Power through Prayer and a Set-Apart Life

This is a little devotional I wrote for my college band's tour book. Even though I reference college life a little in it, you can likely take something away from it no matter your walk in life. Happy reading! 

The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. Elijah was a human being, even as we are. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.   James 5:16-18

“If we really believed God’s guarantee to both hear and answer our prayers, we would pray far more than we do.”   –Jim Cymbala

One thing that God has taught me this year is the importance and power of prayer. I have always known that prayer is important, as it is the primary tool that we use to communicate with God. What I have begun to realize recently is that prayer is more than just a means with which to talk with God, but there is incredible power in prayer. Prayer is a gift that we must use to bring about God’s will here on earth (1 Thessalonians 5:17).

Martin Luther said: “No one can believe how powerful prayer is and what it can effect, except those who have learned it by experience. Whenever I have prayed earnestly, I have been heard and have obtained more than I prayed for. God sometimes delays, but He always comes.”

It is easy to read about great people who lived long ago and did great things for the Lord, and forget that they were human just like we are. Many people assume that the astounding miracles that we read about in the Bible only happened during that time, and that we are unable to have such a walk with God in our time and culture. This kind of thinking is far from the Truth. We are able to achieve lives that are so in sync with God and His Will that our prayers are powerful and effective as they were with Elijah. Read Matthew 17:20 and Luke 17:6. We are called to live lives completely set apart from this world and abandoned to Christ. Set-Apart lives are lives that are bathed in prayer, that spend hours before the throne of heaven. No truly great warrior of the faith was able to become so without spending countless hours in wrestling prayer.

I would like to encourage you to plan time in your schedule for prayer. Not just in between classes, but special time set aside just for unhindered prayer. Please read James 1:27 and Matthew 25:31-46. James 1:27 says: Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. Perhaps you do not have the time or the means with which to care for the least of these, especially now in college. What you can do is make the time to pray for them. Sacrifice your time, perhaps by setting your alarm clock an hour earlier, in order to use the powerful tool of prayer to intercede for the least of these. Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me (Matthew 25:40). 

Quote: Ruskin on Life and Music

Here's a quote from Ruskin. Enjoy! 

Not without design does God write the music of our lives. Be it ours to learn the tune, and not be dismayed at the "rests." They are not to be slurred over, not to be omitted, not to destroy the melody, not to change the keynote. If we look up, God Himself will beat the time for us. With the eye on Him, we shall strike the next note full and clear.

If we sadly say to ourselves, "There is no music in a 'rest,'" let us not forget "there is the making of music in it." The making of music is often a slow and painful process in this life. How patiently God works to teach us! How long He waits for us to learn the lesson! 

Neighborly Love

Yesterday in one of my classes the topic of "loving thy neighbor as thyself" was addressed. There are many references in the Bible about loving your neighbor as yourself.

Galatians 5:13-15 says: "For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another."

Here in America we have an incredible freedom, but we use it to satisfy our selfish lusts. We are more wealthy than 80 - 90% of the world, but we only have eyes for ourselves and our interests. We must be careful to "not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another." 

I was thinking the other day, what does loving my neighbor as myself actually mean? I buy coffee for myself, I have "me time," I provide what I consider basic necessities for myself. If I truly loved my neighbor as I love myself, would I not do the same from him? Does loving my neighbor mean I should buy coffee for him? Maybe, but I'm thinking that it rather means that our time should be spent honoring other people. If I put myself in someone else's shoes and tried to see the world as they might see it, I can more easily guess at what I might like if I were them. If I were the homeless person standing in the cold at the stoplight asking for a handout, yes, I would like money. But I would also like someone to talk to me. To wave or smile at me. I would bet that standing at a stoplight being judged by every car that drives past is a lonely place to be. If I were a student from another country living in America to learn English, I would want people to reach out to me, to help me to learn their language. I would like to make new friends and be able to bring back stories to my family of the hospitality that was shown to me while I was here. 

These are just two ideas, but I would venture to guess that you get the gist of my thoughts. Sometimes loving your neighbor seems pretty easy, sometimes it is costly. Time is extremely valuable, and sacrificing it for someone else --for a complete stranger-- may not make to most sense in your world. In God's eyes, though, sacrificing your time for someone else may be one of the most loving things that you can do. Stepping away from the assignments that a due and the deadlines that are approaching, getting a paper turned in on time or an extra hour of overtime put in does not hold the lasting value that comes when you invest in someone else's life. 

Luke 10:27 says: "And he answered, 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.'"

Just a little earlier in the same chapter, verse two: "And he said to them, 'The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.'"

Not enough people are loving their neighbor as themselves. For those of us who strive to follow Jesus' teaching, we should pray for God to send our more laborers into to harvest, to open the eyes of blind people and believers. People want to be loved, they are searching for love. Many people are searching for it in the wrong place. They need people with the Truth to speak into their lives so that they might live for the Truth. The Truth sets us free, but those not in the Truth are in bondage to lies. Let us put aside our earthly pleasures and pursuits and offer the Truth to our brothers and sisters that they may be set free. 

Let us not only pray for more laborers, but let us be the answer to our own prayers. A. W. Tozer once said, "We hear a Christian assure someone that he will 'pray over' his problem, knowing full well that he intends to use prayer as a substitute for service. It is much easier to pray that a poor friend's needs may be supplied than to supply them." Let this not be true in our lives. Never be unwilling to supply the answer to your own prayer for your brother (neighbor). 

Much more could be discussed with this idea, but I'll end my post here. Let this be a springboard for your own thoughts and ponderings. I'll end with a quote: 

"Almost the whole world is asleep. Everybody you know, everybody you talk to. Only a few people are awake. And they live in a state of constant, total amazement." --Anonymous