I think it was in about the year 1986 or '87 that I began to notice prayer. You might say, "Are you kidding? You mean you didn't begin to pray until then?" No, I don't mean that. I prayed all my life. My mother taught me to pray. I can even remember when I was about seven years old I was walking home from the bus stop one day. That day my folks were moving from a house in the suburbs to another that was more in the country.

Anyway, I was supposed to come home from school as usual. They told me that they would meet me at the house. They said that they might be late but that I should wait for them. They had been carrying things from one house to the other that day. Well, I remember walking along the sidewalk from the bus stop. I was wondering if my folks would be there when I got there. So I prayed that God would give me a sign to show me if they would be there or not. I don't remember what the sign was; I just remember that, whatever it was, it didn't work. I guess it wasn't that important anyway, inasmuch as I would find out if they were at home in about ten minutes more of walking. It seems kind of funny now, but I am just telling you that to show you that I have been into prayer all my life.

As I was saying, it wasn't until about 1988 that prayer became really "the breath of my soul," as it says. I had been praying on a kind of "on demand" basis, but at that time it became a life and death matter with me. Not physical life and death, but surely spiritually and emotionally. I think you know what I mean.

I have found that when really big problems come into our lives we cannot "keep on keeping on" as they say. We will either get closer to the Lord or we will begin to drift further and further away from Him.

You have probably heard the old saying, "If you don't feel close to the Lord, don't forget--He hasn't moved!" To hear us talk these days though, you would think that it was God who was unreliable and unstable. It is we who are tending to be more unreliable and unstable than ever before. Of course, this is what happens when a generation gets hung up on itself. You know what I mean: Everyone else is to blame for the way that I am but me.

Well, I can remember trying to get my hands on everything that I could to read about prayer. I am exaggerating a little, but in our ABC I don't think there was much more than The ABCs of Prayer by Glenn Coon. By the way, I am so thankful for what Elder Coon's ministry meant. For a generation or more he preached about prayer. Some of you may remember Pastor Glenn Coon.

So there I was looking for something on prayer. I found some books by E. M. Bounds. He lived in the last century. Personally I believe what he has written is the best that there is anywhere on prayer. I also appreciate the writings of Andrew Murray. He, too, lived in the last century. He wrote the classic, With Christ in the School of Prayer.

So what I am saying is that there wasn't much out there about prayer ten years or so ago. But what a change has come in the last ten years. Our ABCs have whole shelves full of books on prayer. The Christian bookstores out there have more titles yet.

I get a religious book catalog now and then. Not long ago I looked up the page that carried the books on prayer. Here is one: Approaching God; How to Pray. "Are you frustrated with your prayer life? You'll gain reassurance and encouragement with this practical book that examines the hesitations that plague a healthy prayer life, explores the thorny problem of unanswered prayers, offers a basic theology of prayer, and suggests ways to discover the accessibility, honesty, and humor of authentic communication with God."

Here is another one: Prayers that Avail Much, Volume One. "Tap into the power of intercessory prayer. With more than one million copies in print, this best-selling book, complete with scriptural references, provides you with scriptural references, provides you with fifty prayers that avail much for your husband or wife, your children and their school systems, deliverance from bad habits, the president and government and many more."

Here is one: Prayer Warrior's Journal. "Deepen your communion with God with this lifetime daily prayer journal. Special prompts lead you through each day's prayers of worship, thanksgiving, confession and intercession. Best of all, the perpetual pages are 3-ring bound so you can organize your prayer routine any way you like."

And finally here is one titled, Praying with the Bible, (six volumes). "Rekindle your passion for prayer as you learn from the 'experts'. Featuring a year's worth of daily meditations, each volume in this contemporary Bible-based devotional series gives you training from biblical prayer warriors to help you gain renewed vitality in your own prayer life. Works well for individual or group use."

Now I am not saying that I do not believe that we should not read books on prayer or that it is not necessary for us to learn to pray. In fact, the disciples came to Jesus one day and asked Him, "Lord, teach us to pray." It was in answer to that question that Jesus gave to the world The Lord's Prayer.

But friends, we can't understand how to pray until we learn what prayer is, or I should say, maybe until we learn the purpose of prayer. When we have a clear understanding of what prayer is for, then it will not be too difficult to learn how to pray.

These days we want to get everything down to a kind of checklist. We have tremendous problems, and like going to the doctor, we just want to know what to do to get rid of them.

