POEM: “Great King of Nations, Hear Our Prayer” by John Gurney

Our prayer motivator passage from the Word of God today is Matthew 6:5 which reads: “And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.”

Our featured prayer motivator quote is from an Unknown Author. He said, “The shortest distance between a problem and a solution is the distance between your knees and the floor. The one who kneels to the Lord can stand up to anything.”

My personal encouragement for you today is this: You will never “find” time to pray, you must choose to “make” time to pray. The devil will try to keep you back from praying by bringing things to your mind that you may need to do but that can wait until later to be done. Don’t let the devil talk you out of praying to God.

Our prayer motivator devotional today is titled “PRAYER AND THE WORD OF GOD” part 7 from the book, “Necessity of Prayer” by E.M. Bounds.

PRAYER has all to do with the success of the preaching of the Word. This, Paul clearly teaches in that familiar and pressing request he made to the Thessalonians:

“Finally, brethren, pray for us that the Word of the Lord may have free course, and be glorified.”

Prayer opens the way for the Word of God to run without let or hindrance, and creates the atmosphere which is favourable to the word accomplishing its purpose. Prayer puts wheels under God’s Word, and gives wings to the angel of the Lord “having the everlasting Gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people.” Prayer greatly helps the Word of the Lord.

The Parable of the Sower is a notable study of preaching, showing its differing effects and describing the diversity of hearers. The wayside hearers are legion. The soil lies all unprepared either by previous thought or prayer; as a consequence, the devil easily takes away the seed (which is the Word of God) and dissipating all good impressions, renders the work of the sower futile. No one for a moment believes, that so much of present-day sowing would go fruitless if only the hearers would prepare the ground of their hearts beforehand by prayer and meditation.

Similarly with the stony-ground hearers, and the thorny-ground hearers. Although the word lodges in their hearts and begins to sprout, yet all is lost, chiefly because there is no prayer or watchfulness or cultivation following. The good-ground hearers are profited by the sowing, simply because their minds have been prepared for the reception of the seed, and that, after hearing, they have cultivated the seed sown in their hearts, by the exercise of prayer. All this gives peculiar emphasis to the conclusion of this striking parable: “Take heed, therefore, how ye hear.” And in order that we may take heed how we hear, it is needful to give ourselves continually to prayer.