Without Ceasing
Building a Life of Prayer
A Bold Prayer
March 21, 2021 • Chan Mitchell
The normal human response when caught doing something wrong is to run away and hide. We see it clearly in Adam and Eve who tried to hide from God in the Garden of Eden after taking a bite from the forbidden fruit (Genesis 3). But God sees all things and knows all things. We cannot pretend we are something we are not. He knows us inside and out. Nothing is hidden from His sight. Instead of creating fear, this truth should liberate us to share a remarkable degree of intimacy with the Lord. Therefore, we must be willing to overcome our natural inclination to cover up sin. If our desire is to follow Jesus wherever He leads us, and to become more like Him every day, then the only way to be transformed is by inviting Him in to search our hearts, reveal our fears, uncover our sin, and lead us to everlasting life.
Praying In Secret
March 14, 2021 • Chan Mitchell
We are busy people who live in a noisy world and often manage hectic schedules. It is extremely difficult to find quality time to spend with our friends and family, much less quiet and private time to spend with our Heavenly Father. However, in condemning the Pharisees for their outward appearances of righteousness, Jesus taught that we are to go to a “place of privacy” to be alone with God in prayer. Praying only for the purpose of receiving outward praise and recognition leads to rewards that are earthly, temporary and meaningless. The Gospels indicate that Jesus often retreated to lonely places to pray to His Heavenly Father. The promise for praying in secret is that our Heavenly Father will see us in secret and give us rewards that are eternal, spiritual and transforming to our soul.
Praying Together
March 7, 2021 • Chan Mitchell
There is something powerful about a group of people coming together for a common cause. It’s true for sports teams that win together, for military troops who fight together, and for the Body of Christ who prays together. There is both a strong biblical history and church history that establishes the priority of the Body of Christ coming together in unified prayer for the sole purpose of seeing God's glory and power go on display. Even a casual glance through the book of Acts reveals that the early church was serious about praying together. They prayed together in the temple and in their homes, when they were sick and when they were filled with the Spirit, at mealtimes and in times of persecution. Throughout modern history we can find numerous examples of Christians devoting themselves to praying together. And today as the Church shines the light of Christ in the places where it is planted, it must not neglect the most important work of corporate prayer.
Barriers to Our Prayers
February 28, 2021 • Chan Mitchell
Unanswered prayer will test our faith. Weeks, or months, even years, of waiting on a particular prayer request can tempt us to despair. Yet God’s Word gives us wisdom to help build a strong prayer life. With all the good that unanswered prayer can provide, Scripture reveals a category of unanswered prayer that we ourselves have caused. Sometimes we are the architects, building the ceiling that our prayers hit. Unanswered prayer is not always the result of God’s telling us, “no”, but rather that we have set up barriers that hinder our prayers. The Bible says God looks to and fro throughout the earth to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose hearts are perfect toward Him (2 Chronicles 16:9). When we are aware of these barriers to prayer and how to overcome them, we will experience the joy of a strong and healthy prayer life.
Praying The Scripture
February 21, 2021 • Chan Mitchell
We believe the scriptures are the very words of God. According to the New Testament, all of God’s words were breathed out by the Spirit into the lives of the biblical writers so that they could write them down. When you want to be sure that your prayers are tried, true, flawless, and acceptable to God, the guaranteed way for that to be the case is to pray the words of God back to Him. In situations you don’t know how to get through, in moments you don’t understand, in victory, or trial, or pain, you have been given the invitation to breathe in the very words of God that were divinely breathed out for you, and then deliver those words right back to the throne room of heaven. Every single believer on the planet has been given the very words and promises of God to pray right back to Him.
Prayer and Spiritual Warfare
February 14, 2021 • Chan Mitchell
We may forget at times…but our battle in this world is not against one another, but against the powers and principalities of this world. Day by day, hour by hour, we face a spiritual war and an enemy who is real. The devil wants nothing more than to bring defeat, for his main intention is to steal, kill, and destroy. The forces of darkness do not wait for us to be ready for their attack. The way we prepare ourselves for spiritual warfare is by putting on the armor of God every day. The full armor of God comprises of the Belt of Truth, the Breastplate of Righteousness, feet ready with the Gospel of Peace, the Shield of Faith, the Helmet of Salvation, and the Sword of the Spirit.
When the Holy Spirit Prays for Us
February 7, 2021 • Chan Mitchell
The third person of the Trinity has been called the forgotten God. We often miss the work of the Holy Spirit by simply forgetting who He is and what He is doing in our lives. Scripture reveals that the Holy Spirit helps us in our weaknesses. That means He is always with us, helping us in our walk with Jesus. Specifically, if we don’t know how or what to pray, He does our praying for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs and our aching groans. He intercedes for us, meaning He “acts on our behalf.” He knows us far better than we know ourselves, and He is in perfect harmony with God the Father. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives is being worked into something good for the glory of God.
Does Prayer Change God's Mind?
January 31, 2021 • Chan Mitchell
When Moses made an appeal on Mt. Sinai for God to withdraw His wrath from the Israelites, it certainly appeared that God changed His mind. And the Lord relented from the disaster that He had spoken of bringing on his people (Exodus 32:14). Can our prayers change God’s will? If God already knows what He’s going to do, then why should we waist time praying? When we pray, we never tell God something He doesn’t already know. However, God has chosen to use our prayers as a means by which to express our dependency on Him. It is true that God already knows all things and has predestined all things, but He still uses our prayers in a way that brings about His sovereign plan for our good and His glory.
The Lord's Prayer
January 24, 2021 • Chan Mitchell
The Lord’s Prayer is often called the model prayer. If you find it difficult to know how to pray, you are not alone as Jesus gave The Lord's Prayer in response to the disciples asking Him, "Lord, teach us to pray. Jesus also taught His disciples how not to pray! He warned against praying with long, empty prayers filled with eloquent language in the hopes of impressing people, rather than speaking directly to God from the heart. Through Jesus, God invites us to boldly approach Him through prayer, stripped of any pretense or performance. He has given us a perfect model to follow. As we build a life of prayer, our conversation with God will flow from the heart, and there is no better place to start (or even to continue) than with Jesus' own words.
How To Pray
January 17, 2021 • Chan Mitchell
The most powerful thing a Christian can do is pray. Yet how often are we guilty of making prayer our last resort or giving up on it when our request isn’t immediately met? Perhaps it’s this human tendency that prompted Jesus to remind us to never stop praying to our Father. God promises that in time we will be given an answer, find what we seek, and walk through an open door. That’s when we discover our heavenly Father always gives us what is good, even if it doesn’t look exactly the way we expect or fit our timetable. Through His answers, we gain greater faith in Him and insight into what He deems good. Then we’ll know how to pray more wisely according to His will the next time we have a need.
Why We Pray
January 10, 2021 • Chan Mitchell
Prayer isn’t a ritual that depends on closing our eyes and saying just the right words. Any words will do, as long as they are sincere. We don’t have to kneel, sit or lie face down to pray. The posture of our heart is more important than the posture of our body. There isn’t a certain time or place we must pray. We can pray while walking, driving, or working. God responds to a two-word cry for help in the middle of a busy afternoon, just like He does to a focused prayer after praise and worship in the morning. Praying doesn’t have to be complicated. What delights God is our simple words offered to Him from a devoted heart.