Prayer is something that people are inclined to do when their lives seem to be out of control or they need something and don't know exactly how to get it. I am not sure, but just about every major religion that I know of has its way of doing prayers. You know, of course, that the Muslims pray formally five times a day.

Before they pray they do a ceremonial washing, they have a prayer rug and, of course, they have to be praying toward Mecca. I used to live in a Muslim country, so I know what it is like to hear the call to prayer before sunup each morning, and the call to prayer at sunset each evening. When I say "call to prayer," I mean through a loudspeaker all over the community.

I remember my first few days there in Pakistan. At about four o'clock a.m. the call to prayer began and it was so loud that I just about jumped out of bed. In a few days we got so that we didn't hear it anymore.

Of course, there are those religions that use candles as prayer symbols. There are those that use bells and there are those that use prayer flags and prayer wheels. There are those who sing their prayers and those who recite prepared prayers.

There are those who kneel down when they pray. There are those who feel that they should stand when they pray. There are those who pray with their heads to the ground. There are some who cover their heads before they pray. There are those who uncover their heads before they pray.

Some people have discovered that prayer is a wonderful tool to get people to do what you want them to do. You might say they use prayer to manipulate other people.

I heard a man on the radio once offering to send people a piece of his shirt that he had prayed in if they would send him a five-dollar gift. Of course, too, there is the matter of healings. People are told to lay their hands on the radio or the television. They are told that if they can get enough faith together they can get God to do about anything for them that they want.

Of course, in this increasingly mystical age, prayer is getting to be a two-way street. More and more people are saying that God told them this or that He told them that.

Someone was telling me not long ago that they had a book that explained that we were not praising God enough in our prayers, and that if you would just praise Him enough it would give you all kinds of power.

People give God credit for all kinds of things that they have prayed for, and then are upset about the things that they are praying for when nothing seems to be happening.

I was talking to one of my friends the other day and he was telling me that he had tried to sell his house for a year now and hadn't been able to, and he wondered why God hadn't answered his prayer.

When a person's prayers are not turning out, they will often think that maybe there is some technical point that they are leaving out. A lady once asked me if we should teach our children to pray to God the Father or to Jesus. Someone else asked me to whom we should pray: The Father, the Son or the Holy Spirit. It seems that her prayers weren't turning out and she figured she must be praying to the wrong person!

Prayer had gotten to be a science in the days of Jesus. Did I say science? I meant a racket. Jesus spoke to the issue in Matthew 6. He said,

"And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

"But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

"But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him."

It is not hard to see what had happened in those days and it may well be happening again.

During World War II, the Allies in the Pacific theater used little islands, that up to that time were almost unheard of, as supply bases for the armies as they skipped across the Pacific. The natives who had never seen civilization before suddenly saw the sky filled with flying machines that brought races of people that they had never seen. These gods from the sky brought Jeeps, refrigerators, Zippo lighters, fans and weapons. They constructed buildings, control towers, and airfields.

Then as abruptly as they had come they left. The natives were amazed. They assumed that these people were from heaven. As a result the local peoples developed a new religion called the Cargo Religion. The cargo, of course, being the things that the people from the sky had brought. The cargo cult developed a religion that taught that someday in the future the cargo gods would return, and so to be ready they built models of airplanes, controls towers from rods and bamboo. All being done in preparation for the second coming of the cargo gods.

Not long afterwards the missionaries came to the islands. At first the members of the cargo cults received them gladly thinking that this was the second coming of the cargo gods. The missionaries, of course, had come to preach the gospel, but when the local people saw that there was no cargo accompanying the message they soon lost interest in what the missionaries were trying to do.

I don't think that I need to tell you that this has a lot of similarity to the mentality of many people who are awaiting the coming of the cargo gods in the 21st century. Well, not exactly the coming of the gods, but the cargo.

To many people, God is the one who you go to when you need some cargo, or if you already have some, you ask Him to upgrade you to the latest make and model.

This is one of the most materialistic generations that has every existed. I am not going to presume that it is the only one though. After all, we live in a material world. God made it this way. We are absolutely dependent on external material support for our physical survival, our food, our clothing and our shelter. Yes, we are dependent upon the Eternal for the very air that we breathe.

The only thing is that these things that God made that were to be a means to an end have become, to many, an end in themselves.

Our lives have become so commercialized that I have sometimes wondered what we are going to do when we get to heaven. This life seems to be 100% buying and selling. What kind of an existence will it be in heaven if we are not buying and selling? I really don't know.

