Monday, May 17, 2004

Ask and you shall receive

Had a great morning at worship yesterday morning.


One of the best things about being a pastor is praying with people. I think it's one of the things I enjoy the most. Usually it's at a point in a persons life when the person cannot do any more themselves, so they call out to God. And I get to be there with them.


Yesterday we had two ladies request a James 5 from the church elders. We met with them each a few minutes before the service and took the luxury of time in prayer. As I always do, I instructed them to "act like a sponge!" and we did the praying.


We anointed them with oil and prayed over them for physical healing, and spiritual and emotional healing as well. It was good, God's presence settled upon us and the tears flowed. It's always very affirming, and a blessing for all involved. The pray-er's because they've seen God move through them, and the pray-ee because God is focusing his attention on them.


I wish more people would see this as the blessing it is, and submit and request prayer from others. It's almost a type of "prayer therapy"


I suspect that many people would be helped even by regularly being prayed over by loving friends. Course, the humility needed to ask for prayer alone, is enough to open the gates of Heaven on your behalf, as God repeatedly promised to give grace to the humble.


Let me encourage you, ask your pastor to pray over you. Ask your friends in the small group to pray for you. Learn this art of prayer for others, and get into the place of blessing.


Peace.

2 comments:

  1. Good call, Randall.



    I think that we often pray for people like taking medicine - a quick swallow and we're done. Sometimes praying needs time and patience to be effective, letting God work through gradually rather than with a bang. That usually means both parties spending time without being embarassed about it, which isn't always easy.

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  2. As silly as this may sound, for some reason I usually don't ask for an anointing with oil because my requests don't seem important enough to warrant that. Anointing with oil, to me, always gave me the impression that it should be offered in a "life or death" instance....In fact, this type of prayer doesn't get spoken of much, so maybe people aren't aware that this is even an option. Maybe I'm just living on the other side of the world or something.....

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