Thoughts for Life: #25 Prayer Can Give You Entree Anywhere

Dr. Wesley L. Duewel- Prayer can give you instant entrance into any home, and hospital, any government office, any courtroom in any part of the world. Just as distance cannot hinder your reach or touch in prayer, neither walls nor "no entry" signs can halt your presence or stay your hand in prayers.

Through prayer you can steady the hand of a surgeon during crisis moments as he operates on a friend or loved one. Through prayer your unseen prayer-presence can be with the loved one throughout the operation. (Google image, Prayer for President Trump)

When Rev. Bud Robinson was almost fatally injured, suspended for several days between life and death in a hospital in San Francisco, he experienced excruciating pain in his leg.

The ministers' conference of his denomination was called to pray; interrupting their session, they knelt as a group and engaged in earnest, prevailing prayer for him. At that exact time his pain left him. A day or two later he lost consciousness for a time and had an amazing vision of heaven.

Interestingly, as He talked with Jesus in the vision, he saw two ministers—one standing on each side of him. They were two of his best friends, who were in Los Angeles, interceding for him at that very moment! Though miles away physically, through prayer they were at his side!

Present in Spirit

Paul, the apostle of prayer, prayed constantly for his converts and the churches he founded in many places throughout the New Testament world. Indeed, his prayer was so real and earnest he actually believed that, though physically separated from them, his spirit was with them as he prayed.

Is this not in effect what Paul was talking about when he wrote the church in Corinth: "When you are assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus and I am with you in spirit, and the power of our Lord Jesus is present" (1 Cor. 5"4)?

Nor did Paul hesitate to tell them that his very spirit, through prayer, would meet with them when they handled a case of church discipline (v. 5). Paul was maintaining spiritual contact through prayer.

Again, Paul wrote in similar words to the Colossian church: "Though I am absent from you in body, I am present with you in spirit and delight to see how orderly you are and how firm your faith in Christ is" (2:5). This church lived so vividly in Paul's prayer that it was as if he were right there with them.

This was true although he had never visited Colossae! That depth of identification in prayer is not common today. But it is gloriously possible if we walk closely with God.

Developing Your prayer-Presence

It is fully possible for any praying Christian to achieve such unity of love and holy desire through prolonged intercession that God will grant a special unity and identity of spirit and a reality of "prayer-presence."

For some twenty years whenever I returned home from college, missionary deputation, or on furloughs from India, seemed every time we had family prayer my mother would begin to weep tears of longing love as she prayed for the mission fields, especially China and India.

That was also the way she interceded for me, and I believe her praying spirit was often with me. That was why God could call her to intercession at the exact hours when I was confronting danger during my service in India, even though she had no knowledge that I was in trouble.

She was a real prayer warrior who spent several hours a day in true intercession and often experienced the prompting of the Holy Spirit. Through her prayer identity with me, she was reaching India for Christ!

Such faithfulness results in great opportunities for serving God. Through prayer you can enter halls of justice and place your affirming hand on the shoulder of the judge. Through prayer you can place your restraining hand on the arm of a criminal or terrorist anywhere in the world. Through prayer you can place your guiding hand on the steering wheel of a car.

But you cannot breathe a half-minute prayer once a month for someone and do that. Your heart must be beating with the heart of Jesus as He intercedes. Your love must be flowing day after day with the love of the Holy Spirit.

If you yearn deeply enough, if your prayer ministry is constant enough, if you are living in the Spirit and praying in the Spirit, you mediate God's blessing as truly as if you were there in body.

(Chapter 9, pp. 64-66, italics added for emphasis)

Used by permission

of the Duewel Literature Trust, Inc,

Greenwood, Indiana

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Let's pray-

"Father, it is you who creates a pure heart and a steadfast spirit within me. Lord Jesus, thank You for cleansing me. You have blotted out and canceled my transgressions, and you will remember them no longer. You do not keep a record of my sin because I have truly repented and turned from my wicked ways. I am cleansed and pruned by the living word which you have given me. I will not forget all your benefits but affectionately and gratefully bless your name. You heal all my diseases and forgive all my iniquities. Thank you. Amen" Germine Copeland

Prayers that avail much

Scripture Reading
Psalm 51:10
Isaiah 43:25
John 15:3

Today's Bible verses-

Matt. 26:41 (NKJV) "Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak."

Acts 12: 5, 16 (NKJV) "Peter was therefore kept in prison, but constant prayer was offered to God for him by the church . . . (v. 16) Now when Peter continued knocking; and when they opened the door and saw him, they were astonished."

1 Cor. 15:58 (NKJV) "Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord."

Today's quotes-

~ "The power to be merciful is that we have been satisfied with God’s mercy toward us. And the ultimate reason for being merciful is to glorify God, that is, to help others magnify him for his mercy. We want to show that God is magnificent. We want our love, by God’s mercy, to make God look great in the eyes of man." Devotional excerpted from “When Is It Right to Repay Evil with Pain?”

~ Oswald Chambers- Our work is not to save souls, but to disciple them. Salvation and sanctification are the work of God’s sovereign grace, and our work as His disciples is to disciple others’ lives until they are totally yielded to God. One life totally devoted to God is of more value to Him than one hundred lives which have been simply awakened by His Spirit. As workers for God, we must reproduce our own kind spiritually, and those lives will be God’s testimony to us as His workers. God brings us up to a standard of life through His grace, and we are responsible for reproducing that same standard in others. (From My Utmost for His HighestUpdated Edition)

Words of wisdom-

~ What is it the Lord would have you do? Is it time to launch out and find a new blessing? Are you yielded to Him for what He may be calling you to do? Be ready to receive a blessing, as you trust His leadership. He has prepared a blessing for you!

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