Week 3 | Prayer Brings Power

From James 5

Prayer is the of your life. 

Eliminating the excuses for not praying (7 common reasons):

1. I’m not I should about .

📖 James 5:13 (ESV) Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise.

📖 Phillippians 4:6 (ESV) do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

📖 Luke 18:1 (ESV) And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.

📖 1 Thessalonians 5:17 (ESV) pray without ceasing

2. The Lord what I

📖 Matthew 6:7-8 (ESV) And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

3. God is , I can’t His

📖 Jonah 3:10 (ESV) When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.

📖 Isaiah 38:1-5 (ESV) In those days Hezekiah became sick and was at the point of death. And Isaiah the prophet the son of Amoz came to him, and said to him, “Thus says the LORD: Set your house in order, for you shall die, you shall not recover.” 2 Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the LORD, 3 and said, “Please, O LORD, remember how I have walked before you in faithfulness and with a whole heart, and have done what is good in your sight.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly. 4 Then the word of the LORD came to Isaiah: 5 “Go and say to Hezekiah, Thus says the LORD, the God of David your father: I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears. Behold, I will add fifteen years to your life.

4. It’s too for my .

📖 Psalm 50:15 (ESV) and call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.”

📖 Matthew 27:44 (ESV) And the robbers who were crucified with Him also reviled Him in the same way.

📖 Luke 23:42-43 (ESV) And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” 43 And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

📖 Jonah 2:3-4 (ESV) For you cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the flood surrounded me; all your waves and your billows passed over me. 4 Then I said, ‘I am driven away from your sight; yet I shall again look upon your holy temple.’

📖 Jonah 2:10 (ESV) And the LORD spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land.

5. I don’t to .

📖 Luke 11:1 (ESV) Now Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.”

6. I’m not to .

📖 James 5:17 (ESV) Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. 

📖 1 Kings 19:2-3 (ESV) Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, “So may the gods do to me and more also, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.” 3 Then he was afraid, and he arose and ran for his life and came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there.

📖 1 Kings 19:4 (ESV) But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he asked that he might die, saying, “It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers.”

📖 Matthew 11:11 (ESV) Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

📖 Romans 3:21-22 (ESV) But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe

📖 1 John 5:13-14 (ESV) I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. 14 And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us.

7. I don’t when I pray.

📖 James 5:17 (ESV) Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. 

📖 James 5:18 (ESV) Then he prayed again, and heaven gave rain, and the earth bore its fruit.

📖 1 Kings 18:41-45 (ESV) And Elijah said to Ahab, “Go up, eat and drink, for there is a sound of the rushing of rain.” 42 So Ahab went up to eat and to drink. And Elijah went up to the top of Mount Carmel. And he bowed himself down on the earth and put his face between his knees. 43 And he said to his servant, “Go up now, look toward the sea.” And he went up and looked and said, “There is nothing.” And he said, “Go again,” seven times. 44 And at the seventh time he said, “Behold, a little cloud like a man’s hand is rising from the sea.” And he said, “Go up, say to Ahab, ‘Prepare your chariot and go down, lest the rain stop you.’ ” 45 And in a little while the heavens grew black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain. 

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