Prayer Partners
Acts 6:3-6
Traditional religious beliefs have a variety of effects on personal health, says Koenig, senior author of the Handbook of Religion and Health, a new release that documents nearly 1,200 studies done on the effects of prayer on health.
These studies show that religious people tend to live healthier lives. "They're less likely to smoke, to drink, to drink and drive," he says. In fact, people who pray tend to get sick less often, as separate studies conducted at Duke, Dartmouth, and Yale universities show. Some statistics from these studies:
· Hospitalized people who never attended church have an average stay of three times longer than people who attended regularly.
· Heart patients were 14 times more likely to die following surgery if they did not participate in a religion.
· Elderly people who never or rarely attended church had a stroke rate double that of people who attended regularly.
· In Israel, religious people had a 40% lower death rate from cardiovascular disease and cancer.
http://content.health.msn.com/content/article/1674.51527
Another study done in San Francisco General Hospital found that in a study of 293 patients in a coronary ICU group the ones that had a intensive prayer life had significantly fewer complications, fewer deaths, and in general were better off physically than those that did not have a prayer life. This would seem to conclude that prayer is effective.
Of course, this is something we already knew. The scoffers and unbelievers can decry the unscientific-ness of the study, or point out that the quantification of prayer is subjective, but their nay-saying cannot negate the anecdotal evidence in our own lives, and in the lives of others that prayer really does work.
If secular hospitals can reach the conclusion that prayer works, why then are we in the church not using the greatest weapon we have in our arsenal against the wickedness abounding in our world? Why don't we in the church use prayer to our greatest advantage?
In the eyes of the world, the church is becoming increasingly irrelevant, and ineffective. Folks, we MUST be effective. We need to be effective because we are God's representatives here in our community. We represent the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords. People are dying, and going to Hell and it is our responsibility to share the Gospel with them so that they might have an opportunity to repent. We must seek the lost, we must equip the saints, we must grow effective Christians. To do this, we must begin by being effective in our prayer.
· Prayer is not the mystical experience of a few special people, but an aggressive act. . . an act that may be performed by anyone who will accept the challenge to learn to pray."
- Jack Hayford
We must get serious about our prayer life, and we must become accountable to each other before God.
Praying together makes us accountable!
In the book of Acts we find instance after instance of the early church gathering together in prayer.
Praying together creates an atmosphere of accountability.
It overcomes our tendency to be lax in our prayer life
It helps when we know that others are praying too.
It is encouraging when we have others to share our needs with.
It bonds us together; we draw closer to one another.
To pray is to pay attention to something or someone other than oneself. Whenever a man so concentrates his attention--on a landscape, a poem, a geometrical problem, an idol, or the True God--that he completely forgets his own ego and desires, he is praying...
* W. H. Auden
As we draw closer together as "family" we then draw closer to God as a church. God moves when his people pray, and the church becomes more faithful as a result.
· Feel often during the day the need for prayer and pray. Prayer opens the heart, till it is capable of containing God Himself. Ask and seek and your heart will be big enough to receive Him and keep Him as your own."
- Mother Theresa
When We Pray Together, Our Availability to God Increases
We can learn from the early church in their devotion.
" They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer." (Acts 2:42)
For the early church prayer was not an afterthought, it was an integral part of their worship, and we see that it was coupled with fellowship. I fear that our churches today are ineffective because we have relegated prayer to something that only a few do, or something only to be done on Wednesday night. If we are to be effective, we must become available to God all of the time. Spending time in prayer increases that availability.
Prayer must be a vital part of our lives, not an afterthought.
The executive of a large corporation once called the Episcopal bishop of Chicago. The bishop's secretary answered.
"The bishop is not able to come to the phone right now," she said. "He's praying."
"Praying?" the executive exploded. "He should be working!"
But our fundamental work is prayer. Everything we do takes shape and direction from it. Prayer is too easily relegated to a small segment of a busy day.
The commitment we show in our prayer lives is a direct reflection of our devotion to God. An anemic prayer life is indicative of an anemic relationship with God.
"Our failure to think of prayer as a privilege may be partly due to the fact that we can pray any time. The door to prayer is open so continuously that we fail to avail ourselves of an opportunity which is always there." - Harry Emerson Fosdick
But, when we are faithful in prayer, we are available for God's use. Prayer allows us to take our needs, and hurts, and wants, directly to the throne of God. It leaves us with the feeling that someone else is listening, and willing to help. When we pray, we totally belong to God.
When We Pray Together Our Ability to Minister Increases
"After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly." Acts 4:31
Charles Haddon Spurgeon writes:
On the first of May in the olden times, according to annual custom many inhabitants of London went into the fields to bathe their faces with the early dew upon the grass under the idea that it would render them beautiful. Some writers call the custom superstitious. It may have been so, but this we know, that to bathe one's face every morning in the dew of heaven by prayer and communion, is the sure way to obtain true beauty of life and character.
Prayer brings us into the prescense of God and unleashes his power. Verse 31 tells us that the church was filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly. They spoke this word in spite of very adverse circumstances.
Prayer allows us to do things that we normally would be unable to do, things that we normally would shy away from.
"The 'detonator' that churches lack today is prayer. It has the power to ignite the dynamite of the Gospel and powerfully shake the world." - John Maxwell
Prayer gives us confidence, because while in prayer our relationship to God increases and we feel more confident in the abilities, which he has given to us. We become more willing to minister, and in turn we become more effective messengers of the Gospel.
Prayer shows to us, and to the world around us that God is a loving God. A God who will take care of us and our needs.
If we are to be effective in our ministry here in Daytona Beach, we must make prayer a priority. Prayer brings us closer to Christ and to one another. It is the single most important factor for our church.
Acts 6:7 tells us that because of prayer "So the word of God spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith."
Prayer is the greatest tool we have for church growth, and fuel for the continued ministry of this church. God is on the move, and every great movement of God starts with prayer.
Now is the time for us to act, and we must begin on our knees.