Day 12 "How To Maintian A Powerful Prayer Life"

The Lord is teaching me in our spiritual journey and consecrated focus on prayer (both personal and corporate) two very important yet practical points I want us to ponder today. One is, praying with others without spending time alone with God will compromise the effectiveness of our corporate praying power. Two, we have made praying so mystical and deep, but prayer is simply talking to God and allowing God to talk to you. Understanding these to two very important facts we ought to jump in with both feet into prayer.

Here is some earth shaking simple ideas to an effective and efficient personal prayer time.

Just Do It! Don't allow a day go by that you don't take or make time to talk to your Heavenly Father. He longs to hear from His children.

Set a time to pray but not the amount of time. In the beginning don't set an amount time you are going to pray. Just do it. Setting a time in the beginning is setting yourself up for an attack of the enemy in order to defeat you.

Don't force it just relax and let it go. Let it happen naturally as your relationship with God grows. The more time you spend with God and the knowledge you have of Him the deeper your prayer life will be.

Ask God to help you carve out time to pray. Ask and allow God to show you things that you can eliminate from your schedule, or at least shorten to the point of giving you an extra 10, 20 or 30 minutes. Remember it’s not about good verses bad but good verses best. What is the best use of the 24 hours God grants us everyday? There is nothing more important than prayer so make or take the time.

Start each day off with prayer. I love Morning Prayer. It’s as if my thoughts are much clearer. Rather than at the end of the day when my mind is so cluttered with everything. Your prospective will be better in the morning. You have the thought of yesterday and a brand new day ahead to allow God to lead and guide you.

My Love Letter To God (Prayer): Father, We worship You because You are Eternal, Faithful, Holy, Immutable, Impartial, Incomprehensible, Infinite, Just, Loving, Merciful, Omnipotent, Omnipresent, Omniscient, Righteous, Self-existing, Self-sufficient, Sovereign, Wise and Good. You are full of promise and perfection, majesty and mercy, bounty and beauty, truth and trust, values and virtue, fruitfulness and faithfulness, glory and generosity, holiness and hope, justice and joy, forgiveness and freedom, righteousness and redemption, salvation and satisfaction, completeness and control. It is with honor, adoration and reverence that we humbly approach Your throne. We will continually offer to You a sacrifice of praise--the fruit of lips as we acknowledge Your Name. Today, We request nothing of You but have come to worship You for who You are. Thank You for being our God. Thank You for giving us Your Son and comforting us with Your Spirit. Some would say that You cannot be found and some would say that You are far away. But I know You're the God who lives in me and I know You will always have my heart. We worship You with gladness and with joyful songs. We know that You are the Lord our God and it is You who made us, and we are Your people and the sheep of Your pasture. For You are good and Your love endures forever throughout all generations. Thank You for leading us into this spiritual growth journey in prayer and allowing us to witness and experience You move as we pray together. In Jesus’ Name, Amen!

Day 11 "What Makes Prayer Work"

As I sit in my office pondering all that our church family has endured over the last two years…I am so grateful. Two very famous passages of God’s Holy Word comes to mind Genesis 50:20 & Romans 8:28. Genesis 50:20 reads You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. Then Romans 8:28 says And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. No doubt this has be a rough, rugged and rocky ride but today I realize that all the night I was sitting up wonder what God was up too. When I think of the many long days and tough nights when I was so depressed, down, disappointed and discouraged. All the days, weeks and (yes even) months when I couldn’t find the words to use in my prayer to describe what I was feeling. Sometime sobbing, sometime crying and sometime screaming. Today, I finally understood what God was doing…(He let me in on the secret) He was simply answering my prayer and the prayers of many in this church family. Over and over again we prayed too NOT become the biggest church in the world but the healthy church in the world. That’s what God has been doing in the life of Bethel, granting us our prayer request. I don’t know what the future holds for Bethel but I think we’ve come through too much to give us now! God is working…bless His wonderful name.

Though for today: “God created the earth and then He created man to rule over it. Man lost his rule of the earth because of disobedience to God’s laws. Satan gained control and his goal is to destroy God’s purpose for every person. God sent His Son, Jesus, to die for our sins and break the power of the enemy. In other words, Jesus took the penalty for man’s disobedience, which is death, so that those who believe in Him can live fruitfully on earth and spend eternity with God. When Jesus rose from the dead, He commissioned everyone who believes in Him to destroy the ruler-ship of the enemy and restore ruler-ship to man. THIS CAN ONLY BE DONE THROUGH PRAYER!”

