The prayer of Eleazer

     

    "Ho! Everyone who thirst, Come to the waters; And you who have no money, Come buy and eat. Yes come, buy wine and milk Without money and without price. Incline your ear, and come to Me. Hear, and your soul shall live; And I will make an everlasting covenant with you--the sure mercies of David. Seek the Lord while He may be found, Call upon Him while He is near." (Isaiah 55:1,3,6)

      In chapter 24 of Genesis we read of Abraham sending his servant back to where he had come from in Nahor, and instructing him to find a wife for his son Isaac, and to bring her back to Canaan. Chapter 24 doesn’t give us the servant’s name but we assume that it is the same servant mentioned in chapter 15, Elieazer, who would have inherited all of Abraham’s goods if God had not miraculously provided a son. The servant was charged with the mission of finding a young woman, of Abraham’s family, who would be willing to come and be Isaac’s bride. Most of us are very familiar with this beautiful story, but how many of us remember the prayer that the servant uttered when he arrived in the city of Nahor? He had arrived after a long journey with his ten camels just at the time of day when the women went to the well to fetch water. Then he prayed this magnificent prayer of faith that no doubt, came directly from God:

   “O LORD God of my master Abraham, please give me success this day, and show kindness to my master Abraham. Behold I stand by the well of water and the daughters of the men of the city are coming out to draw water. Now let it be that the young woman to whom I say, ‘ Please let down your pitcher that I may drink,’ And she says, ‘Drink, and I will also give your camels a drink’—let her be the one You have appointed for Your servant Isaac. And by this I will know that You have shown kindness to my master.” (Genesis 24:12-14)

    We know what happened next. Rebekah, who was a niece of Abraham, came and fulfilled the requirements that the servant prayed exactly.  She gave him a drink and also drew water for all the camels.  Later she consented to come back with him to be Isaac’s bride and traveled back to Canaan the next day! So many wonderful lessons come from this chapter about the obedience and faith of the servant and the servant spirit and faith of Rebekah. But what do you think about the prayer? (Read all of chapter 24 of Genesis.)

How specific are my prayers to God each day? Am I calling out specifically for people who need salvation, comfort, faith, employment, or healing? Am I searching my heart to confess specific sins and confessing them to God? O Lord, help me today to pray like Eleiazer and help me to have a servants heart like him.

Pray:

1.     That I will be more specific in my prayers for the lost, those who are sick, those who are struggling with children, parents or other family members.

2.     That I will be more compassionate toward those who are weak in their faith and allow me to come along side them and share their burdens with them.

3.     That you will help me to be a good steward of all that you have entrusted to me, just as Elieazer was with Abraham’s goods.

4.     That we will continue to spend time in prayer every day for those things that the Lord puts on our hearts and for the Thirst conference.

Prayer is the Battle

  "Prayer is the battle, it is a matter of indifference where you are. Whatever way God engineers the circumstances, the duty is to pray. Never allow for the thought-'I am of no use where I am'; because you can be of no use where you are not....We have to labor along the line of God's direction, and He says pray." (Oswald Chambers, Utmost for His Highest.)


    In June 1999, our church sent a 3 person mission team, made up of two men and

one woman (Charlie, Patrick and Miriam), to Paramakudi, India with the job of speaking at some outdoor evangelistic meetings, (which were legal then, but no longer are) and providing teaching for local pastors. The plan was for each man to preach on two nights apiece and for them to also share the teaching time with the pastors. The previous summer our church had sent a ten person team there for the first time and the members of this team were looking forward to their time in India, working with Pastor Balasingh Pandian and his wife Helen. All went well the first two nights with one man preaching a sermon and then having another visiting Indian pastor preach also. (We gave him the nickname of the “Tony Evans of India” because he was a large man and he was evidently very funny because he always had the crowds laughing!)

   After, the second night, Patrick was looking over his sermon for the next night and just did not feel right about what he had written down. He confided in his wife, Miriam, and they both got down on their knees to pray for guidance. During the prayer Patrick asked God to give him peace about what to say or to wake him up in the middle of the night and give him what God wanted him to teach the following night. They prayed about other issues and then went to bed.

     At 2 AM, Patrick was awakened and sat up in he bed. God spoke to his heart in a clear and unmistakable way. He heard God say: “Tell them that I want them to have a personal relationship with Me!” Immediately, he started writing on the pad he had next to the bed and wrote for about an hour and a half until he felt that he had written all that God had given him. As soon as he finished the last sentence, Miriam woke up and he explained to her what God had spoken to him about the night’s message. They both rejoiced together and then prayed a prayer of thanksgiving to our Lord who had answered their prayers swiftly and lovingly.