There is no doubt that the materialism of this generation is impacting every aspect of our lives including our prayer lives. We have developed almost our own version of the Pacific Islands Cargo Cult. If you don't believe it, just do an audit of your prayer life and see what you pray about most.

The title of this sermon is "The Danger of Prayer." You might be thinking to yourself by now, "What could be the danger of prayer?" I am going to tell you, and in fact, I will prove it to you before it is all over. Remember, I said that ten years ago prayer was just so-so, but these days everyone is into prayer -- even the bad guys, so to speak. Remember, I said that almost everyone is into prayer now, but needless to say, not always for the right reason.

I clipped a piece out of the paper not long ago. The title was, "One Million Brazilians Pray Rio Will be Host of Games: An estimated one million Brazilians stood on Rio's famous Copacabana Beach Sunday and offered a 'prayer to heaven' that their country would be selected as host of the 2004 Olympic Games. The mass prayer was Rio's final effort to persuade the International Olympic Committee to choose the city as the Olympic site."

I have another clipping here. As you may know, each year Daytona Beach is the host to a Biker's Week. I think nearly a quarter of a million people flock there from all over the country. The clipping is a picture of a priest blessing a Harley-Davidson. It said the bikes were blessed after a special biker's mass and barbecue on Sunday morning. Can't say that people aren't into prayer these days!

There may have been a time in which we as Christians read the Bible more than we prayed. Now many have gone to the other extreme, and that is, they pray more than they read the Bible. You might say, "So, Pastor O'Ffill, what is wrong with that?" I will tell you.

You have heard that prayer is the opening of the heart? If prayer is the opening of the heart, then let's imagine that prayer is like opening the door to your house. You remember that Jesus said, "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock." I don't need to tell you that if we just open the door of our houses to just anyone we are putting ourselves in danger.

A few months ago there was a knock at our front door there in Orlando. It was still light and so as I went to the door I looked through the frosted glass. I could see the figure of a woman.

I opened the door wide and she said, "Hello, I am your neighbor from down the street."

When she said that I thought to myself, "I thought that I had seen all of our neighbors, but I have never seen you." So I asked her which house she lived in. She replied that she lived in the second one down the street. What could I say? I opened the door wide and invited her in. I asked her name, which I think she said was Carol.

"What can I do for you, Carol?" I asked.

She said that she had just had some company that was unexpected and she needed some cans of beer--did I have any? When she said that, a little shiver went down my back.

I said, "We are not into beer." Then sensing that something was not right, I stepped toward her and said, "Carol, I don't know what you are up to, but you had better leave."

She didn't object, but walked out and turned in the direction that she claimed to live. I waited a minute and then went out to the sidewalk. I saw her turn into the second house, but then in a moment come down the walk and go to the third house. It was then that I went to her and said, "Carol, who are you? What are you doing here? Do you have someone waiting for you at the end of the cul-de-sac? You had better leave or I will have to call the police."

She then told me that she had been walking and had gotten lost. She walked off our street and turned to the left down the street. Obviously a made-up story.

The reason that I am telling you this is that now I can see that when she said that she was my neighbor my defenses went down and I felt that I was obligated to open the door. If it had been a strange man who had said the same thing I probably would have done the same.

Though nothing came of it, I did learn a lesson. That is, in the 21st century it is not safe to just throw open the door and let anybody in.

Remember, I said that prayer is the opening of the heart. Prayer can be dangerous. It can be dangerous because we can open up our hearts without being aware of who can come in.

Let me put it to you this way. If we just open our hearts in prayer, I believe we may very well be setting ourselves up for trouble. Just as we must know who is knocking on the door of our houses, so we must know to whom in the 21st century we are opening up our hearts to in prayer. How can we know? I believe, brothers and sisters, that Scripture is the peephole that lets us know who is trying to get into our hearts when we pray.

I believe that if we pray outside the context of the revealed Word of God we must be careful about the answers to prayer that may come along.

You may think that I have lost my mind now with what I am about to say, but I don't think that it is safe to trust answered prayer. I can't believe the amount of so-called answered prayer that is out there these days. If all of the so-called answered prayers are answers from God, then our God is not a God of order but of anarchy.