Prayer: Father, thank you for giving Your Son Jesus as a ransom for our disobedience and to die for our sins in order to break the power of the enemy. Teach us to apply Jesus’ victory on the cross and take the ruler-ship away from enemy and establish Your rule. The enemy is a liar and we proclaim Your truth over our lives, families, church, communities and world. We declare that You have brought down the enemy’s strongholds and have set the captive free. We declare health for the sick, love for the fearful, forgiveness to the condemned, revelation for the spiritual blind, and we declare wholeness where there is a shattered life. We ask that You will continue to do great things in us, through us, and around us. It is our pray finally today, that you will make and mold us into a powerful, prayerful and purposeful church. In Jesus’ Name, Amen!!

Day 10 "Why is Praying Hard Sometimes"

Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Thanks be unto God for His Unspeakable gifts…in my best Pastor C. C. Cooper’s voice. Our Midweek Worship Experience is growing exponentially. We are praying for God to bless us spiritually, financially and numerically as a church and He is doing it right now. What an amazing God we serve! Ask and it shall be giving, seek and you shall find, knock and the door will be open (The Gaddis’ Translations). You ever notice that if you take the first letter of each of the key words in this scripture it says the same things? A – ask, S – seek and K – knock…You pick up on it already, it spells ASK.

In our experience we had a surprised Pop Quiz and I think the membership did well. Then we worked through some application from our daily reading and sermon from Sunday. What exactly is prayer:
Prayer is communicating with God
Prayer is praising and worshipping God for who He is
Prayer is telling God we love and adore Him
Prayer is telling God we need Him
Prayer is making our request know to God
Prayer is serving God His way

We close with a look at the fact that if we think that a future in heaven is the sum of Christ’s gift to us, we will live out a spiritual immature existence, pointed toward heaven, but pointless on earth. Genesis 1: 26-28. We are given dominion, authority and responsibility to govern earth because God gave it to us. Sin has mess it up but because of Jesus we can reclaim our position on earth as King’s Kids! We join together as a people and declared dominion over everything that has had dominion over us. Asking God to give us ridiculous faith, radical faith, crazy faith in God, Who has no limitation and NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE for Him!

After the movement of the Holy Spirit we realized that “What Makes Praying So Hard” is the fact that we don’t do it. There are a number of reasons why prayer has become difficult but they all will be washed away in the life of someone who becomes dedicated to the practice of prayer. I find praying is difficult because there are many different kinds of prayer and I’m not sure how to pray…pray and God will take care of it. I find praying difficult because I don’t think I do it well…pray and God will take care of it. God is waiting to be invited into your human existence to take over. I once thought it would be impossible to pray an hour but once I gave myself to the practice of prayer an hour isn’t long enough, but it start with just taking baby steps. A few words from a heart full of words move the Hand of God more than many words…remember that.

Prayer: Father, continue to move in our congregation. Breathe on us until we become people of prayer making up a powerful, prayerful and purposeful church. You are the head and your church is the body. Director us, lead us, teach us and most of all have your way with us. In Jesus’ Name, Amen!

Days 8 & 9 "The Power of One & What Is Prayer?"

Dr. Ralph Douglas West says, "Confession is good for your soul but bad for your reputation!" So, here's mine...Monday I just didn't do it I prayed @ 4 but didn't make my daily reading priority. So there you have it even the pastor gets caught up sometime. If you miss a day don't give up or become discouraged. The enemy would make you feel like you're going to hell with gasoline undergarments on but the devil is a lair. Just catch up and get back in step. Now here's the trick I have to figure out what I want to share because this is shouting me. Nothing excites me more than a good book that ushers me closer to my God.

Thought for day 8: #1 "If a soldier is wounded in battle, during his recovery time no one should expects him to be out doing daily drills he is in no condition to do. We can become casualties in the spiritual battle sometimes and though we are still in the army, the agenda is to get well..." Pastor Jack (I wish I would have read this earlier in the year, I was blessed by it as pastor.) #2 "The prayers of others are vital and can help us survive, but to really sense the fullness of God's presence in our lives, we have to be alone with Him every day." Stormie

Thought for day 9: "There are two sides to prayer. There is the fellowship side and the partnership side. The fellowship side of prayer is when we come just to be with God in the intimacy of relationship. The partnership side is when we exercise the responsibilities of partnering with Him to see the reintroduction of His rule into our circumstances.