          That night was a joyous night as the message was delivered with passion and joy. We don’t know if anyone’s life was affected by the message but we know that our life was affected because He showed us that He is a prayer answering God!

  What is the immediate need for you or a family member today? Tell your Lord. He is ready to listen and respond to your needs in a wonderful way. Ask in faith and with great expectation. He would love to hear from you today!

Pray for:

1.     The faith to bring your most pressing petitions to God with boldness and expectancy.

2.     The infilling of the Holy Sprit that will guide you in your prayers and will even cry out for you when you are unable to form the words with your mouth.

1.     The boldness to tell others what God is doing in you and in those around you who are drawing closer to God every day in prayer and fellowship with the King of Kings.

Love the Lord

   “To you I will cry, O Lord my Rock: Do not be silent to me. Lest, if You are silent to me, I become like those who go down to the pit. Hear the voice of my supplications When I cry to You. When I lift up my hands toward Your holy sanctuary.” (Psalms 28:1-5)

Read and meditate on these Scriptures:

    “Hear O Israel: The LORD our God, ‘the LORD is one! You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign upon your hand, and they shall be as frontlets to your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.” (Deuteronomy 6:4-9)

    “Jesus said to him, ‘’‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:37-40)

    “If you keep My commandments you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. (John 15: 10-11)

    “For you are a holy people to the LORD your God: the LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples of the earth.” (Deuteronomy 7:6)

    “You did not chose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you asd the Father in My name He may give to you. These things I command you, that you love one another.” (John 15:16-17)

Pray that:

1.     Our pastors and staff will lead the way in humility, repentance, and prayer.

2.     God will protect the staff families from the attacks of Satan and keep a strong hedge of thorns around them.

3.     Our pastors and staff will be faithful in proclaiming the truth of God’s Word, and that they will not be bound by tradition, habit, or the fear of man.

4.     That our pastoral staff will be pure physically, mentally, doctrinally, and spiritually.

D.L. Moody in England

"Now this is the confidence we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know we have the petitions that we have asked of Him." (1 John 5:14-15)

        

     Almost everyone who has listened to a sermon or two has heard of D.L Moody and has probably heard a quotation or story about him and the Moody Bible Church and College in Chicago that has made such an impact for Christ around the world. D.L. Moody was an uneducated shoe salesman that was won to Christ by his Sunday School teacher who went to his place of work and led Mr. Moody to the Lord as a young man. Later Mr. Moody felt called to the ministry and was obedient to do all that Lord called him to do.

  After an intimate experience with the Holy Spirit in 1871, Mr. Moody became very responsive to the Spirit’s prompting even when he did not understand what God was up to. In 1872 he felt a strong call to go to England and study at the feet of the brilliant Bible teachers he had met in 1867. He had been asked to come and preach in 1876 but had declined and now he just wanted to listen and study. While there a pastor saw him in the congregation and talked him into preaching the next Sunday.

At the morning service nothing out of the ordinary happened but at night the atmosphere was charged with the Spirit of God and when Mr. Moody asked for anyone who wanted to become Christians to stand, all over the church people stood up. Thinking that they really did not understand his question he asked them all to come into the inquiry room where he again asked all who wanted to become Christians to stand. “The whole audience got up.” Still amazed and skeptical, they were all directed to come back the next night. They did and more came with them! He continued to preach for the next 10 days and 400 people made professions of faith, were baptized, and joined the church.

   Mr. Moody knew that he had not been praying very hard for the souls of the people the week before the first sermon so he knew that there must be someone at the church who had been praying. After making inquiries he found a bedridden girl had been praying that God would bring Mr. Moody to the church. “God had heard her, and brought me over 4 thousand miles of land and sea to answer her request.” Wrote Mr. Moody years later. (She had read an article in a magazine about a man named D. L. Moody doing a work among the poor in Chicago’s poorest children and began to pray, “O Lord, send this man to our church.”) (A Passion For Souls, The Life of D.L. Moody, Lyle Dorsett)

What is on your heart to pray for today? Is for revival in your heart and the heart of those in your church? Is it for lost members of your family or friends? Pray and continue to pray expectantly and fervently that God will answer your prayers!

   

Pray that:

1.     God will do a mighty work in my life and in the life of our church.

2.     That the Holy Spirit will come down and fill my life and the lives of all who call upon the name of the Lord.

3.     What God does in our lives during the upcoming weeks and months will stay with us until the Lord comes again for us in power and glory.

