Prayer: Communicate with God

By Odon Bulamba (summary only - 16th Sept, 05)

(I Kings 18:30-37)

To pray is to communicate with God. It doesn’t require a lot of energy but just requires concentration and to focus on God. You have to prepare yourself and know exactly what you are going to do. People who want to pray with power have to plan their days, write down and make an appointment with God.

Elijah was a human being like you and me (James 5:17) but his prayer made him different to us. The more you pray, the more God comes close to us. The power of prayer requires the prayer of power.

(vs 30) the first thing he said was, ‘come to me’ and when we want to pray with power we have to think of the people around us. “God people are here and if I’m not successful in my prayer, shame will be on You, but if you want Your name to be glorified show your power today”. Who are next to us? We have to call them in our prayer. Tell God, approach them so whatever I’m praying for, they’ll listen to it. Faith grows if the person is ready and by listening to the Word of God and because we pray with the Word of God, when people listen to our prayer their faith can grow. We have to attract attention of others so they can be with us when we are praying.

Elijah prepared the Alter of the Lord that was broken. Whenever you are preparing yourself for a miracle you must know how to fix the Alter. The role of the Alter is to offer sacrifices to God, so you must check how good your relationship is with God because God will use you as an alter to offer prayers to Him. The alter represents the cross of Jesus so we must be pure and justified and ready to give to God what He requires to Him. God had specific animals for the Alter, not pig etc, and no defect and we need to know what pleases God. Fix your problems with others first and then God will accept your prayer.

Isaiah 59, God is not far away so why don’t we repent?

Psalm 66:18, if I keep sin in my heart God will not listen to my prayer. Repentance is the first stage to go through and if you don’t remove what’s inside properly, even if you pray for 20 years, you’ll never be heard.

Elijah took 12 stones which represents unity. We have to be in unity with ourselves first, unity of mind, heart and body. Ask your mind, ‘mind, are you ready to pray?’ ask your heart, ‘are you ready to pray?’ and your body, ‘body, are you ready to pray?’ If you feel you want to pray but your body doesn’t accept, you have to push it, if not satan will see your weakness and attack you every time you want to pray.

Now it was time for Elijah to prepare a sacrifice. We have to prepare our prayer. After repentance we need to find time with God, tell God, ‘I need to pray with power, I don’t need another power to stop me from praying.’

You need to find a place to pray, Elijah went to Mt Carmel, (vs 33-35).

Elijah took water and without water he couldn’t have got fire. Water represents the Word of God and without the Word you can’t get baptized with the Holy Spirit (fire). You need the Word of God to pray because God gave some secrets in His Word to use so we know exactly what to tell God.

After preparing everything it was now time to talk with God. If you are not ready or not convinced you are ready, don’t pray (not talking about laziness but unforgiveness). If you don’t prepare yourself properly, even if you make a good prayer, God will not answer.

(vs 36) when He went close He started with, “Lord of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob”. God made covenants with those people and He promised them something. Elijah said their names to remind himself of God’s promises and it’s good when we pray to also remind God of His promises.

(vs 37,38) Elijah humbled himself and recognized he was just a servant for God but today we want to be greater. His prayer was simple and only 63 words but we want to pray for hours to show people how good we are at praying and this is a mistake. It’s just a matter or focus and concentration.

Mark 12:40, we can be punished for making long prayers. If you pray for two hours and your prayer doesn’t really have good fruit then you sin. Don’t pray with words to please people around you and not to please God. When you pray for someone’s spiritual problems do it in secret, don’t expose them in front of others.

I Timothy 2:1-8; Proverbs 28:9,13; II Chronicles 7:14, lack of humility will make God not receive your prayers. We are required to pray without anger. When you go against the Word of God (law) your prayer is useless.

One day the Bible will be gone and there will be another book of law to replace it to break marriages, push children to act as adults, etc. Once the book is finished all the laws and all the religions will bless it and it will be a common law for the whole world.

SUMMARY
1. Prayer requires concentration and focus
2. We have to be prepared to pray
- Be pure and justified (sinless)
- know exactly what you will pray, when and where
- be ready to give to God exactly what He wants
- check your relationship with God (is it good?)
- fix your problems with others
- repentance (remove what’s in your heart properly)
- mind and body and heart in unity
3. We have to attract the attention of others so they will pray with us
4. Push ourselves to pray when attacked by satan
5. Need the Word of God and the Holy Spirit
6. Remind God of His promises
7. Be humble before God and remember you are His servant (not He is your servant)
8. Don’t pray to impress others
9. Pray for people’s weaknesses in secret

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