Prayer: "Father, we know You are real and we want to spend time with You. You are wonderful, almighty, all-powerful, the God and Creator of all things. We exalt You above everything, and We worship You for who You are. We love You, Lord and we thank You for loving us. We need You for everything. We need You to save us, forgive us, heal us, deliver us, fill us, restore us, redeem us, free us, guide us, protect us, lift us above our limitation and move us into the plans and purpose You have for us. Lord, we have no need that You can not meet. We acknowledge that what we pray for may seem impossible to us but with You ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE! In Jesus' Name, Amen!!!

Day 7 "Arriving At Your Destination"

Today was an awesome day of worship beginning as early as 815a when our prayer ministry met to intercede for our church. Our 9am service attendance was the largest of 2010 and our discussion was rich and very healthy about SEX. At 1045a we kicked off in high gear with praise and worship...a set of songs that lead us into the presence of God. God is beginning to heal our church from the attack of the enemy and the immaturity of a few members. We are a new church and God is doing a new thing. I'm excited about the future of Bethel... And am so proud of the members who have endured some of the most negative day any church could have experienced and yet grew stronger. Bethel is a Great CHURCH. We have just come to the end of week one of our 40days of prayer. God is speaking volumes to us as His people. He is calling us upward in prayer and to the understanding of importance, power and practice of prayer. Today, it was very difficult to decide on just one thought but here goes...

Thought of the day: "When God brought the Israelites out of Egypt, He told them that if they would walk His way, He would make them a kingdom of priests. And they would be a people who moved in a realm of authority that was related to their priesthood. They would have a relationship with the One who was the head of the kingdom. But Israel lost that opportunity because they didn't want what God wanted. As a result, they never arrived where God intended for them to go. But we can arrive where God intends for us to go because we do want what God wants."

Today's Prayer: "Father, thank You for what we experienced today in worship. Thank You for meeting us there and allowing Your Spirit to manifest Himself among us. Thank You for allowing me to have the privilege to lead such a wonderful people. Thank You for surrounding me with a supporting team who loves You with all of their heart and mind. Continue to mold us and shape us into the church You desire. Thank You for the privilege of prayer that penetrates earth's realm with Your kingdom. We pray, Your Kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We invite You into the mix of our problems, pains & predicaments. We ask that Your will, Your way and Your work will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We invite Your sovereign power to manifest in our earthly suffering and circumstances. Use us for Your kingdom purpose and plan. Teach us how to become Your ambassadors. Help us to learn to surrender our will to Your will, way and word. We recognize that we will never pray effectively unless we move in the power that You give through Your presence. We desire Your kingdom to be done in our church, our homes and our communities as it is in heaven. Thank You for giving Your Son for a ransom for us. Make us during this journey into a powerful, prayerful and purposeful Church!! In Jesus' Name, Amen!

Day 6 "Navigating the Danger Zones"

We are approaching the end of week one and there is something special happening within our church. As we come together and pray daily for our families, church, fellowship and community. Just a few suggestion as we pray together each day @4pm for 4 minutes for 4 things for 40days. I've made it a practice to call the names of each of my family member down to my grandchildren. With a short request for each from a parents and husband standpoint. As I pray for our church I pray for the spiritual, numerical, and financial growth. Then I pray for our fellowship asking God to strengthen our love, worship, study, ministry, fellowship and sharing. Lastly I pray for our community each day focusing on a particular area such as law enforcement, Arm forces, School board & teachers, medical personnel and so on. Just allowing God to lead me through His Holy Spirit. 4X4X4X40 (@4pm, 4mins, 4 request, 40days).

Thought for today: "Some people are crisis 'pray-ers.' The don't pray for good health until they have poor health. They don't pray for safety and protection until they have an accident. They only pray when things go wrong. Once you understand the power and authority you have in prayer you will fine yourself praying all the time about everything and before bad happen."

Prayer for today: "Father, teach us the discipline of prayer, daily communion with You. You said we should pray without stopping. Help us to fall in love with dialogging with You. You want to hear about our dream, desires, wants, needs, hurts, pains, questions and doubts. And we want to hear what You have to share with us as our heavenly Father, who knows everything before they every exist or happens. Give us your heart so that we may please and server You. Thank You for telling us who we are and where we are going. Thank You saving our souls and giving us new citizenship. For writting our name down in the Lamb's book of life, that registered us in heaven. We are excited about our heavenly home which is grounds for the authority that we secured through Jesus Christ by putting our trust in Him. We claim the victory over the work of darkness and submit ourselves to Your will! Father, move among us as we seek to worship You in spirit and truth in our worship experience this Sunday. Help us lift holy hands, sing songs, dance in disappointment for deliverance, wave in worship, testify to the truth and watch You work among us. During these next 34days continue to transform us into a powerful, prayerful and purposeful church so that we will bring glory and honor to You holy and precious Name. In Jesus' Name, Amen!

