Don’t you just love it when you are sitting in church, expecting to hear from God personally, and then it feels like the pastor is talking directly from God to you?
Tonight's service at Watts Chapel Baptist church (Crab Orchard, KY)was all about the powerful prayer that Elijah prayed in 1 Kings chapter 17. The widow whom Elijah had been staying with had discovered her son was dead. She cried to Elijah “What do you have against me, man of God? Did you come to remind me of my sins and kill my son?” Elijah takes her dead son from him (notice that doing this would have made Elijah ceremonially unclean in that day and he would be much of an outcast for a period of uncleanliness) and took the boy to his own bed, laid him out and stretched himself atop the boy praying for God to restore his soul. Imagine that. Nowhere in the bible before this has it stated that any individual had ever prayed such a bold prayer. Elijah KNEW that God could answer and he persisted until God did. Three times Elijah stretched himself out and prayed to God.
The “P’s” of Prayer given to us tonight were:
The Place of Prayer (meaning where you pray at)
Your Pace of Prayer (Praying on a regular basis, not just during crisis)
Your Posture of Prayer (Not physical posture as Elijah, but spiritually humble)
Boldness of Prayer: (Praying a prayer even if there is no prescience for it.)
Purpose of Prayer: Remembering that it is not just to say what we want and get it off our chests, it is communicating with God in expectation that He is able to do greater than we can even think to ask.
Lastly, and this was not given to my pastor, but I think God meant me to tell it to him was Participation of prayer.
This is the first time sine I have been baptized that something has compelled me so much that I could NOT not go forward during the alter call. Many times I have felt God nudging me down the aisle, but this time he pushed me. God spoke to me during the sermon and told me that when I pray for someone to know Jesus as their Savior, He may ask me to be the one to tell them the Way, and that I should participate in my own prayer. I came forward tonight, told Bro. Dan what God had laid on my heart and asked him and the entire church to pray that I could have boldness as to not be scared or nervous as I all too often get in any potentially confrontational situation. Please pray for me to have boldness and a calm heart when God chooses me for an assignment.
On a side note, I know that I am on a fast from Facebook in preparation of our upcoming Revival at Watts Chapel (starting Sun. March 13th at 11-12 am, that night at 7 pm and then each night until Wed. at 7 and nursery is provided), but I am not technically on Facebook, I am just posting this from Windows Live Writer. 
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