Is prayer really that Important?

I think that many of us underestimate the power of prayer, we think of it being important to a point.  We think I get saved from praying, but I don’t think we realize the power of prayer.  No other time seems to point that out to me then during lent, we have forgotten what lent is all about.  People in the Church say things like I am giving up sugar, or caffeine for lent.  But Lent is not about giving up a certain type of food, it is more about giving something up for God.  We should be saying I will give up my lunch and spend that time with God, above and beyond the time I already spend with God.  But many may ask why spend more time in prayer, more time with God?  Let us not forget how much God has done for us, He has given us a chance to come and to have a personal relationship with Him.  Ephesians   1:3-5 tells us, “How we praise God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we belong to Christ.  Long ago, even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes.  His unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. And this gave him great pleasure.”

God’s plan was to bring us into His family, to save us from our sins so that He could become our Heavenly Father.  He desires for us to come to Him in prayer and get to know Him, talk to Him tell Him what is on our minds.  In our time of need we should go to God in prayer and ask Him for his help.  We read the story of King Hezekiah in 2^nd Kings chapter 19, He was a godly King who loved God and followed God’s commandments.  We see in this chapter that the Assyrian Army was camped outside of Jerusalem, their General was breathing down threats on Hezekiah, telling him that he was going to conquer him, that he had already defeated all the other nations and their gods.  He told the people to give up to turn on Hezekiah, so what did Hezekiah do?  We read in Chapter 19:14-19, “ After Hezekiah received the letter and read it, he went up to the Lord’s Temple and spread it out before the Lord.  And Hezekiah prayed this prayer before the Lord: “O Lord, God of Israel, you are enthroned between the mighty cherubim! You alone are God of all the kingdoms of the earth. You alone created the heavens and the earth.  Listen to me, O Lord, and hear! Open your eyes, O Lord, and see! Listen to Sennacherib’s words of defiance against the living God. 1“It is true, Lord, that the kings of Assyria have destroyed all these nations, just as the message says.  And they have thrown the gods of these nations into the fire and burned them. But of course the Assyrians could destroy them! They were not gods at all—only idols of wood and stone shaped by human hands.  Now, O Lord our God, rescue us from his power; then all the kingdoms of the earth will know that you alone, O Lord, are God.”

God did not let Hezekiah down He went and defeated Hezekiah’s enemies.  Let us think about this for just one minute back then Christ had not come, the Holy Spirit was not yet living in people, and God still delivered them victories.  We have the Holy Spirit living in us, the Living God living inside of us to guide and direct us, so why should we not be going to prayer first.  Why are we so reluctant to come daily to give up our time to go and pray to the God that has given us life.  I believe it is because we do not want to humble ourselves before God to give God the glory He deserves.  You see when Hezekiah Came to God in prayer He came and humbled Himself before God, He knew that he could not defeat the Assyrians, but He also knew that God could.  We need to humble ourselves before God, come to Him in prayer and give Him our battles that we cannot defeat.  I would recommend that starting this week to give up part of your time you decide how long and give it to God, come to Him in prayer, praise His name and know He is going to fight for you.