Prayers To Be Reckoned With

My . . . prayer to God . . . is that they may be saved.

Romans 10:1

By intercessory prayer,” wrote Oswald Chambers, “we can hold off Satan from other lives and give the Holy Ghost a chance with them.”

A woman in Colorado told of a daughter who had been deeply ensnared in demonism, witchcraft, and the occult. “When she came back to the Lord,” said the woman, “she credited my prayers and those of my friends. ‘I didn’t have a chance against your prayers, Mom,’ she told me.”

J. Sidlow Baxter points out that our loved ones may “spurn our appeals, reject our message, oppose our arguments, despise our persons, but they are helpless against our prayers.”

Are you heavy-hearted because your child is away from the Lord? Your spouse? Your parents? Are you burdened for relatives or friends who don’t know Christ? James said the prayer of a righteous person is “something powerful to be reckoned with” (James 5:16 MSG).

If you don’t know what to pray, try turning the first verses of Psalm 40 into a prayer: “Lord, please pull my friend from the miry clay. Set his feet on a rock, and put a song of praise in his mouth.” It may take awhile, but keep on storming heaven. After all, someone once prayed like that for you.