July 2011

No doubt if you too have been sharing the Gospel, you have noticed that your prayer life has increased. I can recall spending hours upon hours in prayer for the first man I shared Christ with. I can remember the first High School student who professed to not believe in Christ and how I wept for him and stayed up all night just praying for his salvation. I can remember seeking God earnestly on my face, crying out on my knees, and pleading God for the salvation of others. This passion of prayer comes when we obey God and share the Gospel that He died for our sins, was buried, and rose again, and that we can receive salvation through Jesus Christ.

"And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive." Matthew 21:22

The purpose of prayer isn't to get my will done but to get God's will done. Anyone who is a disciple, who has denied themselves and taken up their cross to follow Jesus Christ, is no doubt more concerned about God's will, than their own will. It's in God's will that there is power in prayer and this promise for us who seek it. And yet I think we often find ourselves so focused on self that we neglect on Who we are directing our prayers to. That or we become so consumed with the issue we are praying about we loose focus on the power of God and what He can do. I know I sure have been focused on self instead of God before.

But prayer is not just something we do in the situations we feel we have no power over but in those times we are also so confident that we can make something work or fix something because we know how to do it. I can recall helping in one of our first Mens Conferences at our Church and doing the worship slides that would appear on the screen for all the men to be able to read and sing as they pour out their hearts to God. Now, I know a lot about computers and have spent a lot of my life working with them, both hardware and software.

And this time God chose to show me all of that doesn't matter. I tried over and over to fix the problem with the file being corrupt, and then after being led in an example of prayer by a brother, I too begin to pray. And as soon as I had finished I tried again to prove I was going crazy and by God's wisdom and power it worked. God doesn't need me to fix it, but to simply rely upon Him, and realize that He is so much smarter than me. And then there was the time our door handle broke between our house and garage. It was a spring loaded door and my options were to either bust open the door or remove the door frame. Thank God I finally prayed and he helped me by using a credit card to push the door latch back in and make it work.

Also my wife Anna recently went to her baby shower and took our camera and the battery that I had charged before hand. But when she placed it in the camera she noticed that it was in their wrong and then couldn't get it out. So me being technical and 'Mr. Fix' It decided I would take care of it myself. Only finding out again that I couldn't and decided to pray and seeks God's help. And once again he answered and helped me with getting the battery out and fixing the problem. Oh, how funny we can look when we try doing things on our own without God.

"Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God" Philippians 4:6

I have found that the answer for worry is prayer. And those things that concern me and that are prone to cause me to worry are the very things I need to be praying about. And once I pray about them, I need to just trust God to take care of them. I need to know that once I commit them to God, they are in His hands and He will work them out for His glory. Over and over in my life, I keep learning the simple principle of the importance of prayer in the life of Gods children. If we are to be strong in our walk with God we must be in prayer with Him daily. It is an avenue that God has provided for the believer of making known the deepest feelings of our heart.

"Continue earnestly in prayer, being vigilant in it with thanksgiving" Colossians 4:2

Prayer has many parts and an important part of prayer is praise and worship, and thanksgiving. It's the Lord's desire that we would pray. I'm learning to be in prayer more and with thanksgiving. Not only is prayer is something that the Bible commands us believers to do, but something we should be excited to do. We don't have to pray but get to be engaged in prayer. For us Christians, prayer is like breathing. That is, it's a whole lot easier to do than to not do it, and that we depend on it to keep going.

Well, in case you don't know my wife Anna and are having a baby boy soon. Our due date is August 24th and we are so thankful for him and are already so excited to meet Joshua. We pray daily for him and ask God to bless him. And we would love it if you would be in prayer with us as we become new parents. May God use us to raise Joshua in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and may Joshua lead many people into the eternal promised land.

Seek and save that which is lost and press on in Love,

Tim Molter