Good Morning Everyone,
Our theme for this month: “Effective Prayer”
Our Bible verse for today: “The prayer of a righteous man (or woman) is powerful and effective.” James 5:16 (NIV)
Our thought for today: “We all want to be betters pray-ers.”
If you’re like most of us then you would really like to be a better pray-er than you are. No matter how experienced and accomplished we become in the spiritual discipline of prayer, we all have times when we feel as if our prayers are ineffective and we find ourselves wishing we could pray better and more effectively.
In all my years as a Christian and as a Pastor I’ve never known anyone who felt as if their prayer life was as successful and healthy as they would like it to be. Not one person.
I’ve always enjoyed and been blessed by the writing of John Eldredge. He is the author of the best selling men’s book and Bible study series “Wild at Heart”, as well as a number of other very fine Christian books. John and I come from different denominational backgrounds, and therefore there are some doctrinal differences between us, but we’re close enough in that area that I have found his books to be insightful and helpful.
His latest book, which I’m in the process of reading right now, is “Moving Mountains: Praying with Passion, Confidence, and Authority.” I’m only five chapters into it but I already know that this is going to be one of those special books that speak deeply to a need in my life at this moment. I want to be a better pray-er, and I’m thinking that statement is probably true for most of you as well.
John begins the book by asserting that although all prayer is meaningful and pleasing to God in some way and at some level, some prayers are clearly, obviously, demonstratively, better, more effective, and more powerful than other prayers. In the opening chapters of the book he makes that point convincingly and Biblically. There are ways to pray that make prayer better and more effective.
As I always do as I near the end of any month, over these last few days I’ve been praying that God would reveal to me what theme he would have me write about in these daily devotional messages for the coming month. Yesterday I felt convicted that if this subject of effective prayer is so important to me, then it is probably also important to many of my readers. And if I am benefiting so much from the insights John is sharing in his book, then probably the readers of these devotional messages would benefit from them as well.
So for the month of April I’m going to borrow freely from John’s book. I’m going to share with you many of the insights and illustrations he uses, as well as my own thoughts and observations, and material from other sources too. By doing so hopefully we’ll all learn a few things that will help us to pray more effectively.
I look forward to exploring this subject of effective prayer with you.
God Bless,
Pastor Jim
Oak Hill Baptist Church 