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Many Christians forget how powerful prayer can be. This can happen when prayers have not been answered in years. As time passes, it gets easier to lose hope that those petitions will ever be fulfilled and we stop praying. However, Hannah prayed for a son and had to bear with insults while waiting. Still, she kept praying until Samuel came and she went from being called a barren woman to a mother of children, one of whom became the leader of her nation.
The wise remember that prayer requires patience. They understand that the answer to their pleas is set for an appointed time. So they continue to labor in prayer, believing that the seeds sown in petitions will be harvested at God's time as blessings.
In addition to forgetting the role of patience, many Christians also forget that God is not only able to answer prayer but do so exceedingly and abundantly as promised in Ephesians 3:20. The verse states, Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us (NKJV).
But we can't forget this. We can't ignore the fact that God will not just give us the desires of our hearts but that He can give us even more. He can go beyond what we've prayed for. When we recall this, then we will remember to keep praying and to do so persistently. The promise of James 5:16 will ring in our ears - the fervent prayers of the righteous are highly effective - and we will continue praying with zeal instead of bowing to satan's lie that our praying is fruitless. Our minds will rest on Christ's teaching that people should always pray and never give up (Luke 18:1). We would realize that the only one benefitting from our abandoned prayers is the enemy of our souls - the devil.
What prayers have you forgotten? Is it a petition for yourself or for someone else? Never forget you have a godly inheritance that you can't afford to squander or abandon. Your godly inheritance will impact the lives of your genetic heirs and your brothers and sisters in Christ, who will come after you are gone. You have a duty to them too. As long as your prayer is not detestable, don't stop praying with zeal.
The answer may seem slow to arrive, but as with Jairus, Jesus started walking with you to the answer the very moment you invited Him into the situation with prayer. And like Jairus, the period between the request being made and the answer coming to pass is simply Christ building your faith so you realize that He is able to do exceedingly and abundantly more than you've asked for or imagined. He did that for Jairus and He will do the same for you. According to the power at work in you. That power is the Lord so let Him into your life and do as He instructed in Luke 8:50 - "Don’t be afraid; just believe..."
So believe God for the exceedingly and abundantly. Dust off that prayer remembering 1 John 5:14 - This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. Your patience and persistence will be rewarded.
PS: Is there a prayer point you've abandoned because you haven't seen it fulfilled yet? Now, go read up on detestable prayers and take some time to prayerfully review whether your request is according to God's will and word. If it is, be ready to pray fervently on the issue during our last 10 minutes. Prepare to war with others today. God is waiting for you to voice that petition again in faith. We'll do it together, joining our faith with our works of saying that prayer publicly. Get ready. But first, we'll praise God and pray for others, okay?
To learn more, please read the following messages as well as those hyperlinked into today's post:
