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Muskegon SDA Church

Jason Sliger

Prayer’s Blessing

Father in heaven, we are grateful that we can come together this morning and spend some time together with you, studying your word.

And Father, as we sit here together as a church family, it is for 1 purpose, and that is to be blessed by you.

So Father, we invite your presence to be here.

He had little to no use for Christianity.

As you know, Hindus have many gods that they worship and what was another 1 to him?

However, his brother had converted to Christianity, and Krishna wanted to go visit his brother and his family.

And so he got on a bus, and he took the long trip to go and see his brother, his nieces and nephews, and his sister-in-law.

And as they visited together, they had a great time spending time together and Krishna's brother was a good Christian.

He would gather his family together every morning and they would have family worship and he invited his brother to enter into that time of worship and Because it was family.

He didn't want to offend his brother, so Krishna joined them for family worship every morning during his visit.

The end of his visit came and it was time for him to get back on that bus and go on that long trip back home.

And the rest of the family went to the bus station with him to see him off.

There was a crowd of people there, a family that came to say goodbye to Krishna.

Just before he stepped on the bus to head back home, his 10-year-old niece slipped her hand in her uncle's hand and she said, Uncle Krishna, I want to pray for you.

He didn't want to offend his little niece, so he said, okay.

And her prayer went something like this, dear Lord, in the name of Jesus, please keep my uncle Krishna safe, amen.

Krishna didn't think too much about the prayer.

He said goodbye, jumped on the bus and headed home.

The trip back home took him through some of the mountainous regions in the area where he lived.

They would go over these high mountain passes on their way home.

And while they were traveling back, Krishna bumping along in the road in the back of the bus, all of a sudden he heard this sound of horns blaring, brakes screeching, and then before he knew it, the bus went off the side of the cliff.

It began to tumble end over end as it went down the side of that cliff.

Bags and people were flying everywhere inside of the bus.

And with an explosive force, the bus landed at the bottom of the valley and everything went silent.

Krishna looked around at the mangled mess all around him.

And as he laid there in that mess of humanity, he almost heard, it was almost like he heard an audible voice, the voice of his 10-year-old niece, dear Lord, in the name of Jesus, please keep my uncle Krishna safe.

As he laid there in that mess, He said, who is this Jesus that my niece and my brother pray to?

I think in eternity we'll find out the impact of that little prayer by that 10 year old girl.

But prayer is pretty powerful stuff, wouldn't you say?

I'm reminded of a passage, the first time I read this text, it thrilled my heart.

I can still remember that time I read it.

Jeremiah chapter 33 and verse 3, it's an easy 1 to remember.

Call unto me and I will answer thee and show thee what?

Great and mighty things which thou knowest not.

God is...it's almost like God is inviting us.

I will not turn a deaf ear to your prayers.

Now that's, of course, understanding what we studied last time we were together, where we clear the airways so that we can have communion together with God, removing our selfishness, asking for forgiveness, being willing to forgive others.

Once we've removed those roadblocks and those obstacles, the Bible tells us that God will answer.

He will hear the prayers of those of his children.

He wants to answer them and he wants to show us great things that we know nothing of.

Many times I have prayed this prayer in my prayer time.

Lord, show me great and mighty things from your word in my time together with you this morning.

Ministry of Healing, page 509, says this.

We do not value the power and efficacy of prayer as we should.

Prayer and faith will do what no power on earth can accomplish.

Faith will do what no power on this earth can accomplish.

This is something that we need to be exercising more in our spiritual journey.

Teach us to pray is what the disciples asked Jesus.

And we ought to be praying the same thing and asking that same request of Jesus.

There is great power that is invested in that prayer closet together with God each morning.

In the book Great Controversy, page 525, she says, it is a part of God's plan to grant to us in answer to the prayer of faith, that which he would not bestow, did we not thus ask?

She's basically saying, listen, that when we ask, God will give us those things that we ask for if it's according to his will, but if we had not asked for those things, he would not have bestowed them upon us.

Any parent knows the needs of their children before, oftentimes before the children even know that need.

And God knows the needs of his children, but he wants us to ask, and as we ask, he will bestow upon us the requests that we make.

When does, what has to happen before the giving takes place?

The asking, there needs to be something that goes up, the request that goes up, opens up God's ability to answer and give what is being besought.

He goes on, he also says in James chapter 4, verse 2, you have not because you what?

Now I don't think I'm alone in this 1 where we sometimes neglect the prayer closet, where we don't spend as much time with God as we know we ought.

We say a quick hasty prayer before we shoot off into the day and then we have that moment of prayer in the evening if we're lucky before we go to bed.

But there's great power in that prayer chamber together with God.

And this morning I wanna share with you just 2 quick blessings in our time together.

There are 2 blessings, there are many blessings, many, many, many blessings that come from prayer.

I don't, you know, we can't give you an exhaustive list of this, but there are 2 things that I wanna share with you this morning, 1 that blesses you and 1 that blesses other people when we engage in this beautiful gift that God has given to us as his children, the ability to communicate with God.

To begin with, I'd like you to turn with me in your Bibles to Psalms chapter 51.

The first thing I would like to propose to you that comes as a blessing from prayer is that prayer lifts our burdens.

How many of you had burdens this past week?

Now don't answer this 1, but how many of you came in this morning with burdens?

You know, sometimes we have more in common with Christian from Pilgrim's Progress than we ought.

You remember the story of Pilgrim's Progress?

Great story, great narrative of the Christian experience of how we make the journey from this world into the celestial city or the kingdom of heaven.

And the story goes that there's this man, Christian, who's leaving the city of destruction behind on a journey towards the celestial city.

And it's a great allegory of the Christian experience.

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Prayer’s Blessing

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