The Agent

The Holy Spirit is a prayer agent, not a free agent. He is not an "it" or a junior partner in the Trinity. He is not only a person, but The Person. He is God, The Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is no less God than, God, The Father and God, The Son, but He glorifies both. His greatest work, may very well be His influence upon you to pray, "Not My will, but Thy will be done."

NOTE TO SELF: Prayer releases The Spirit of Christ in you. Prayer was the life of Christ, and it is where the life of Christ is revealed and sustained in your life. Praying in the Spirit is a yielding of your will to God's will. Christian virtue is not a result of a onetime experience, but a lifetime of obedience. The more you pray, the more you obey. Prayer doesn't conform God to your will.

Prayer invites the Spirit of God to transform you to embrace God's will. Holding prayer at arms length stiff arms the Spirit. Your arms are too short to box with God.

TALK LESS! PRAY MORE!

The Face

When Jesus faced The Cross, He prayed. When the disciples faced The Commission, they prayed. When the church faced The Persecution, they prayed. Can you see a pattern here?

Talking your way through a crisis only prolongs the agony and postpones the victory. Praying through a crisis, releases what is in your face into God's powerful hands. Talking about a crisis tightens the white-knuckled grip of your helpless hands. HMMMM. What to do?

TALK LESS! PRAY MORE!

The Army

Parade ground Christians are powerless posers dressed for the show, but they deliver no blows. 

The armor of God is designed for a formidable, fighting army. Without the power of prayer, prayerless people are simply empty suits filling pews. They schedule more meetings, when they should be marching to war.

Where there is no prayer, there is no power. The enemy knows this. Satan fears a praying pastor and a praying people. Why? Praying people invite Jesus to take the field. He is The Champion.

"Note carefully, the Christian soldier's armor will avail him nothing, unless prayer be added. This is the pivot, the connecting link of the armor of God. It is all important, and absolutely essential to victory. The Christian soldier must needs be, always fighting. He should of sheer necessity, be always praying."
E.M.Bounds, The Necessity of Prayer

TALK LESS! PRAY MORE!

The Prayer

E.M. Bounds was a remarkable Methodist preacher. His life spanned the Civil War and the turn of the 20th Century.

When his message on prayer was no longer considered in vogue by his denomination, he was removed from leadership and from speaking at their conventions.

Bounds retired to his home in Washington, GA, and continued to intercede. He rose every morning and prayed aloud from 4-7am. I have visited his home. His prayer room was on the third floor of the house. Go figure.

In his old age, he would walk through the small town, going from house to house to pray for families. The police were under standing orders to protect this man of God, and return him safely to his home when darkness fell.

Take to heart the words of a man who fought the good fight over a century ago.

"Christian soldiers, fighting the good fight of faith, have access to a place of retreat, to which they continually repair for prayer. 'Praying always, with all prayer,' is a clear statement of the imperative need of much praying, and of many kinds of praying, by him who...would win out...over all his foes." E.M. Bounds, The Necessity of Prayer

TALK LESS! PRAY MORE!

The Tongue

The Tongue has the capacity to illuminate or incinerate. When you race towards a confrontation with an annoying person, or enter into a conversation about an absent person, your prayerless communication will always shed far more heat than light.

During this political season, snarky, sarcastic tweets from well-educated religious leaders are meant to be clever, prophetic insight. Too often they only reveal a hole in their hearts where holiness should reside.

NOTE TO SELF: Your sharp tongue reveals a dull prayer life. Spewing what is in your heart on Twitter, doesn't make you clever. It just makes you a twit. When you fail to pray before you speak, you are setting in motion a scorched earth policy that was birthed in hell, not in Heaven. Burning down the house and sitting on the ash heap doesn't make you king of the hill.

TALK LESS! PRAY MORE!

The Platitude

Perhaps the most pathetic platitude unleashed in the church is, “Our prayers are with you.” It is a shame to turn a weapon of warfare into a cliche. Don't just say it. Pray it.

My greatest failure in personal prayer has been my unwillingness to take the time to respond immediately, and positively to a person’s request, “Will you pray for me?”

It is not my agreeing to pray, but my forgetting to pray that is my failure. Can I get a witness? When someone asks you to pray for them, start praying. There is power in what you pray, not in what you say.

NOTE TO SELF: Saying you will pray releases a platitude. It is pleasant and powerless. Praying unleashes the power of Jesus Christ. People don't need what you say to them. They need you to pray for them.

TALK LESS! PRAY MORE!

The Content

"A steady dripping on a day of rain & a contentious woman are alike. He who would restrain her restrains the wind & grasps oil w his right hand." PR. 27:15

Father remind me. CONTENTious tongues run off at the mouth. CONTENTed hearts run to You. Replace what I can't restrain. Before I am CONTENT to speak my mind, release the CONTENT of Christ's mind in me. Amen.

Prayerlessness reveals CONTENT. Prayerfulness releases CONTENT. CONTENT with your CONTENTS?

TALK LESS! PRAY MORE!

The Fist

Prayer is the key to making a fist in the fight against evil. Try making a fist with your hand without using your thumb.

Together all four fingers of your hand can only make a weak slap. Without the thumb they can't deliver a punch.

Join the fight against evil. Prayer is the only thing Satan fears. Prayer delivers the punch.

TALK LESS! PRAY MORE!

The Deferral

NOTE TO SELF: It is hard to hate people when you are praying for them.

WARNING: It is not impossible to hate people when you pray for them. It is just hard.

People who choose the path of hatred, take the path of least resistance, but it is no easy road. It is a dead end street.

People who pray for their enemies don't try to tolerate toxic behavior. They just make it harder on themselves to hate them.

Pray for those you don’t prefer, and learn to defer to God’s will. Prayer moves your heart closer to God, not to behavior He doesn't prefer.

Prayer prepares your heart to defer to His will, not evil behavior. When God changes their hearts, and your enemy turns around to shake your hand, they won’t find your tightened fist in their face.
Prayer softens your heart. Prayerlessness hardens it.

TALK LESS! PRAY MORE!

The Valley

The Summit prepares you for The Valley. When life doesn't make sense, prayer Invites Jesus to make sense out of the senseless.

Others may grow tired of the sound of your voice, but Jesus will still listen to you when you pray.

He loves to hear His friends shout out, "Stay with us!"

TALK LESS! PRAY MORE!