Day 5 "Driving Under His Influence"

In the words of Jamie Fox, don't blame it on the alcohol." Ephesians says "don't be drunk with wine but be filled with the Spirit...when we pray we ought to pray under the direction, anointing and power of the Holy Spirit. Are we praying under the power and influence of the Holy Spirit? Maybe that's what the "old church" meant when they talked about prayer not getting passed the ceiling. If our prayers are to be effective as the writer of James shares when must pray in concert with the Holy Spirit.

Thought for today: "Jesus always moved under the Holy Spirit's influence. His disciples observed that. They personally witnessed Jesus healing the sick, raising the dead, casting out demons and performing miracles. They also saw Jesus go privately and pray often. They recognized that Jesus had a source of power they didn't have. They obviously knew there was a connection between power and prayer because they didn't ask Jesus to teach them how to have power but Lord, teach us to pray."

Today's Prayer: Father, Thank You for allowing us to participate in these 40day of prayer. Thank You for already changing us in ways we never imagined. We are growing through our daily time with you and our reading. Infuse us with Your power. Help us to be empowered by the Holy Spirit who is our Teacher, Helper, Guide and Companion. Move us to invited Him to be in the driver's seat of our lives so that He can guide us where we need to go. Teach us to pray with fervency and passion. Teach us to have love and compassion for others, even those who are hard to love so that so that our prayers are rightly motivated. Again, we pray that You will make us a powerful, prayful and purposeful church. In Jesus' Name Amen!

Day 4 "Unleashing the Power"

Would that the people of Greater Bethel learn how to have this kind of faith. The church is the place where people should find healing for their hurts, a shoulder for their sadness, a friend for their failures and a word for their worry. What happened to the time when people prayed for each other? A time when the members of the church prayed and interceded for each other. A time when church was a one big family. I would that the church would return... To the old landmark. I know that sounds funny coming from me but there are somethings that the church should never get to big, educated, sophisticated, technology astute that we leave prayer out.

Thought for today: "The Holy Spirit is the one, who by His presence flowing in our lives, generates the power in us. When we pray, we are opening an avenue for the release of His power. The Holy Spirit brings the power of God into our lives and enables us to be conduit of it. We become like a lightning rod as we transmit the power in prayer?"

Pray for today: Father, You have taught us that Your power works through faith-fill people who pray. Teach us during these 40days of prayer how to become people of prayer, believers who pray and a church that understands the power of prayer given to us. Each and every day we encounter people who feel worthless, useless, purpose less, a failure and no good. Those whom play those old tapes over and over and over in their heads. Let our Greater Bethel be a lighthouse. Let our church be a hospital. Let our church be the family one needs in order to find the love they need. Set free those who are bond by the hold of the enemy whether it is emotional, physical, spiritual, financial, or social through the prayer of the church. You said that if we touch and agree you would hear and answer our prayers. Unleash Your power in us, for us and through us. For Your glory and honor. Again, we pray that You will make us a powerful, prayerful and purposeful church. In Jesus' Name, Amen!

Day 3 "Starting The Engine"

There are some things that just go good together: peanut butter and jelly, cream and coffee, cake and icing, tea and sugar, batman and robin, long ranger and tonto, chris tucker and Jackie chan and the list goes on and on. Today we learned that the power of prayer and the power of God are divinely connected and goes good together. There a scripture that came to mind as I read our book today Romans 8:26-28 26 Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God's Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don't know how or what to pray, it doesn't matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. 27 He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. 28 That's why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good. Romans 8:26-28 (MSG) We are simply spitting in the wind if we are trying to become a powerful people and a powerful church without the Holy Spirit.

Thought for Today: “Have you ever wondered why there are good people who love God, read His Word, and pray, but they don’t see His power move in response to their prayers? Their lives don’t seem to affect or change the world around them for God’s kingdom, and so the world looks upon their faith as being irrelevant. Often the reason of that is many people don’t understand the need to ask for the Holy Spirit’s power. God’s power is made available to us in order to do two things. One is to accomplish God’s purpose here on earth. The other is to give evidence to people around us that Jesus is alive but we cannot do either if we attempt to pray without the Holy Spirit.”

