How To Pray For A Miracle

This Sunday my pastor taught on "5 Steps To Pray For A Miracle". Here are my notes from it along with my own thoughts. Hope it helps. (Luke 18:35-43)

1. Step one is to be PASSIONATE. (Luke 18;35-38) Seek God with all of your heart and you will find him. (Jeremiah 29:13).

2. Step two is be PERSISTENT. (Luke 18:39) Be determined, tenacious, relentless. Don't quit too soon. (Luke 11:9) Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; Knock and the door will be opened to you. (ASK=Ask, Seek, Knock.) God is preparing you. It isn't that he doesn't hear you or know your need. The wait is the journey and it is when God is most active. I like to remember Moses. He spent 40 years prep time learning as part of Pharoahs family, then 40 years in the desert on the run, then 40 more years leading Israelites through desert to promised land. That is a lot of prep time. So why do I complain? I like to think that the longer the prep time, maybe the bigger the task ahead. Who knows what God has in store? Just because you can't see him working doesn't mean he isn't. His timing is perfect.

3. Step three is to be PRECISE. When we pray, God wants us to be specific and not vague. Vague is lazy and ambiguous. If and when God does answer them we won't even notice if not specific. (Luke 18:40-41) Jesus asked, "What do you want me to do for you?" (James 4:2) "You do not have because you do not ask." If God knows all, then why do we need to ask and be specific? If you are vague and not specific, then the prayer is not intimate. He wants to be the one you lay open your heart to, the one we can be truthful to. It is for our benefit, not His that he asks us to be specific. We don't draw close to Him if we don't get specific. We don't learn to trust Him if we don't get specific. We don't see clearly when a prayer is answered if not specific. So...get a journal and write down your prayer requests. You can use this as a reminder when praying. But even more importantly, you can look back and write when and how they are answered and when need strength, can look back at the work God has done in your life and others and be encouraged. I made a Banzet Book of Faith about Big prayers God has answered in my family's life. I must confess, I need to work on it more, though.

4. Step four is to be POSITIVE. (Luke 18:42) Ask with faith and expectancy when praying. (Mark 11:24) "Whatever you have asked for in prayer, believe that you have recieved it, and it will be yours." Ask God, then believe that He will provide. Faith comes by hearing the word of God daily. We have to know God's promises in His word in order to be a prayer warrior.

5. Step 5 is to be PRAISEFUL. (Luke 18:43) Give God the glory as we live in victory. After a prayer is answered you first follow Jesus and second thank God. You can even thank Him in faith as you pray for a miracle, thanking him before it is answered, trusting Him to provide. Praise is so important that it is mentioned 550 times in teh bible. There is no high like hearing your child say thank you. So if we feel that way, how much more does God, our heavenly father?

You can talk a lot about prayer, but it is another thing to do it. Like the Nike commercials say, "Just Do It!" Get out there and pray and see what God will do.