Study in Prayer - February 1 - The Power of Praise pt 1

Scripture of the Day:   

Acts 20:36

“When Paul had finished speaking, he knelt down with all of them and prayed.”

The Power of Praise pt 1

When you praise God, especially when you sing praises to Him, things will begin to change. They may be dramatic changes that make you say, “WOW!” But, more often than not, it is the little things that begin to change. Small things that most people are not even aware of -  unless you are looking at them spiritually instead of in the natural.

If you are truly in tune with God (and the only way you can be in tune with God is THROUGH His Word and spending time in prayer), YOU will begin to pick up on the little, subtle changes that are beginning to change.

But, what about those situations when there is an immediate need for God’s Presence to be on the scene? An immediate need where, if God does not do something NOW – there may not be a tomorrow?  

Let me give you an example of how Praising God change bring swift changes to your situation, whatever that may be…

In 2 Chronicles chapter 20, King Jehoshaphat and Judah went out to fight their enemy, the combined armies of the Ammonites, Moabites and the people of Mount Seir. These combined forces had banded together to destroy Judah. 

In the natural, Judah had no chance against these combined enemy forces. Things were looking pretty grim in the natural.

It’s amazing to me that almost everyone, when their back is against the wall and they have exhausted all of their ideas on how to fix any particular problem, only THEN do they turn to God and ask for His help. If we would just reverse this process, things would always go so much easier…

Well, in this situation, what did the king of Judah do?  He called for a prayer meeting. Praise God! At least he still had enough sense to do that!  Instead of “run for the hills, every man for himself,” he said, “Let’s run to God and ask for His help in this situation.” Praise God, Amen!

Well, the Holy Spirit moved on a young man who then stood up and began to prophesize. To save time, I will not read all of the verses here. To summarize what was prophesized, was, that the Lord told the people they have nothing to fear. (That was a shock to some of them standing there, I’m sure…).

They were told, “To go out to the battle, but it is not your battle, it is the Lord’s battle.”

The next morning, they all woke up and started to put themselves in battle formation to go out and fight the enemy. But instead of putting their best soldiers (in the natural at least), they put the choir out front.

How do you think those choir members felt?  “What? You want us to go out in front? With no weapons? No training? You just want us to walk about there and start singing?”  I’m sure those thoughts were running through their minds…

But let’s look at what happened…

They sang and praised God as they were going forth. The ministered to the Lord and sang praises to Him right in the faces of the enemy! This is just like Paul and Silas singing in prison, amen!  But look at what happened…

As the choir was singing “Praise the Lord, for His Mercy endures forever…” (and notice, there are no other verses indicated here. To me, that says they sang that one verse over and over and over. That tells us they were FOCUSED on what they needed and WHO they were Praising and WHO they were expecting to help them. Amen)!

So, what happened as a result of PRAISE?

The enemy armies began to fight amongst themselves!  They started to attack each other! 

As Judah’s army crested the hill and prepared to engage in battle, all they could see, as far as they could see – were dead bodies! The enemies had fought each other! Praise God (excuse the pun)! Amen!

Judah then went in on a mop up operation and just gathered all the spoils that were left behind! Amen!

That is what will happen to YOUR enemies that YOU are facing – IF you will start Praising God in our situation.

I want to pray for you right now…

Until next time, this is Pastor Bob Thibodeau reminding you from 1 Thessalonians 5:17 in the Living Bible to “Always Keep on Praying!”  Be blessed in all that you do!

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