Thoughts for Life: #2 God Calls You to Prayer

Dr. Wesley L. Duewel- God has a wonderful plan by which you can have world-wide influence. This plan is not just for a chosen few. It is for you. Let me tell you about it.

Through prayer you can stand beside Evangelist Billy Graham as he preaches in crusades anywhere in the world. You can strengthen him, bless him, lift him up at the very moment he is bringing the Good News to thousands. (Google image, Schumacher Worldwide)

Through prayer you can stand beside Luis Palau in his Latin American crusades. Through prayer you can stand beside George Beverly Shea as he sings the glorious gospel.

Through prayer you can accompany any missionary to remote reaches of the earth. Through prayer you can walk through crowded bazaars, minister in steaming jungles, feed millions of starving men, women, and children, hungry for bread for their bodies and for the Bread of Life.

Through prayer you can contribute to the ministry of any pastor or evangelist in a church or gospel hall anywhere in the world. Many a time I have felt that through prayer I was at the side of some man or woman of God.

Through prayer you can take a suffering infant in your arms. Through prayer you can touch a fevered brow in any hospital, mediating the healing love of Jesus.

God has given you a way to make your presence count, a way to be a true partner in His kingdom's work, if you really want to be.

True, there have been outstanding praying saints over the centuries. By no means do we forget them or the tremendous History-changing role they played through prayer.

Thank God for James, the half-brother of Jesus, who spent the latter years of his life praying for the churches God was raising up.
When he died and his body was prepared for burial, it was found that his knees were so calloused from hours and hours of kneeling that they almost resembled the knees of a camel.

He became known as "Camel-knees." Thank God for Savonarola in fifteenth-century Italy, who prayed down revival in that corrupt age, and his life of prayer and tears. Thank God for "Praying Hyde," the missionary to India, who was perhaps the greatest prayer warrior of this century.

But God does not depend solely on a few staunch saints. He has planned for ordinary Christians like you and me to become mighty in prayer for the blessing and salvation of people and the reaping of Christ's harvest among the nations today.

There is no reason in the world why you cannot become so steadfast in your personal prayer life that Christ will count on you to help build His church and advance His kingdom in many parts of the world.

Beginning with your family, your church, and your community, you can play a significant part through normal daily prayer that will make a difference, even in distant lands.

Again and again God has used persons like you and me to help Him meet special emergency prayer needs on a particular day or occasion. When He calls on someone for this special and temporary role, He usually selects one of His children who has been praying faithfully and consistently.

You don't have to spend hours each day to qualify for God's prayer army. Thank God for those who can and do pray like that. But He knows the limitations of your own situation, your schedule, your home and employment responsibilities.

His plan is intended to add a whole new dimension to your prayer life. Whether you are a business executive or a housewife, a factory worker or a student, a layman or a minister of the gospel—God desires for you to begin a thrillingly new and more effective life of prayer.

(Chapter 1, pp. 11, 12)

Used by permission

of the Duewel Literature Trust, Inc,

Greenwood, Indiana

Available by phone

317-881-6755, ext, 361

or www.duewelliteraturetrust.org

Let's pray-

Datren Canning- "I pray for you today, that you will hear the voice of God speak in many ways. I pray that God will strengthen you and that you also will be strength to many. You have weaknesses. We all do, but as you pray God will make you stronger. He will show you why you should hope and glory in Him. He has all your time in His hands and will bless each moment, even the moments that you thought were bad will be redeemed in Him."

Today's Bible verses-

Jeremiah 29:12-13, “Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”

John 14:26 "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, who the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you."

Today's quotes-

First on My list

On top of my list

Of "things I must do"

Is spending an hour

Each day, God with you,

My schedule is hectic

But I take time to pray,

For when I neglect You

My priorities stray.

It's hard to stay focused

Unless You're in control . . .

Too many distractions

To body and soul.

Help me to listen.

Help me be still.

My deepest desire . . .

To stay in Your will.

By Frances Gregory Pasch

Double Vision: p. 44
devotions and poetry

~ Oswald Chambers- "If our hopes seem to be experiencing disappointment right now, it simply means that they are being purified. Every hope or dream of the human mind will be fulfilled if it is noble and of God. But one of the greatest stresses in life is the stress of waiting for God. He brings fulfillment, “because you have kept My command to persevere…” (Revelation 3:10).

Continue to persevere spiritually. From My Utmost for His Highest Updated Edition

Words of wisdom-

~ We glorify God when we seek His aid in order to accomplish His will in our daily lives. Our main objective is to be conformed to the image of Jesus, as it enhances our goals and desires to do the Father's will in and through us.

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