Prayer is simply communication with God, two-way communication to be more exact. A human being communicating with the greatest power in the universe, the intelligent designer that created us. And God communicating back to us. This is really the most exciting, the most power-packed activity that one could be involved in. I believe that when we get to heaven, one of the biggest surprises to us will be the revelation of what could have been accomplished through our lives through prayer. The Bible teaches that prayer has incredible power. NLT James 5:16 The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and wonderful results. Prayer has the power to change your life, prayer has the power to change this church, prayer has the power to change St Louis.
The pastor of a church in Phoenix asked members to randomly choose 80 people from the telephone book. He then asked them to pray daily for each person for 90 days. At the same time, another list of 80 people was randomly picked from the same phone book, but nobody prayed for those people. After 90 days, members called both lists, all 160 people, and asked them if they would allow Christians to visit them to pray for them. Here’s the amazing result, only one person on the list that no one prayed for was prepared to allow Christians to visit. On the list that was prayed for, 69 of the 80 were prepared to allow Christians to visit. Coincidence? Hardly, simply a demonstration of the power of prayer.
Through the gift of prayer, we cooperate with God in bringing change to the world, change for the better, change in our lives and change in the lives of those around us. How can we learn to pray in such a way that releases God’s power? Jesus’ disciples asked Him to teach them how to pray. The answer that Jesus gave is commonly known as the Lord’s prayer. The Lord’s prayer begins this way. NLT Matthew 6:9 Pray like this: Our Father in heaven, may your name be honored. Prayer begins with praise,it begins with God, not your problem. Prayer has to do first of all with God, with His honor, with His will.
So today, our message topic is “Releasing The Power Of Praise.” There is great power released when we praise God, when we honor Him. Power is released through praise that can change things, make wrong things right and change people’s lives NLT Psalm 149:6 Let the praises of God be in their mouths, and a sharp sword in their hands— Here the combination of praise and spiritual warfare is seen together. Power to deal with the enemies of God is released in praise. Today, we’re going to look in greater detail at the prayer of King Jehoshaphat when faced with an overwhelming threat of a huge army poised to attack. We want to look at how a prayer of praise released God’s power to defeat the enemy. If you can learn to pray in the same way, your life will never be the same.
To hear more about this topic, listen to my June 5, 2005 message entitled Releasing The Power Of Praise