4.     It will truly be the Spirit of God that moves me and not just an emotional response.

    

A prayer of faith

     "For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call on Me, and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.  (Jeremiah 29:11-13)

     Pastor Richard Harvey was an awesome man of God who served as a pastor in the Christian and Missionary Alliance church for all of his adult life before God took him home. He was the son of a pastor also, and as a boy and young man he witnessed the power of prayer through the actions of his parents who prayed about everything and saw God’s direct answers through healing and material blessings. So when he went to college at a secular university he was ready for the challenges that an unbelieving world would throw at him. The first year there he had to take chemistry with a Dr. Lee, the most noted and honored professor at the university. He stated that he believed God had created all things but that He was no longer involved in the day to day lives of human beings and did not respond to men’s feeble attempts to get His attention, mush less intervene. He was determined that his students also would believe as he did so he spent 3 lectures every fall, the week before Thanksgiving, to prove that there were no such things as miracles, and that God did not answer prayer.

   At the beginning of the 3^rd lecture he stepped down on the concrete floor holding a glass flask and asked if anyone believed that God could answer prayer. He then stated: Before any of you answer, I want you to know that I am going to ask you to pray that this flask does not break when I drop it on the concrete floor. If you believe in prayer I want you to stand and pray while I drop it and we will see if God answers your prayer. I tell you that your prayer and the prayer of your pastor and Sunday school class cannot stop this flask from breaking. Dr. Lee had issued that challenge for 12 years and no one had ever accepted his challenge.

   Richard Harvey had heard about the challenge before taking the class and had determined in his heart that he would accept the challenge. He enlisted the help of another Christian student to stand with him in prayer so when the challenge was issued he stood up and told the professor that he believed in prayer. Dr. Lee explained once again what he was going to do and was the student sure he wanted to accept the challenge. When Mr. Harvey said yes, he sarcastically asked the class to be reverent while Richard prayed and Richard lifted his eyes toward heaven and prayed: “God, I know that you hear me. Please honor the name of your Son, Jesus Christ and honor me your servant. Don’t let the flask break. Amen.”

   Then Dr. Lee held the flask out at arms length and dropped it. ‘The flask fell in an arc and landed on the professor’s shoe and rolled over and did not break. There was no movement of air and no open windows. The class whistled, clapped and shouted. And Dr. Lee ceased his annual lectures on prayer.” (70 Years of Miracles, Richard Harvey)

“And whatever things you ask in prayer believing, you will receive.” (Matt. 21:22)

What are the petitions you have for God today. Ask boldly, and with faith, that He will hear your petition and that He will answer according to His will and His desire to demonstrate His love and faithfulness to you.

Pray for:

1.     The faith to cry out to God in the knowledge that He is a loving God who desires to give you the things that you ask for.

2.     The desire to be a better husband, wife, father, mother, brother, or sister to those in your immediate family.

3.     The willingness to forgive those who have hurt or wronged you and to go to them or call them on the phone today and ask them to forgive you.

4.     That you, and the majority of your church, will be faithful in attending your place  of worship in the coming year.

David's prayer

    

     In the Book of 2 Samuel, chapter 7, God speaks through the prophet Nathan to David after David had said that he wanted to build a temple for God to dwell in Jerusalem. God told David that He did not need a temple nor had He ever asked for a house to live in but that He would allow David’s son to build one for Him after David had “rested with his fathers.” Then God proceeds to tell David that: “your house and your kingdom shall be established forever before you. Your throne shall be established forever.” (2 Sam. 7:16) We now know that God fulfilled that promise with the coming of God’s Son, Jesus Christ, and that His Kingdom reigns in the hearts of every believer that has accepted His Son as Lord and Savior in their lives.

     David’s response to all that God tells him through the words of the prophet Nathan are a great example of how we should respond when we consider all that God has done for us in adopting us as His sons and daughters and giving us full rights as heirs to the Kingdom of God. He proclaims: “For You have made your people Israel Your very own people forever; and You, LORD, have become their God. So let your name be magnified forever, saying, ‘The LORD of hosts is the God over Israel.’ And let the house of Your servant David be established before you. ‘And now, O Lord GOD, You are God, and Your words are true, and You have promised goodness to Your servant.” (2 Samuel 7:24,26,28) 

    Let that be the prayer of your heart today as you reflect on how God has rescued you from the “horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set your feet upon solid ground.” (Psalm 40:2)

   For a more detailed description of this magnificent conversation between God and David read all of chapter 7, 2 Samuel.

As you pray today pray for:

1.     A heart of thankfulness for all that God had done for you in saving you and adopting you into His family.

2.     A willingness to seek God’s face today that He may direct your paths in the coming week as you seek to be obedient to His Word.

3.     A willingness and a burning desire to spend time everyday this week in prayer for our pastor and staff at our church.