Prayer is Powerful – Part 5 of 5

In my previous post, I asked how often do we pray for those who are following Christ? We might think that since they are already saved by God’s grace, we should place the focus of our prayers on non-believers. Let’s take a look at the Apostle Paul’s prayer life.

In Paul’s letters to the churches, we see that he prayed night and day for his fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. Likewise, he asked them to pray for him. He knew that they were together in a spiritual battle and that prayer would help them stand firm in the faith.

There are lots of believers that we can pray for. Usually, it helps to pray for those we know personally. We should especially remember to pray for married couples and their children. Satan targets the family unit, making married life and parenting even harder than it already is. He knows that if he can get at the families, he can reach the societies and destroy the nations. The nations, however, are our inheritance in Christ. So, when we pray for our nation or other nations, we should remember that any healthy nation is built on healthy families.

We should also be praying for pastors, missionaries, evangelists, and teachers even if we don’t know them personally. We can also pray for Christians in government, courts of law, politics, the arts, and sportsmen and women.

We are also instructed in the Word of God to pray for our leaders, the godly and the ungodly alike (1Tim. 2:1&2). God is the one who puts people in authority. Even if we don’t like our leaders, we should still pray for them and show them honor. Even when freedom of speech is regarded as one of our basic rights, that doesn’t mean that God gives us the freedom to say whatever we like. We need to check our attitudes and keep our hearts and minds pure from wanting to see the demise of those with whom we disagree.

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Finding Balance - Part 1 of 3

God desires that we live out of a relationship with Him so that there will be a healthy balance of priorities to our day. When there’s an imbalance in our lives it’s important to find out what’s causing it, why it is there, and how we can change things to improve the quality of our lives. Imbalances can be harmful to our peace and joy and, of course, our health. Sometimes it’s as simple as choosing to get enough sleep, but at other times it’s more complicated than that.

If you can’t see the way out of a bad situation, ask God to give you wisdom and the right strategy for improving your circumstances. If we do not seek God’s help, the outcome could deteriorate rather than improve. Some people find a sense of comfort in pretending their problem isn’t there. The consequences of choosing to take no action, however, could make the problem worse.

One very common area of imbalance for mothers is in their roles as homemakers. Many good moms will often try to do everything for the other members of the family. I’d like to call it the “Supermom syndrome.” The reasons why moms feel they need to do-it-all may differ. Perhaps they’re too tired and don’t feel they have the energy to persuade others to participate. Or maybe they fear failure and so they overachieve. Whatever the reasons may be, the fact still remains that they place unrealistic expectations on themselves.

"God grant me the serenity

to accept the things I cannot change;

courage to change the things I can;

and wisdom to know the difference."

by Reinhold Niebuhr

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