"When is prayer relevant?"
That is a question I was asked recently by an individual who is struggling to understand why God hasn't answered his prayer the way he wants.
I shared with him that prayer is always relevant and has to be a very key part of our daily walk with God. I went on to share that prayer is relevant to four key areas of our life:
1) Prayer is relevant in us having a personal salvation experience with Christ.
• Scripture clearly teaches that in order for us to have a personal relationship with God, through the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross we must confess our sins and ask His forgiveness. Putting it very simply, prayer that is relevant to us spending eternity in heaven and not hell.
2) Prayer is relevant to seeking our miracle or for that of someone else.
• Scripture teaches that God is willing and able to perform miracles in our lives. However, He wants to hear from His children and have them “ASK “. Think of the people with leprosy in scripture, the father of the sick girl, the blind man. All had one thing in common: they "ASKED" for Him to do the miracle. Today, when we want to see these same miracles in our lives we are to pray !
3) Prayer is relevant to shaping the course of history.
• Throughout history we have seen our nation on a collision course with destruction, and we have seen people (both individually and cooperatively) stand, kneel, and cry out in prayer. Seeking God's divine interaction in the events that are happening to us shapes history.
4) Prayer is relevant to saying thank you for all God does in our lives daily.
• We teach our children (or a least hopefully we do) to say "Please" and "Thank you." Well, if it is important for our children to say it to family, friends, and yes, even strangers, would you not agree it is important for us to say "Thank you" to God every day?
I'm convinced that the world is at a crossroads of what God is going to do! We are seeing nations begin to crumble under the weight of secularism, and seeing the devil's agenda attempting to destroy any trace of God from the world. However, we that say prayer is relevant to turn the heart of God, and restore the nations to God.
If you want God to be relevant in your life, church, community, and nation -- PRAY.
