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Hillside O’Malley SDA Church

David Shin

7 Keys for Your Prayer Life While Quarantined

I want to read to you a quotation from this article.

It says, for many Americans, a typical day right now might look something like this.

Roll out of bed and check the smartphone.

Open up a laptop and file for unemployment benefits through a website.

Set up an online education portal for children out of school.

Check in with a doctor through a telemedicine portal.

Connect with a group of friends on a Zoom video chat.

What passes for normal life now happens almost entirely online.

This is the age we're living in as we are all isolated and sequestered in our own homes.

Our time online has increased dramatically and I as a minister, am finding that my time online has increased exponentially.

Zoom video conferences, video editing, video uploading, producing this video, giving Bible studies online, emails, social media, and all of these things I praise God for because what would we do without the Internet?

We would not have the ability to connect with each other in this way.

So we need to take advantage of it and I'm not diminishing the blessings at all that the internet brings us but it's a two-edged sword I'm finding and I've reflected on our spiritual experience as a community of faith as we transition into this online reality that we're all living in right now.

And I pray that we do not assume or come to the place where this becomes a replacement for our own personal Bible study and prayer life.

And the irony of what I'm doing today in our study is to use the online medium to encourage us to spend time offline, to put our phones into airplane mode and to turn off our computers and to actually open the pages of the Bible.

To open the pages of Scripture rather than going to your iPad or online because there's so many distractions.

But I would encourage you to actually go to the book, the Bible, and open it up and engage the Word of God and to spend time in prayer.

Now, in a previous study, we talked about strengthening your devotional life and today I'd like to talk about strengthening our prayer life.

Now, it sounds almost cliche-ish to say that prayer is important because we as Christians, we all assume that prayer is important.

And it's 1 of those things in Scripture that's very easy to understand, but very difficult to practice.

Now, I want to share a few quotations that have inspired me in my own prayer life and I pray that they will be a blessing to you.

This is from Roger Morneau, in prayer and supplication to God, who waits for our requests for help so that he will then have the legal right in the sight of the universe to move with power into Satan's domain and rescue his captives.

This is from the book, The Incredible Power of Prayer, page 41.

He implies that there is a great controversy raging all around us between Christ and Satan, and somehow in the dynamics of the great controversy, when we pray and ask for God's intervention in our life or the life of somebody else, that it gives God special authorization to move above and beyond what He would normally be able.

In other words, there's crown rules in the Great Controversy, and a fundamental principle that God has chosen to abide by is the freedom of choice.

So when we pray and we say, Lord, I need help, I need your intervention in my life, I need your intervention in the life of my loved 1, that gives God special access, special authorization to move above and beyond the limits of what He would normally be able.

And this is a beautiful thing about prayer.

The most powerful thing that you can do in your relationship with God is to give your consent.

And then God says, okay, I have clearance.

I have authorization now to move in this person's life.

Another quote I want to share on prayer, it's from the book on prayer, page 12.

It says, prayer is the breath of the soul.

No other means of grace can be substituted, and the health of the soul be preserved.

Prayer brings the heart into immediate contact with the wellspring of life." Notice what she implies here analogously is that the same way that we need air physically, we need prayer spiritually.

And she says that prayer is the breath of the soul, the secret of spiritual power.

Tell God what you need and thank Him for what He has done.

This is a time when there's a lot of anxiety.

And now is the time to bring those burdens, to bring those uncertainties, to bring those worries to God.

And the promise is that when we pray and bring these things before the Lord, that we will have a peace that passes all understanding.

And if there's ever a time that we as God's people should be praying, it is now.

So I wanna share with you 7 keys for strengthening your prayer life while we're going through this quarantine period.

And obviously, these principles apply even when we're out of quarantine.

This is from Psalm 5, verse 3, My voice you shall hear in the morning, O Lord, in the morning I will direct it to you, and I will look up.

There's something about the morning time.

Remember, the manna fell in the morning, and when the sun came up, the manna would melt.

In other words, there was a window of time in the morning in which you could get spiritually fed, spiritual communion, spiritual nourishment.

There is that window for us every single day, in the quiet of the morning, that we can spend time with God in prayer.

Because as the sun comes up, we'll find that the cares of this life and its responsibilities will tend to crowd out our prayer time.

Consecrate yourself to God in the morning.

Let your prayer be, take me, O Lord, as wholly Thine, I lay all my plans at Thy feet.

Abide with me, and let all my work be wrought in Thee.

Each morning consecrate yourself to God for that day.

This is an important principle to begin your day with God and to consecrate yourself to God.

Principle number 2 is to give your will to God.

Romans 8, verse 6 says, The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.

The Bible says that the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.

Now, how do we come to the place where the Lord Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, governs our life?

Many are inquiring, how am I to make the surrender of myself to God?

You desire to give yourself to Him, but you are weak in moral power, in slavery to doubt, and controlled by the habits of your life of sin.

Your promises and resolutions are like ropes of sand.

You cannot control your thoughts, your impulses, your affections.

What you need to understand is the true force of the will.

This is the governing power in the nature of man, the power of decision or of choice.

Everything depends on the right action of the will, the power of choice God has given to men.

You cannot of yourself give to God its affections.

Thus your whole nature will be brought under the control of the Spirit of Christ.

So when you get up in the morning, you consecrate yourself to God and you say, Lord, I give you my will.

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7 Keys for Your Prayer Life While Quarantined

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