FRIDAY 27TH JAN.,2017

TOPIC: DIFFERENT TYPES OF PRAYER (1)
TEXT: Ephesians 6:18 “Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints…”

First, what is prayer? It is a humble and earnest communion with God for the purpose of seeking some blessings or request for thanksgiving or acknowledging of God’s mercies. In other words, channel to connect with the grace of God to find help in times of need (Heb. 4: 11). We are commanded to pray and Jesus is our example (Mk 1:35). We therefore pray different prayers at different situations or else we will ask amiss (Jam 4:5).

In Scripture, there are different kinds of prayer. Let’s look at some of them and see what we can learn: 1) The prayer of surrender. When Paul met Christ on the Damascus road he prayed, ‘Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?’ (Acts 9:6). That’s like signing your name to a blank cheque and saying, ‘Here I am, Lord, do with me as You please. I hope I like what You choose, but even if I don’t, I’ll do it anyway; Your will be done, not mine.’ You’re deciding to voluntarily follow God rather than trying to get Him to follow you. As a result, He will do the work that needs to be done in you, so that He can do the work He desires to do through you. 2) The prayer of commitment. The Bible says, ‘Casting the whole of your care [all your anxieties, all your worries, all your concerns, once and for all] on Him’ (1 Peter 5:7). As long as you keep trying to control everything, your stress levels will keep mounting, but once you learn to hand things over to God, you’ll wonder why you spent even a single day worrying. 3) The prayer of intercession. The prophet Ezekiel writes, ‘I looked for someone…who would…stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land’ (Eze 22:30). ‘The gap’ is the distance between what is – and what can be and, when there’s a ‘gap’ in someone’s relationship with God due to a particular sin, as a believer you have the privilege (and responsibility) of placing yourself in that gap and praying for them.

Bible Study
Gen. 28; Matthew 27; Esther 4; Acts 27