Details

Written by Lynne Hammond

Most of us, as pray-ers, learned long ago to pray for the Lord to send laborers into the harvest field of lost humanity. We know that Jesus told us to pray that way, and we do so faithfully.

That’s wonderful. But we must ask ourselves this: do we also go and penetrate the darkness with our light? In addition to asking for laborers, do we become laborers ourselves by daily reaching out to hurting people with the love of God?

Those are questions we need to answer because we can’t separate our praying from our doing. It is not only our lips but our lives that pray. Therefore, we will never pray any better or any higher than we live.

Prayer isn’t just composed of words. Real prayer is the outflow of our unionwith God. The most powerful kind of prayer is that which flows from a heart that is beating with His heartbeat. It comes when our desires are so entwined with His will that our prayers come straight from Him.

Fellowship is the key to that kind of union with God. And there are three ways to engage in it. One is by reading and meditating the Word. The second is by worshipping and communing with the Lord in prayer. The third is through obedience.

Most praying people don’t think about obedience as fellowshipping with God, but it is. And it is vitally important.

More than just an outward action, obedience brings us into intimacy with God as nothing else can. It helps us learn things about our heavenly Father that we can learn no other way.

That’s especially true when it comes to praying for Him to send laborers into the harvest. If we pray without obeying His command to go into all the world and take the Gospel to every creature, our prayers will be superficial. Only when we begin to reach out with the love of God to the lost people around us will we really begin to love them as He does. Only when we take His light to those in darkness that we will truly understand our Father’s heart.

Scripture Reading: Romans 10:11 – 15
Source: Devotions for the Praying Heart by Lynne Hammond.
Excerpt permission granted by Lynne Hammond Ministries