of bodily functions, healing, strength, and courage to continue to fight the good fight of faith, in Jesus' precious name and by the power of His precious blood, please add prayers into our Mighty One Lord Jesus Christ the Righteous. From Kit S.
Will you please remember to pray for my husband's cousin Amudha in India? She will be having a hysterectomy due to large uterine cysts. There will be more tests on Weds., not sure when they will do the surgery. Would love for all the problems to go away like when we prayed for Vijay's aunt and the tumor could no longer be found and she did not have to have surgery. Amudha's husband Suri is the first person in Vijay's family that I was able to speak to in English. They are administrators at a large school there. It was Suri that called and verified my desire to marry Vijay and created an agreement where we were actually considered an "arranged" love marriage so as not to cause shame to come upon Vijay's parents whose duty it was to make an arranged marriage for him. Amudha and Suri are very nice people. Thanks. Hugs and prayers, From Sis Frankie H.