THE WORD FOR TODAY (FRIDAY, JAN 8 2016)

Pray About It

'Is anyone among you afflicted (ill-treated, suffering evil)? He should pray.' James 5:13 AMP
It’s amazing how long we put up with things before we decide to pray about them. The hymn writer says, ‘O what peace we often forfeit; O what needless pain we bear. All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.’ We complain to our friends. We wonder why God doesn’t do something. We wrestle with the situation in our minds, yet we fail to take advantage of the simplest solution there is—prayer. Charles Spurgeon wrote, ‘The desire to commune with God is intensified by the failure of all other sources of consolation.’ We’re all guilty of treating prayer as a last-ditch effort. When you say things like, ‘Nothing else is working. Maybe I should pray about it,’ do you realise what that says about you? That you really don’t understand or believe in the power of prayer as you should. You’re carrying burdens you don’t need to carry, and life is harder than it has to be because you don’t realise how powerful prayer is. If you did, you’d pray about everything—not as a last resort but as a first response. The Bible says, ‘ Is anyone among you afflicted (ill-treated, suffering evil)? He should pray .’ When you’ve a problem: pray. When someone hurts you: pray. When you’re sick: pray. When you feel like giving up: pray. When someone you love is suffering: pray. When you’re discouraged: pray. When you don’t know what to do: pray. Jesus, who prayed early in the morning and late at night, said, ‘ Whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them .’ (Mark 11:24 NKJV) So pray about it.

SoulFood: Lev 13:38-14:57, Luke 1:67-80, Ps 3, Prov 1:29-31

The Word for Today is authored by Bob and Debby Gass and published under licence from UCB International Copyright