January
2002
God hears prayer
'Four things let us ever keep in
mind: God hears prayer, God heeds prayer, God answers prayer,
and God delivers by prayer.' E.M. Bounds
This prayer article falls at an interesting time in the year
for us
- coming between the New Year’s Eve prayer party
and the Prayer Weekend, so we are, in that sense, both looking
backwards and forwards!
I think the above quote encapsulates something of the mystery
of prayer. By that I mean, wonderful though it is, it is not
enough that God hears and notices (heeds) our prayers (even
though he doesn’t have to do either of these things),
but the even more amazing thing is that he responds, ie he
answers and delivers us as a result of our prayers.
My belief is that this is, to some extent, a cumulative process
and that growing in prayer is all about growing in our relationship
with God (a developing process). And with that comes more
and more effectiveness in the whole realm. In other words,
prayer is like surfing on a learning curve (if you can surf
upwards!) and we have to 'hang on in there'.
I think that is one of the reasons why I am excited at the
moment because, looking back, there has been such a development
in the scale of our praying with a commensurate development
in the scale (I believe) of God’s response. I really
believe he wants us to develop further in this exciting process
and we are looking forward to the Prayer Weekend, which is
one of the highlights in this church’s prayer calendar,
with a new level of anticipation and expectancy.
Meanwhile, I want to tell you of another planned development
in the realm of HTB’s corporate prayer and this is that
we are proposing to change the time of and shorten the meetings
on Tuesday mornings and Thursday evenings. That is to say
that when we recommence the regular prayer and worship meetings
on Tuesday 15 January we will be starting at 7am and the meeting
will run for one hour and, similarly, on Thursday, 17 January
we will be starting at pm and again the meeting will run for
one hour. This will be the regular pattern throughout the
coming term and until further notice.
The reason for this change is that we hope it will be possible
for more people to come to the meetings as they will be starting
later and should be more user-friendly as a result. I assure
you that we aim to deliver a dynamic combination of prayer
and worship within the 60 minutes allotted on each occasion
and I hope committed members of the church will make the new
meetings as much of a priority as possible. I believe God
has led us from one stage to the next in the development of
the central corporate prayer here and, once again, I think
we are following Him with the changes I have outlined and,
therefore, I hope we are in for an exciting next stage.
Certainly, the New Year started with a 'bang' with the New
Year’s Eve prayer party in the prayer realm and, despite
the economic and other uncertainties that surround us, I think
the New Year will be an exciting one. On that note, I wish
you a prayerful, successful, challenging, and joyful New Year!
Jeremy Jennings
This article is an edited version of one first published in
Focus, January 2002. Reproduced here with permission.
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