Romans 10:1

Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved.
Romans 10:1

Praying in Faith

In the spring of 2004 I went with a mission team to Haiti to look at some projects that the mission's agency NDI was involved in. While we were there we got to know a young man named Michaux Pierre. Michaux lived with his mom and if I remember correctly about 10 other brothers and sisters. His home had recently washed away during some rain storms and he was really begging us to help rebuild it. It was a one room cinder block structure about 8x10 feet with a hole in one corner of the floor as a toilet.


Of course they had no money and all of them were sleeping in a nearby "house" with several other children.





NDI was swamped with requests for aid and this was really not even something that could be considered but we decided to ask our local church for help when we returned home.
We told Michaux that we would see what we could do and maybe on our next trip we would try and help out.

We came back in October and some of the members of our church had given money to help rebuild the house but as we considered the overwhelming needs of so many other people in the area the team leadership decided that the house might not be the best use of the money. We knew the folks back home would understand.

We decided to tell Michaux that we were sorry but we just could not justify rebuilding the house when we had so many other more important requests for assistance. I will never forget Michaux's face when we told him the bad news. I can still see it vividly 5 years later. He looked at me with tears streaming down his face and said "but I prayed for it". Michaux was a new Christian with all of the confidence in the world that the Lord answers prayers. He knew that it would happen if he prayed for it to happen.

Nevertheless, we told him that we just could not do it and he left in a very dejected.

That night our team leader was up praying and reading Scripture much of the night trying to think things through and the next morning he came to me and said he had really been convicted to reconsider helping Michaux. He asked me what I thought and I showed him a verse that I am sure God led me to in my morning devotions

" And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith." Gal 6:9-10

We decided to go ahead with building the house.

I cannot find pictures of the house when it was completed but it was just a very simple block structure with no furniture. The family was able to move back in and Michaux knew that God had answered his prayer.

I do not know how prayer works. I have given up trying to figure it out. If Michaux had not told us he had prayed for it would we have built it? We will never know. If he had not gotten so emotional would we have built it? We will never know. Did he pray, did the house get built? Yes. That is all he needed to know. That is all I need to know.

Psalm 66:19-20

¹⁹ but God has surely listened
and heard my voice in prayer.

²⁰ Praise be to God,
who has not rejected my prayer
or withheld his love from me!

Psalm 66:19-20

How many times has God answered your prayers this week? Are you keeping up with it?

Matt Chandler-Joining in with the Groaning of Creation

¹ As a deer pants for flowing streams,
so pants my soul for you, O God.
² My soul thirsts for God,
for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God?
Psalm 42:1-2

Romans 12:12

Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.

Prayer and the Gospel

"No one had a deeper insight into the gospel and prayer than Jonathan Edwards. Edwards concluded the most essential difference between a Christian and a moralist is that a Christian obeys God out of the sheer delight in who he is. The gospel means that we are not obeying God to get anything but to give him pleasure because we see his worth and beauty. Therefore, the Christian is able to draw power out of contemplation of God. Without the gospel, this is impossible. We can only come and ask for things- petition. Without the gospel, we may conceive of a holy God who is intimidating and who can be approached with petitions if we are very good. Or we may conceive of a God who is mainly loving and regards all positively. To approach the first "God" is fearsome; to approach the second is no big deal. Thus without the gospel, there is no possibility of passion and delight to praise and approach God."

Excerpt from "Prayer and the Gospel" by Tim Keller.

Here is the excellent web page on prayer from Redeemer Presbyterian Church.

Psalm 102:1-2

Hear my prayer, O LORD;let my cry come to you!

Do not hide your face from me
in the day of my distress!
Incline your ear to me;
answer me speedily in the day when I call!

Should We Pray in Jesus' Name?

Winning Battles Through Prayer

Here’s another classic message to add to “Boasting Only in the Cross.”

John Piper delivered “Winning Battles Through Prayer” on July 19, 1990, at Wheaton College to ACMC (Advancing Churches in Missions Commitment). Here’s how John remembers it:

I recall that this message came together in a dorm room at Wheaton College quite late the night before I was to speak.... What had gripped me and demanded fresh attention was the fact that one single prayer from one man for the glory of God and the protection of his people resulted in 185,000 dead Assyrian soldiers. This is the [portion of the message] that captures my stunned heart that night:

Now the tremendously important point of this story is seen in the words of Isaiah in Isaiah 37:21-22: “Because you have prayed to Me concerning Sennacharib, King of Assyria, this is the word that the Lord has spoken concerning him.”

Because you have prayed! Because you have prayed, 185,000 enemy soldiers lie dead on the plans of Judah.

