ARME 5: Cohutta Springs, GA - Apr 2011

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ARME Bible Camp

Paul Ratsara Sr.

The Power of Prayer

Even to be here this morning is a gift, it's an opportunity.

Help us not to take this for granted, but to be receptive, and to accept to be transformed and changed.

Lord, we know that you are already here, but what we are asking for now is that You help us to feel your holy presence among us.

That this meeting is not just 1 of the meetings, but it will be a life transforming experience for every 1 of us.

For about a few years now, I've decided not to go to a meeting or to speak when I know it will be just a meeting.

I would like every meeting to be an event that God will change my life.

I would like a meeting to be used by God to revolutionize my entire existence and for me to be closer to God.

I'm here today, I'm praying to God, and I've prayed for this meeting, that when we go out of this meeting, we will not be the same again.

We don't want just to go for meetings and We go in and we go out the same.

That is, it is a kind of entertaining ourselves spiritually.

I want every meeting to be an encounter with God.

To be the time when you meet God personally, when yourself, you feel and you sense that God has changed you, has changed me.

So I would like this meeting to be that way.

And I'm praying that the topic that we are going to study today will help us to reach that goal.

The goal is to be ready for heaven and the goal is to be instrumental in changing lives and not for this life only but for eternity.

So my topic today is key to answered prayers.

We are praying a lot and we are studying the Word of God.

So we are kind of specializing in prayer here.

So the question is, What is the key to answered prayers?

When I studied the Bible, I tried to do that from the book of Genesis to the book of Revelation, and I studied the prayers in the Bible and I realized that most of the prayers they were answered by God positively.

Go and list all the prayers in the Bible, from the book of Genesis to the book of Revelation.

What you will see is a record of answered prayers, only few exceptions.

You can count them in the Old Testament and in the New Testament.

David, for example, he had 1, at least 1, When he prayed for the child not to die, that was a prayer that was not answered positively.

He prayed also for him to build a temple.

And God said, no, you will be part of it, but you just gather the material for it.

And then you go to the Old New Testament.

You see, Paul, he asked, and God said, no, for the thorn in the flesh, stop asking.

So those are the few, few negative answers.

But if you go through the Bible, you will see that most of the prayers were answered by God positively.

Because when we think of the reality, I don't know about you, but generally speaking, It is kind of the opposite.

It is like prayer, this 1 no, this 1 no, this 1, this is yes.

And then We are not used to have many yeses.

If you have just few, then we keep on repeating that.

It's good, but it should be the opposite.

Very few no answers, And most of our prayers will be answered positively.

I think this is the missing ingredient in our personal, our spiritual life and as a church.

I don't know How many prayers have been offered and not been answered?

We have not, only God knows how many prayers.

But I can guess so many prayers were answered, not answered positively.

Is it that God has changed his mind to say that in the past in the Bible I used to answer a lot positively, but these days I've changed my mind.

I make it Hard for you 21st century people.

But for the Bible in the Old Testament and the New Testament, it was easier to get a yes answer.

I think you agree with me that that is not true.

So my topic this morning is to share with you my humble findings.

I've been wrestling with this for a few years and studying the Bible and studying the spirit of prophecy on my knees, studying, trying to understand because I said to myself if I know this very key, if I know that most of my prayers will be answered, then I will be different.

In Psalm, As I said, Psalm 65 verse 2, all you who hear prayer to all flesh will come.

You know, God in the Bible, God chooses names and Every choice conveys a message.

So God calls himself a God who hears prayer.

He wants us to know that with God, God, He likes to answer our prayers.

We know that we really want to answer the request, to grant the request of our children.

And when we say God is our Father, it is just logical that in his heart he wants to answer our prayers.

He said, O you who hear prayer to all flesh will come.

And Jesus, Jesus said in John chapter 11 and verse 41 and 42, and Jesus lift up his eyes and said, Father I thank you that you have heard me, and I know that you always hear me.

But because of the people who are standing by, I said this, that they may believe that you sent me." So Jesus Christ said, I know that you always hear me.

I'm praying today, I'm saying this not because of me, but because of these people around here.

So in his relationship with God, with his father, it is so clear that his prayers were answered.

And even the 1 in Gethsemane, If you analyze it, it was not a denial because he knew that that was the plan of God for him, plan of the Father for him to die.

In John chapter, 1 John chapter 5 verse 14, 14 and 15, what is then the key?

I read, this is the confidence we have in approaching God.

If we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.

And if we know that he hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have what we asked of him.

If we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have what we ask of Him according to the will of God.

For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of His will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding.

So we can get a yes answer if our Prayer is according to the will of God.

And when we analyze the prayers in the Bible, they don't say at the end of the prayer, praying and then we ask this, grant this if it is your will.

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The Power of Prayer

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