Paul Neville and Janet Neville share together on this message.
We want to encourage a PASSION for Prayer.
The most important and powerful activity a Christ Follower can do is to PRAY.
Then Jesus went into the temple of God and drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. 13 And He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’ ”14 Then the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple, and He healed them." (Matthew 21:12-14 NKJV).
1. God has limited himself to His church.
"I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” (Matthew 16:18).
“So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most” (Hebrews 4:16).
“And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” (Matthew 16:18).
2. True Prayer Grows out of the Word of God
Jeremiah 10-14 NLT, This is what the Lord says: “You will be in Babylon for seventy years. But then I will come and do for you all the good things I have promised, and I will bring you home again. 11 For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. In those days when you pray, I will listen. 13 If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me. 14 I will be found by you,” says the Lord. “I will end your captivity and restore your fortunes. I will gather you out of the nations where I sent you and will bring you home again to your own land.”
Daniel read this prophecy and understood that he was living right at that seventy year time period. When we read the prophecies we should realize that Jesus is coming back soon. We are living right at the end of the ages.
Daniel began to pray that God would do what God already said that He was going to do.
This is one of the most tremendous principles about prayer. God knows His plan, and even when He reveals His plan to us, He expects us to pray over that plan.
"Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. 15 And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him" (1 John 5:14-15 NKJV).
3. The Greatest Power of Prayer
“Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” 31 So they said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.” 32 Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. 33 And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes. And immediately he and all his family were baptized" (Acts 16:30-32 NKJV).
All is takes is a simple prayer to be SAVED.
"One of the criminals hanging beside him scoffed, “So you’re the Messiah, are you? Prove it by saving yourself—and us, too, while you’re at it!” 40 But the other criminal protested, “Don’t you fear God even when you have been sentenced to die? 41 We deserve to die for our crimes, but this man hasn’t done anything wrong.” 42 Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your Kingdom.”43 And Jesus replied, “I assure you, today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 22:39-43 NLT).
There on the crosses is the example of the ages. One person mocks Jesus while the other man repents and eternity is decided in a moments time.
Anyone, Anywhere, Anytime - If they WOULD they can PRAY to the LIVING GOD and He will hear their prayers and just like the man on the cross they can be saved in a moment of time.
"If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation" (Roman 10:9-10).
In 1872, Dwight L. Moody attended an early-morning meeting in a hay mow in Ireland. He heard a man quietly say, “The world has yet to see what God can do with, and for, and through, and in a man who is fully and wholly consecrated to God’s will.” Moody would later say “those were the words sent to my soul . . . from the Living God. As I crossed the wide Atlantic, the boards of the deck of the vessel were engraved with them, and when I reached Chicago, the very paving stones seemed marked with ‘Moody, the world has yet to see what God will do with a man fully consecrated to him.’”2 God honored Moody with a ministry that, in spite of his human frailties and lack of formal education, has touched lives even until this day. Moody found out what God was doing and got in on it.
I Want to be the one that goes in on what God is doing and saying. That happens through prayer.
Larry & Janet Neville
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