The Fog has Gone - Prayer [Sermon]

Malaga, Spain

April 2019

John Wesley: “God does nothing but in answer to prayer,”

1. Discipline

2. Persistence

Matt 6:7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words..

James 4:2-3 You do not have because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.

3. Passion

James 5:16-17 The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. 17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months..

Heb 5:7 In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety.

We have many organizers but few agonizers; many players and payers but few pray-ers; many singers few clingers; lots of pastors few wrestlers; many fears few tears; much fashion little passion; many interferers few intercessors; many writers few fighters. Leonard Ravenhill, Why revival tarries

4. Listening

A man prayed, and at first he thought that prayer was talking. But he became more and more quiet until in the end he realized that prayer is listening. - Danish Philosopher Søren Kierkegaard

Psalm 130:5-6

5 I wait for the LORD, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope.

6 I wait for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning.

5. Prayer changes.

Exod. 32:14 So the Lord changed His mind about the harm which He said He would do to His people.

2 Sam 24:16 When the angel stretched out his hand toward Jerusalem to destroy it, the LORD relented from the calamity and said to the angel who destroyed the people, “It is enough! Now relax your hand!”

Jon. 3:10 When God saw their deeds, that they turned from their wicked way, then God relented concerning the calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them. And He did not do it.

Jer 15:6 You who have forsaken Me,” declares the LORD, “You keep going backward. So I will stretch out My hand against you and destroy you; I am tired of relenting!

Malachi 3:6 “I the LORD do not change. So you, the descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed.

If we are emulating Jesus, will we ever come to a point when spending time in prayer with God will be Me time?

Photo by Anthony Aird on Unsplash