Is our prayer perfunctory or powerful? Years ago I was in Ndola, Zambia, preparing to preach on a Sunday morning at the Baptist Church there. I was told the elders wanted to pray for me before we went into the service. I thought, “How nice!” Whatever I thought that meeting was going to be, I was absolutely unprepared for what happened. Words still defy me as I think and try to articulate the fervency, the urgency, the earnestness of that time of prayer. There was power in their prayers, and consequently, I am convinced when I stood to preach I stood in that power.
John describes two witnesses who not only had power to preach but also to pray, shutting the heavens so that it would not rain. James taught that we all possess the same power that Elijah did when we pray. I must confess that I do not always experience that power, but I have seen it on occasion. It was unforgettable. Prayer was no so much a form as it was a force. I see that in Jesus’ prayer. Remember that his disciples were so impressed that they asked him to teach him to pray. He said, “When you pray, pray like this . . . “ Part of the Lord’s prayer says, “Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven.”
When the seventh angel sounded his trumpet, the inhabitants of heaven recognize that the Lord’s prayer, prayed by his people for generations has now come true. “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah and he will reign for ever and ever.” Handel picked up those words and put them into an oratorio called Messiah. One day those words will not just be a prayer or a song, but a reality. Imagine every kingdom of this earth submitting to the high King of heaven! Imagine you and I submitting every thought and action to his sovereign will. We don’t have to wait for someday. As Jim Denison says, “Make Jesus your King and not just your hobby!” Amen.