Think of it! Just think of it. Does prayer win battles?

Hezekiah, because you have prayed, the strongest king in the known world is gone—off the scene of history. Hezekiah, because you have prayed, the witness of my covenant love for David and my zeal for my name has spread throughout the nations.

Because one man prayed.

From Desiring God

Psalm 67:1-3

¹May God be gracious to us and bless us
and make his face to shine upon us,
²that your way may be known on earth,
your saving power among all nations.
³ Let the peoples praise you, O God;
let all the peoples praise you!
Psalm 67:1-3


Why should we pray for God to be gracious to us and bless us? For His glory!

Matthew 18:3-4

"Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven." Mt 18:3-4

I was recently talking to my grandson Connor about us spending some quality time together. I told him that one day soon I would come pick him up and we would go do something special for the day, just the two of us. I asked him what he would like for us to do on our special day. He thought about it for a couple of minutes and then looked at me with a serious face and said, "I think we should go to Disney World".


I think when I talk to my Father in Heaven I should be more like a 5 year old.

Our Prayers are Too Weak

"Our cup is small, and we blame the fountain."
Charles Spurgeon on the weakness of our prayers.

John 12:27-28a

²⁷ "Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? 'Father, save me from this hour'? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. ²⁸Father, glorify your name." John 12:27-28a ESV

The Valley of Vision

From time to time I will post a prayer from "The Valley of Vision:A Collection of Puritan Prayers& Devotions". This is another one of my favorite books dealing with prayer. I used this one year in my private devotional time each morning. There are about 200 of these prayers in the book and one a day makes a good addition to your regular Bible Study.

A Disciple's Renewal

A Disciple's Renewal

O my Saviour,
help me.
I am so slow to learn, so prone to forget, so weak to climb;
I am in the foothills when I should be on the heights;
I am pained by my graceless heart,
my prayerless days,
my poverty of love,
my sloth in the heavenly race,
my sullied conscience,
my wasted hours,
my unspent opportunities.
I am blind while light shines around me:
take the scales from my eyes,
grind to dust the evil heart of unbelief.
Make it my chiefest joy to study thee,
meditate on thee,
gaze on thee,
sit like Mary at thy feet,
lean like John upon thy breast,
appeal like Peter to thy love,
count like Paul all things dung.
Give me increase and progress in grace so that there may be
more decision in my character,
more vigour in my purposes,
more elevation in my life,
more fervour in my devotion,
more constancy in my zeal.
As I have a position in the world,
keep me from making the world my position;
May I never seek in the creature
what can be found only in the creator;
Let not faith cease from seeking thee until it vanishes into sight.
Ride forth in me, thou king of kings and lord of lords,

that I may live victoriously, and in victory attain my end.

From The Valley of Vision
A Collection of Puritan Prayers & Devotions

James 5:16b

The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. James 5:16b ESV


Because of what Jesus has done, righteous people (people who trust in Jesus) have great power at their disposal!

Praying Backwards

I have to admit I have not read a ton of books on prayer. I have read some and I have read many books with chapters devoted to prayer but not that many dedicated solely to prayer.
So far, the best book I have ever read on prayer is Bryan Chapell's book "Praying Backwards".

Bryan is the president of Covenant Theological Seminary but this book is a great book for anyone to read. It was definitely not written for seminary students as the primary audience.

There are a lot of quotes I love from the book but one of my favorites is, "God always answers (prayer) in one of four ways; yes, no, not yet, or immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine."

Here is a review from a website I use a lot for book reviews.

Acts 2:42

And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. Acts 2:42

I would like to post a different prayer verse each day but I know how these blogs are. You start out really enthusiastic but as the days go on you tend to lose some steam. So, I will attempt to keep the verse of the day up to date but don't get upset if it does not get updated every day. I may have to change it to the verse of the week. We shall see.

I chose today's verse and actually named this blog based on this verse because it is the verse that our Community Groups at 1.21 Church plan our month of small group meetings around. The first week of the month we concentrate on the apostle's teaching, the second week on fellowship, the third week on the breaking of bread and the fourth week's emphasis is prayer. Of course we do some of all of these things each week but we put special emphasis on one of these four areas each week.

New Blog

I had a blog for about 2 years and really got tired of updating it on a consistent basis so I decided to take a break for a while. I think I am ready to start back now with two blogs. One of them will be similar to my former blog and this one will concentrate on prayer.
I hope to have posts and links that will be an encouragement to people like me that struggle with a weak prayer life.
I hope as the weeks go on you will find something here that will be helpful.