Today’s Prayer: “Father, we recognize that all three persons of the God head are vital in our walk to please you. You have invited us to call You our “Father.” You have given us the privilege to pray in “Jesus’ name.” And today, You have given us not only the keys to the kingdom but the power of the kingdom in the “Holy Spirit.” We desire desperately Your Holy Spirit so that our prayers will be powerful but more than that, that we would even know how to pray. We don’t know how to pray. We don’t know what to pray for apart from Your Spirit. Infuse our prayer with Your Spirit. Teach us! Lead us! Remind us! Revive us! Renew us! Restore us! And refresh us through Your Holy Spirit. Even rebuke and remind us of our sins so that we can be cleansed and that nothing will stand in the way of You blessing us, using us and lifting us. We receive a fresh anointing of Your Spirit so that we can accomplish Your purpose for our lives and to be Your witnesses in this world. Give us the words to say so that we can become a powerful, prayerful and purposeful church in our community. In Jesus’ Name, Amen!

Day 2 "Finding Your Keys"

Today, it took everything in me not to keep on reading...it was powerful! I know that many of you felt the same way but we must remember that part of the power of our spiritual growth journey is unified consentrated focus (our goal is one prayer, one voice, one church, one vision).

We achieve this goal by:

(1) HEARING together all 7 messages that I will be preaching,

(2) READING together from our chosen book,

(3) PRAYING together for our church, leaders & community,

(4) INVITING together a few friends to attend worship & pray with us,

(5) DISCUSSING together what we've learned in a small group setting,

(6) REMEMBERING together a weekly verse & BRINGING together our tithes & offerings to God.

Jesus prayed that His followers would be one as He and the Father are one. So as tempting as it is don't allow the enemy to get us out of step. I'm proud of you!

Today's Thought: "There is very little power in the key that fits my car. The car engine has power, but it does not come to life without my key being put into the ignition. In other words, I don't have the power to go outside and get myself going 60 miles an hour, but I have access to a resource that can get me moving at that speed. Jesus said, I give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 16:19) Keys represent authority, privilege & access! Keys give you the legal right to the car. In the same way, because Jesus gives us the keys of His kingdom, we have the right to come before God in the power of prayer" Pastor Jack Hayford

Today's Prayer: Father, You have given us the keys to the kingdom. That give us authority, privilege and access. Some things will not be turned around unless You turn them around. Some things will not be turned on unless You turn them on. Some things will not be set free unless You set them free. Teach us to release the power of prayer. Thank You for the right to come before You in prayer. Make us into a powerful, prayerful and purposeful church...in Jesus' Name, Amen!

Day 1 of 40 days of Prayer

Today we embark on a brand new journey that is surely going to transform our church, families and community. A friend of mine who has been very supportive of me for some years and have been a confidant during the darkest period of my life shared the story of David and said maybe it time for you to take the fight to the devil rather than him taken the fight to you. It was those word that sparked something in my spirit. I had been allowing the enemy to beat me down without me evening protecting myself or even throwing a blow. The next forty day we will claim God's promise that upon this rock I build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail. God wants too build our church. He wants our collective prayers so that he with is mighty hand lead us according to his will.

Today's Thought: "I found out that if I wanted my prayers answered, I didn't just send up a list to God as though He was a great Santa Claus in the sky. There was something required for me. I had to get my life cleaned up and set on the right track. I needed to be reading the Word of God and living in obedience to God's ways. The good news was that I didn't have to make it all happen by myself. The Holy Spirit in me would teach me all things and enable me to live the way I should. Understanding the Holy Spirit was the key to seeing the power of God move in response to my prayers." Stormie "The power of a praying church"

Today's Prayer: Father, make us a people of distinction, loving, caring, enlighten, full of life, purpose and clarity. show us how to distinguish between our sin which we are responsible for and the enemy's plan to destroy us, which is not our fault, then reveal to us how we will triumph victoriously over the plans of evil and fulfill your plan for our life instead. Let our church be one that overflows with new life. Pack our sanctuary full with people of all, colors, ages, sizes and shapes. Set the pulpit on fire, select the music, scripture, sermon and prayer. Allow those who come in to feel a strong, loving, comforting, healing and freeing presence. Cause the Holy Spirit too be so thick and soul-stirring that we worship you the way you deserve, demand and dictate. Make us into a powerful, prayerful, purposeful church. In Jesus' Name Amen!