ADD POWER TO YOUR PRAYERS- BY PASTOR ELKAN

_“Pray without ceasing.”__ – 1Thes 5:17

_“Elijah was as human as we are, and yet when he prayed earnestly that no rain would fall, none fell for three and a half years!”_ – Jas 5:17

1Thessalonians *5:17* enjoins us to _“Pray without ceasing”._ This is because prayer is important. Prayer is the lifeblood and lifeline of the Believer. But sadly, praying repeatedly over and over again: morning after morning, night after night, service after service, etc. can introduce a certain monotony and predictability that results in canned, powerless prayers. This is when we’re essentially ‘praying for praying sake;’ or praying just because that’s what Christians are supposed to do.

Such prayers are terrible, not just because they often do not yield results, but also because they condition you not to even care that they do not yield results. If that’s your case, you need to add some energy and vitality into your prayers. 

The two opening texts in our post today are about prayer; and both are incidentally five-seventeens. The first *5:17* tells us how often to pray, and the second one tells us _how_ to get results in those prayers. It says, _“Elijah was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth for three years and six months.”_

We all know Elijah and his signature ability to call down fire from heaven at will. This man prayed and sealed the skies over Israel up for three-odd years. His life was so filled with the miraculous that he didn’t even taste death! Now that’s a “Prayer Warrior” if there ever was one, right?

Wrong.

The Apostle James insists that there was nothing particularly special about Elijah. Elijah didn’t have more anointing, more grace, or more access to God. He just knew how to pray _effectively._ In other words, if Elijah could do it, (according to James), then _YOU_ can do it. 

That may sound like a rather radical idea, but perhaps that’s exactly what we need: a radical infusion of Passion, Energy And Focus into our prayer lives in order to cause real, tangible change in our circumstances.

Let the sparks begin: your prayer life will never be the same again.

AMEN

More Blessings await you today; you’ll not miss them in Jesus’ Name.

PASTOR GREG ELKAN