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In our final week of our series “Teach Us To Pray”, Pastor Bill reminded us of two important ingredients to powerful prayer. Ingredients are very important.

Think about it for a moment. There’s this story (a true story!) where a pastor was working on a church-wide cookbook to raise support for a mission trip that the student ministry was going to take during the summer. The pastor asked his wife for a few recipes to submit for the cookbook. A couple of weeks passed and the wife had not provided the pastor with the recipes so he took matters into his own hands. He found a couple of his wife’s recipes. Looking over them he noticed that a different friend or a different family member had written each one of the recipes. Because he did not want to submit a plagiarized submission, he changed some of the ingredients on each of the recipes, signed his wife’s name to them, and submitted them to be included in the church cookbook. After the books were compiled and available for sale, a friend of the pastor’s family kindly purchased one. Later through the friend, the pastor’s wife discovered that she had submitted a recipe for a dish that was described by her friend as “terrible.”  The pastor was in big trouble. He thought he was helping his wife by not bothering her again about the recipes; but he learned several lessons in this debacle. One lesson he learned is that “ingredients” are extremely important when cooking a dish and so it is with prayer.

 2 ingredients to powerful prayer:

The first ingredient Pastor Bill gave us: We must focus on God in our times of prayer. To help us understand how important this ingredient is in our prayer life, he took us to the “Hall of Faith” in Hebrews chapter eleven and reviewed the following verse, “And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him” v6. There are two key words in this verse, “He is …”. Yes, beloved God is ABLE! Believe this to be true. God CAN … now fill in the blank! The apostle Paul wrote about this to the church in Ephesus, “Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen” Ephesians 3:20. When praying we must BELIEVE that GOD CAN!

In those times of doubt, please review the testimony of those that have gone before us in Hebrews chapter eleven and know that GOD CAN!!

The second ingredient Pastor Bill gave us: we must come to God in Jesus name. He clearly explained that “in Jesus name” is not a magic formula to manipulate God to get what we want in prayer; but he did show us in Scripture that when we approach God in prayer we must come to Him in Jesus name. Jesus said, “Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it” John 14:13-14 The key to understanding these words as Pastor Bill pointed out is the context in which they were written. Be sure to tune into this week’s podcast as we dive a little deeper into this necessary ingredient of faithful prayer.

Until then, let us remember to approach the throne of God in prayer through the Lord Jesus and believe that God CAN meet our every need! Yes, He is ABLE!!

Points to Ponder:

1. When you pray, do you really believe that God is able to answer? If not, why?
2. What’s one thing during our “Teach Us To Pray” series that has stood out to you?
3. How will what you’ve learned shape your week?

Check out the full sermon: