Good Morning Everyone,
Our theme for this month: “Effective prayer”
Our Bible verse for today: “So Peter was kept in prison, but prayer was being made earnestly to God for him by the church.” Acts 12:5 (HCSB)
Our thought for today: “When God’s people pray, things happen.”
In Acts Chapter 12 we read the story of the time King Herod launched a massive wave of persecution against the young church in Jerusalem. As the persecution unfolded, Herod had the Apostle James executed and he had Peter arrested and imprisoned.
Meanwhile, the church prayed. In this case they prayed specifically for Peter’s deliverance, and the Bible says that they prayed “earnestly”. The Greek word for earnestly is “ektenos” and it’s the same word that was used to describe the prayer of Jesus in Luke 22:44 when He was in the Garden of Gethsemane and He prayed so hard that He broke out in a sweat that was like drops of blood. Literally He was praying so hard that He was sweating blood. That’s how hard the church was praying for Peter.
Not only did they pray hard, but they stuck with it. The implication in the passage is that they were praying like that for an extended period of time. To do anything “earnestly” means to do it with fervor, passion, intensity, determination, and steadfastness. When God’s people come together and pray like that, and they stick with it, stuff happens.
In Peter’s case, while the people were praying so hard, an angel of the Lord appeared in Peter’s jail cell and there was a Holy Spirit led jailbreak. The doors swung open, the guards who were in the cell with Peter (and who Peter was actually chained to) fell into a deep sleep, the chains fell away, and Peter simply walked out of the jail a free man.
When God’s people pray – really pray – things happen. There may not be a miraculous deliverance from a jail cell in the middle of the night, but there could be. Or, there could be a modern day equivalent.
We know this to be true at Oak Hill Baptist Church. Oak Hill is one of those churches that still has a weekly prayer meeting. I make that statement with just a hint of sadness because there are so many churches today that do not have regular weekly prayer meetings. Instead, if they meet at all in mid-week, it’s a mid-week service that might include a little bit of prayer time at the end but is not exclusively, or even primarily, a prayer meeting.
I’m not bragging about us or to being critical of them. I only want to make the point that group prayer is vitally important, and I believe a church needs to have at least one regular meeting each week that is dedicated primarily to the ministry of intercessory prayer.
At our group prayer meetings we pray long and we pray hard; we pray for ourselves and we pray for others, (many of whom we don’t even know). We send people letters signed by everyone at the prayer meeting letting them know that they were prayed for. And we routinely see answers to those prayers – small answers and sometimes big answers.
Effective individual prayer is a powerful thing. Effective group prayer is even more powerful because when God’s people pray, things happen – and when they pray together, even more things happen.
God Bless,
Pastor Jim
Oak Hill Baptist Church 