Sunday, December 11, 2016

St. Louis Amigan - December 2016: The Power of Prayer

 
They said that Trump followers would riot and destroy when their man lost the election. They vilified, slandered and mocked. All the while it was they who were making plans for riot and destruction, and not the victims of their lies.

The victims of their lies were fasting and praying and seeking God’s mercy and grace upon this once greatest of nations.
And, Oh, the power of prayer!
Nations in the Muslim world are now beginning to read the, very Christian, Isaiahic Commission blog. For many long years Christian people have been praying for revival to hit the Muslim lands, but could find no way of making headway other than battering the doors of Heaven, beseeching God through the power of prayer.
Years ago, in the American Midwest, there was a powerfully virulent Atheist and a quiet, meek, young woman. Terrified of witnessing to him, she resorted to fervent, incessant prayer. The woman was Tonia Adams; the Atheist was me.
In the arenas of the ancient Roman Empire, unarmed, facing gladiators and wild, ravenous beasts, Christians in their droves resorted to worship and to praise and to prayer. Years later, Emperor Constantine ended the Roman persecutions of the faithful and joined them in their faith.
God is moved by the power of prayer.
He is moved by it because by it believers are depending totally and completely on Him, not using it as a “just in case” measure, but as their only resort. Recognizing no power in themselves, they seek the power of God. The power of God is put on display through the power of prayer.
In early 2013, a political ad was aired by a small Christian television station in the American Midwest. They were seeking a change of regime in the City of the Arch.
From that day till this that regime has sought the destruction of the organization behind that ad. They have even declared it illegal to stop on the street in front of that Christian church and ministry, seeking to choke off the lifeblood of the donations that keep it going, and they vilify and slander and mock, falsely accusing and spreading the filth of blame while they execute wickedness themselves, seeking to leave the desperate in the wind and the snow and the ice and the rain.
God, though is more powerful than that. By God moving in the minds and hearts of those determined for justice and for truth, the head of that regime stands exposed as culpable in the cover-up of the murder of an unarmed civilian by an out of control police officer. His days of power are numbered, for God has numbered them, and his sought for outlet into the Federal regime is cut offagain, through the power of prayer.
The regime he sought to join will not be because people in their millions prayed and God responded by turning the presidential election of 2016 on its head in response to the reverberations of the din of the prayers of millions around the world praying for mercy and grace to be bestowed upon a nation.
The evil man conceives wickedness and gives birth to falsehood. He makes a pit, digging it, and falls into the pit he has made. His mischief turns, and his violence comes on his own head. i The doors which once beckoned now disappear and his prison winds up without walls.
They have bleached all dignity from their own lives, and innocence is a foreign language to the ears of their mind. But evil is not foreign to my mind, for that is what I was before God, by the prayers of the innocent, conquered my mind.
It is by the power of prayer that God does these things, and even those swept up in the violence of their own rebellion and sin can reach out their hands to him and be washed and cleansed within. I was there; now I’m here.
Even the diabolical madman can be washed and cleansed, should he turn and seek the Creator of his soul. Should he do so, it would have been through the power of prayer.
There are stories of one such who would murder and devour children. After being caught, convicted, and imprisoned for his crimes, it is said that he turned and faced his Savior and became clean, before being murdered himself in the performance of his duties while prison-bound.
People, in general, do not like hearing such stories. Those stories slam up against the public sense of justice. But the public sense of justice is based upon a population of those, the large majority of whom, have not faced their own culpability for sin.
They think themselves well though they are bound for hell, and their “justice” is based on themselves and not on God. They think themselves good when God is the source of good, and not them.
God is the source of good. He is the only source of good.
This concept is vilified, and slandered and mocked by those who think that people are the source of God, but this is a nonsense that simply cannot be, for we are not the source of all we see.
Yes, friends. All that we see has a source, and that source is not you and me.
Each of us was born. We were born out of the flesh of those preexistent to us, so we cannot be the source of all we see. All that we see has a source that came before we were caused to be. For those who seek the truth, this is easy enough to see.
Think on this (you know it to be true by your own experience and innate logic): There is not one thing that causes itself to come to be.
Not one.
It does not happen. By simple, elementary logic, it cannot happen. There is no argument against this (except from those insane with their own sense of self-godhood).
How, then, does anything happen to be?
It happens because there is One who has being, without having begun to have being; who exists without having begun to exist. We know this because it is the only logical and sensible solution to the problem of existence in general. Material existence itself does not solve this because all verifiable scientific evidence screams that material existence began to exist. Because material existence began to exist, it cannot have caused itself to be. It cannot have caused itself to begin to exist.
Because of this, that which has being without having begun to have being cannot be material in nature. It has to be immaterial. Another way of saying this is that it has to be spirit.
God is spirit, and those who worship Him, in spirit and truth must worship. ii
Coders should ask themselves this: How does one know if a system is programmed? Then, once you answer that question, take your answer and apply it to biological systems.
It is God that is the power behind Creation, and God that is the programmer behind it, and God that is the power behind prayer.
When you cry out to something (anything!) that is beyond the visible creation, are you not acknowledging that there is, in fact, someone there who is listening? When you cry out, so, for help, are you not, in fact acknowledging your own powerlessness?
Those who do so are not insane, but are simply acknowledging the elementary facts of simple logic that state that someone who can help, who can effectually answer such pleas, is, in fact out there, waiting for you to call. The effects of such calling are all around you, if you will but open your eyes to see. And it all comes about by the effectual use of the power of prayer!
iPsalm 7:14-16
iiJohn 4:24