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From: SF Daily Devotional
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Sent: Tuesday, March 02, 2010 3:28 AM
Subject: SF Daily Devotional - The Prayer Principle
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Tuesday, March 02, 2010 Print Article
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The Prayer Principles
David Turner
Being a Christian means that we are in a battle. Every since
he fell from heaven, satan has made himself an enemy to God and to His prized
creation, mankind. In Ephesians 6, our Father has given us the tools that we
need to win. One of our weapons is prayer.
There are 3 principles to a successful prayer life.
There is a time to talk.
God is our source. He holds the keys to the universe in His
hands. He is the Creator. When we have doubts, concerns, and questions, He is
the one that we should run to. In fact, He is anxiously waiting to hear from
His children. It is a shame that some of us only talk to Him before we eat or
only when there is a dire emergency.
I believe that God desire to have a running, consistent,
conversation with us just like He did with Adam and Eve in the garden. You
shouldn't just always run to Him with your laundry list of requests. Prayer is
our opportunity to tell God how much we love Him and how grateful we are for
all that He has done in our lives. It is also time for us to tell Him how much
we look forward to what He is going to do in the future.
We should most definitely tell God how we feel if there are
things in our lives that are making us nervous or afraid. As a matter of fact,
we should bring all of our burdens and concerns to Him. The great thing about
this transaction is that we can bring them to Him and leave them right there.
He will deal with everything that concerns us and perfect them all.
There is also a time to listen.
Conversations between two parties are usually more effective
when there is only one person speaking at a time. Sometimes our problem is that
we spend all of our prayer time talking. We have to tell God all about everyone
and everything that has been getting on our nerves. We have to tell Him about
the guy that honked his horn at us on the expressway. And we also have to tell
Him about our mean boss and nosy neighbors.
We even spend a great deal of time in prayer telling God how
wonderful He is and thanking Him for all His wonderful blessings. The moment we
get exhausted from talking for 30 minutes straight, our time in prayer is over.
We never even give God 5 seconds to talk to us.
Prayer is a 2-way street, and we have to give God ample
opportunity to speak to us. We should never jump to our feet without getting
some sort of response. He may not always respond in the way we want but we must
give Him room to be God. Sometimes we are afraid of what the answer might be.
Sometimes we jump to conclusions about what He was going to say.
There is a time to act.
Once we have brought our petitions to God and once we have
given Him room to respond, we must not stop there. We must allow the connection
to God through prayer to give us the strength to act upon what He has said to
us. There may be a time after prayer that we may need to call a friend or loved
one that we haven't spoken to in years. There also may be opportunities to
witness to a co-worker.
On the flip side, there may be times of distress coming where
we need to act calm and rational. Our connection with God through prayer will
show us how to act peaceful. Whatever the situation may call for, like in any
war or battle, we must be prepared for action.
There is an ongoing effort by our enemy to destroy us or, at
the very least, hinder our progress. When we learn who we are and all the
advantages we have with prayer as a weapon we can cause mountains of despair
and confusion to be cast into the sea of forgetfulness. When we connect to God
through prayer we maintain our status as more than conquerors. The power of
prayer is our weapon of choice.
David Turner is the founder of The Success Academy and
serves as an associate minister at the Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Joliet,
Illinois. He is a writer for numerous online publications. David advises local
high schools in the areas of numeracy, literacy, and disciplinary guidance. He
also mentors and coaches high school students with their Life Skills and
college preparation process. You can catch him on his blog at www.dturn.net.
© David Turner all rights reserved.
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