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My mom sent me an e-mail with a link to this e-book about an effective prayer life. So far, I'm learing a whole lot about how to pray and what to expect when I pray. It's kind of long, hence the reason I don't just copy and paste. Not only that, but copy and pasting an e-book would be plagirism I think. Anyway, here is the link for any and all who wish to do some "light" reading: http://www.calvarychapel.com/library/smith-chuck/books/epl.htm#0i (http://www.calvarychapel.com/library/smith-chuck/books/epl.htm#0i)

God Bless...
Robert

"Why do we limit God? Because we are limited. We need to realize to whom we're talking when we pray. Get our eyes off our problems. Get our minds on the fact that we're talking to the Creator of all things: God, who is so great, so vast, and so powerful!"  :D

How long are you to persist in prayer? Until you get an answer - either a yes or no.

Wonderful article thanks!

"Jesus Christ also has a method of winning the world, but not by force. Jesus seeks to draw men unto Himself and into His kingdom through love. Thus, the warfare continues in this world for the control of lives. Satan applies tremendous force and pressure to keep people in his camp. Jesus, wooing and drawing through gentle love, seeks to persuade men to submit their lives to Him.

As you enter into intercessory prayer, you rush into the thick of the battle. It becomes work because you're engaged against the forces of darkness and hell. You're going against the enemy's strongholds with prayer. You witness the grip of power that Satan has on the lives of those around you. Through prayer you can advance with the battering ram and demolish the strongholds the enemy has on those individual lives - freeing them from the power that holds them captive.

This kind of prayer, the warfare praying in the Spirit, becomes real work. You begin to understand what Paul meant when he said that Epaphras was "laboring fervently" in prayer. But it's glorious to realize that prayer is the deciding factor in this spiritual warfare.

Satan is a very stubborn enemy and an obstinate fighter. He yields only what and when he must. Therefore, your prayers must be very specific. Vague, general prayers like "God, save the world" won't even dent the enemy. But when you bring before the Lord an individual life and lay claim to that person for Jesus Christ, you begin to be specific in prayer, Satan must yield.

Realize that Satan is persistent. Even after you begin to see a bit of victory, you must continue in prayer to hold the ground that you've gained. The minute you win ground, Satan will turn right around and counterattack to regain it. Your prayers must be persistent. The ground we have taken from the enemy through prayer, must be held by prayer. Many times we make a serious mistake when we begin seeing signs of victory in the life of one for whom we have been interceeding. Maybe they have gone forward to receive Christ and have started to read their Bibles, so we quit praying for them. Often the seed has not had a chance to take root yet and the enemy comes to take away the seed. We need to continue to pray long after we begin to see initial signs of victory.

The beautiful truth is that Satan has already been defeated. As we go into battle the outcome has already been determined. Jesus triumphed over Satan and, thus, Satan must yield when we come against him in the power and in the authority of Jesus Christ. Lay claim to the victory in Jesus Christ - and life after life will be set free as you come against the strongholds of Satan and tear them down with this powerful weapon of prayer!

God has made prayer available to the weakest of His children. It's something that every Christian can exercise, regardless of his spiritual state. You don't have to be a spiritual giant to get into spiritual warfare. And you don't have to be afraid of the enemy as you enter in, because he's already been defeated."

AMEN! Glory to God!

Amen.
Our weopons of warfare are not carnal but mighty unto the pulling down of strongholds.
The effectual fervant prayer of a righteous man availeth much

In The Presence Of Jehovah

In and out of situations,
That tug-of-war at me
All day long I struggle
For answers that I need
But then I come into His presence,
All my questions become clear
And for a sacred moment,
No doubt can interfere
 
In the presence of Jehovah,
God Almighty, Prince of Peace
Troubles vanish, hearts are mended,
In the presence of The King
 
Through His love the Lord provided,
A place for us to rest
A place to find the answers,
In hours of distress
Now there is never any reason,
To give up in despair
Just look away and breathe His name,
He will come and meet you there
 
In the presence of The King
In the presence of The King

I've known this most of my life, but it seems like I'm just beginning to learn it...prayer is not only for spiritual warfare, or for expressing need etc; it is essential for the maintenance and growth of our lives with Christ. It is a powerful way to draw near to the Lord, to find not only a Judge, but a Friend and Father that has promised that he will draw near to us and will acknowledge us as His own, so that we will not need to be ashamed. The faith and perseverance of great Christians stems from their closeness to God through prayer and worship. I just read of a man who was martyred for his faith; he spent four hours a day in prayer and praise, and was asking the Lord to open up two more hours in his day so that he could be with Him even more. I wish, and I'm just beginning to strive, for that kind of walk with God!

    I just registered and was pleasantly surprised
to find this discussion. Everything already written here
reminds me of the same things I have encountered.
There has certainly been a struggle, if not a full blown battle
involved whenever I have decided to seriously
stay faithful to prayer. In a way its encouraging, because I know the resistance I encounter is spiritual in nature,
and it must threaten the enemy or he wouldn't
bother messing with me.

    Its uncanny to me that whenever I start
to get tired and back off in my prayer life, my everyday
life starts getting easier. For years I never realized
that this was simply because I had withdrawn from
the spiritual struggle, and the enemy had no reason to
oppose me.

    If anyone is interested, I would like to talk more about
this. I have been struggling with it for a long time
and rarely if ever hear people discussing
their experiences trying to stay commited to
a serious prayer life. Sometimes I wonder if this
is because over time, many people get discouraged or bored
with prayer, and don't wish to pursue
it anymore. I can understand how that can happen.
But there has always been a hunger and need
I have felt deep within to continue seeking.
Not only in intercession, or to
get a Word from Him, but just to fellowship with Him
and spend time in His wonderful presence.

 I have had many wonderful
times with the Lord over the years, as well
as the problems and obstacles we all
encouter as we try to go deeper.
I hope this discussion continues.
There is so much to say.


      God bless you all,

            roadkill  (J. Kieffer)        

Welcome, J. Keiffer!

  If anyone is interested, I would like to talk more about
this.

I'd love to hear what else you've got to say!  :D

Has anyone read Screwtape Letters, by C.S. Lewis? I love his observation on how our spiritual habits are affected by our physical habits. In the book, Screwtape the demon is rejoicing because Christians tend to pray in their beds just before they fall asleep; he implies that if our bodies are relaxing and shutting down for the night, our spirits will not have the strength and awareness to really seek God in prayer. Instead, our spirits will be falling asleep as well, because of the influence of our bodies.
Not to say that praying in bed is wrong; as the psalmist says, we must think of God and praise Him "when I get up, and when I lie down"...

Hey J.Keifer, I experience the same things when I stay faithful and pray and also when I fall off and not pray as much as I should. It's easy to relax in your prayer life as sometimes, at least for me, it's hard because I don't always see the results of my prayer. I know that's selfish, but it's something I need to improve on and do better with.

I would love to talk more with you about this subject as I think I could learn a lot about prayer from you. Drop me a PM sometime. Good to have you in the forums and am glad that this topic is something you're intersted in.

Feel free to browse the forums. There are a lot of interesting topics throughout the entire forum.

God Bless,
Robert