Prayer is the most powerful act in which a true Christ-follower can engage. Do you believe that statement? Or is it just the kind of rhetoric a preacher would use?My sense is that there are very few people, at least in the western world, who really think of prayer as a powerful activity. It is more often seen as the work of the elderly, the physically challenged, or children; those who can’t do for themselves.
But it has not always been that way. Consider these words from R.A. Torrey, a Christian leader from about a century ago:
“Prayer is the key that unlocks all the storehouses of God’s infinite grace and power. All that God is, and all that God has, are at the disposal of prayer. But we must use the key. Prayer can do anything that God can do, and as God can do anything, prayer is omnipotent. No one can stand against the one who knows how to pray and who meets all the conditions of prevailing prayer and who really prays. “The Lord God Omnipotent” works from him and works through him.”
Those words touch places in my soul that seldom get stirred. I long to experience that kind of power from God. What would Moses, David, Elijah, Daniel and other Old Testament leaders have done without the powerful intervention of God? Without that same divine interjection of power, how would the early, first-century church have even gotten off the ground? More personally, how will we stand for God in an increasingly complex society without power from above?
Can I be blunt? Without the “storehouse of God’s infinite grace and power” being unlocked by prayer, we may be exhausting ourselves with religious activity while bearing no lasting fruit.
Have you turned the key lately?
[1]Wiersbe, Warren. Classic Sermons on Prayer. (Kregel Publications: Grand Rapids, 1987), pp.90.
Insight for the Journey 
This is a “word” we need to hear and see emulated (at least it’s value). I just finished a little “nugget” by E.M. Bounds called “Preacher and Prayer”. Tho’ he primarily “goes after” preachers, we could all stand a little “whipping into shape” concerning prayer. Bounds makes the audacious remark that “…the [believer] is only as effectual as one’s spiritual character” and it only rises according to one’s capacity for prayer. According to Bounds, prayer, more than anything, adjusts the heart. Two more quotes.
“For nothing reaches the heart but what is from the heart, or pierces the conscience but what comes from a living conscience.” – Wm Penn
“In the morning was more engaged in preparing the head than the heart. This has been frequently my error, and I have always felt the evil of it, especially in prayer. Reform it, then, O Lord! Enlarge my heart…” – R.M. McCheyne
…OK, a third, but that’s it…
“Talking to men for God is a great thing, but talking to God for men is greater still.” – E.M. Bounds
…Dd
I agree, prayer is vitally important!
Faith at Gold in the Clouds sent me here. (She’s a member of your church?)
Blessings, e-Mom @ Chrysalis