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Prayer Series
Contributed by David Yarbrough on May 20, 2002 (message contributor)
Summary: Four examples of prayer from the early church.
We tend to pray more fervently when we’re threatened by some kind of pressure.
Illustration: Three ministers were talking about prayer in general and the appropriate and effective positions for prayer. As they were talking, a telephone repairman was working on the phone system in the background. One minister shared that he felt the key was in the hands. He always held his hands together and pointed them upward as a form of symbolic worship. The second suggested that real prayer was conducted on your knees. The third suggested that they both had it wrong--the only position worth its salt was to pray while stretched out flat on your face.
By this time the phone man couldn’t stay out of the conversation any longer. He interjected, "I found that the most powerful prayer I ever made was while I was dangling upside down by my heels from a power pole, suspended forty feet above the ground."
What did the early church pray for? You would think they prayed for exemption from persecution, but no they prayed for boldness.
29Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness.
And there prayer was answered.
31After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.
One of the things we need to pray for as a church is courage. We in the U.S. are not threatened with arrest or imprisonment. We are sometimes threatened with lawsuits and politically incorrect labels. We need to call sin … sin not morally challenged. Not to be obnoxious with it, but speak the truth in love.
Eph 6:19
19Pray for me, too, and ask God to give me the right words as I boldly tell others about the Lord and as I explain to them that his salvation is for the Gentiles too.
TLB
The ACLU has had way too much sway in our Christian Society. Bob Russell tells that in Louisville, Kentucky one of his graduating seniors was told that for the baccalaureate service they couldn’t mention God or pray. That seems foreign to us but if we’re not careful we will be next.
We need to pray for Christian Athletes, political leaders and entertainers that they will boldly speak out for our faith. We need to pray that all of you go into you world and speak the truth.
6:1In those days when the number of disciples was increasing, the Grecian Jews among them complained against the Hebraic Jews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. 2So the Twelve gathered all the disciples together and said, "It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables. 3Brothers, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them 4and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word."
5This proposal pleased the whole group. They chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit; also Philip, Procorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas from Antioch, a convert to Judaism. 6They presented these men to the apostles, who prayed and laid their hands on them.