2009 – Day 169.June 19 – One Prayer of Faith

2009 – Day 169.June 19 – One Prayer of Faith

Passage of the Day: 1st Kings 18: 22 – 40 … Linked for study …

My Journal for Today: Game on! And the odds are stacked. One lonely prophet, speaking out against a tyrant king and his wicked wife, as well as to over 800 pagan prophets and priestesses and thousands of unbelieving Israelites. But the one Prophet, our hero, Elijah, actually had the odds stacked in his favor; because he was praying to the King of kings and the Lord of lords and the One Who could (and did) bring down fire and rain to show His incomparable power.

And my dear friend, Elijah’s God is the same God to Whom you and I pray. BUT … that’s assuming that we are praying to our God. And Swindoll asks the operant question in his devotional for this date. He writes, “Do you, personally, pray?” And he presses the issue, asking if his readers set aside time each day to pray to the God Who can bring down any stronghold in this life, … the One Who can deal with any challenge we face, … the One, Who Peter declared (in 1st Pet. 5: 7) cares for you and me.

I’ll let you answer that question for yourself; but if we are not seeking God’s will in prayer and we are not praying to overcome the forces of our spiritual enemies in this life, we are out there on our own; and very personally, I could get through a day without doing what God has commanded me to do in Philippians 4: 6 – 7. And I’m also absolutely shameless in asking other prayer-warrior Christians to pray for me, especially leading in ministry the way God has called me to lead.

I have a very powerful enemy (Satan) who hates me; and he has a very powerful system (the world) to come against me. And even more frightfully, I have a deceitful heart (see Jer. 17: 9) which is capable of being duped by Satan and the world. So, without praying and being prayed for, I would be out there on the battle fields of life … all alone.

But I’m not! And neither are you. We, as described in 1st John 4: 4 have a force in our prayer Who is “greater in us than he that is in the world.” We can say with truth, the declaration of Romans 8: 31, “If God be for us, who can stand against us.”

We pray to the same God who overcame the world in a confrontation with evil even greater than the one we read about today with Elijah. When Christ confronted evil on the cross and rose from the grave victorious over sin, he gave to me the ability to come directly to Himself anytime, … anywhere. And when I do, I can call upon the same power which brought down fire and rain for Elijah.

So, after you read this, go directly to God; and lay out your needs for Him. And keep doing it every day and as often as you need to. God will hear; and you can know that He will bring good into your life because you believe in Him (see Romans 8: 28).

My Prayer for Today: Oh, praise You Lord, …I praise You that I can come here and pray to my God! Amen