Friends, to put it plainly, I believe that Satan is answering a lot of prayers these days. Why not? Prayer would be his last frontier. If like a computer virus he can infiltrate our prayer lives he will be able to hollow out our spiritual lives and truly, just as the Bible predicted, the result will be having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof.

Can't you hear the devil now? He says, "Listen, boys. Get them all praying about everything, Keep them selfish and outside the Word of God and then start answering their prayers like crazy. They will think that God is doing it and accepting them just as they are, so they will have no incentive to let Him change them."

I will never forget the time that my father-in-law heard a TV minister preaching one Sunday on the Ten Commandments. The minister was telling his congregation and his viewers that Christians should obey them. When the program was over my father-in-law sat down and wrote the pastor a letter thanking him for the sermon and asking why, inasmuch as he advocated keeping the commandments, why didn't he keep the Sabbath of the fourth commandment?

The Pastor was kind enough to reply. My dad showed me the letter. The first part of the letter gave more or less a list of the regular reasons that people give for keeping Sunday using the few first day texts of the New Testament. It was the last paragraph of the letter that was the clincher. It said, "If God wanted me to keep the Sabbath, He wouldn't be blessing me the way that He is."

I remember another lady telling me one time that the Lord had healed a back problem that she had had and that if He had wanted her to keep the Sabbath, then He wouldn't have healed her!

Another thing, brothers and sisters, we must not fall into the trap of trying to use prayer as some kind of magic. That is what the heathen do. The true purpose of prayer is not to get God to do what we want Him to do, but to receive the grace from Him to obey His will that He has already revealed to us in the Word.

When you pray have you ever said, "Thy will be done?" Of course we have. We do that and then often we sit back to see what happens next. Ladies and gentlemen, when we say in our prayers, "Thy will be done," we are in reality committing ourselves to finding out what it is and then putting our hearts into implementing it in our daily lives. We are not to pray "Thy will be done," and then sit back on our hands and do nothing. The Word says that we are to ask, then to seek and then to knock. It may sound strange, but we must be involved if we are to see the will of God done on earth as it is in heaven.

Our prayers will be largely ineffective, and in many cases, downright dangerous unless before we pray, as we pray, and after we pray we sit down with His Word and discover what God's will is in the particular thing that we are praying about.

There is another side of it though. Some people already know what the will of God is, but they are praying for just the opposite.

Our prayers are, in many cases, bouncing off the ceiling, not because we don't know what the will of God is, but because we are refusing to do it or are asking for a discount or an exemption.

A close relative of mine was about to marry a non-Christian. She told me that she had prayed about it and she was sure that it was what God wanted her to do. (Forget the text about not being joined together with non-believers -- give God a break!)

Does God hear every prayer? Yes. There is nothing that goes on on this planet or in our hearts that He doesn't know about, but the Scripture is clear that there are situations in which prayer can actually be a waste of time. Sounds unbelievable, doesn't it? Remember the texts that say if we regard iniquity in our hearts He will not hear? That means He won't do anything about our prayers if we are, as they might say, "into sin." There is another text that says our sins have separated us from God and as a result He is not paying any attention to us.

Psalm 66:18, "If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me." Isaiah 59:2, "But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear."

One day Jesus was praying, and it says in Luke 11:1 that when He was finished, His disciples came to Him and said, "Lord, teach us to pray."

I think, my friends, that probably our greatest need is to learn how to pray. I don't mean the mechanical part. When I say that our greatest need is to learn how to pray, I mean probably that our greatest need is to learn what prayer is for and what it represents. Prayer is where the Christian life begins and it is where it grows and flourishes. A person who understands what prayer is for and how it works will definitely see God. Men and women who have been great men and women of God are and always have been people who understood what prayer was all about.

I am going to read a text that Paul wrote to the Church in Thessalonica. The text is found in 2 Thesselonians 1:11,12. Listen to this:

"Wherefore also we pray always for you, that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfill all the good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power: That the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and ye in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ."

Now, I don't want to embarrass any one of us including myself, but let us compare our prayers, the ones that we usually pray with what Paul prayed about. Before we do this, I would like to call our attention to the part where it says that he prayed always. This makes me think of the text that says that we ought to pray without ceasing.

Have you ever tried to figure out what that means? Some have thought that it means that we must be talking to God all the time. Maybe it does, but have you ever thought that prayer is more than just us talking to God? It is also the Holy Spirit impressing our hearts. Remember what Jesus said that time to His disciples that they should not worry about what they would speak for it would be given them when they needed it, and the Holy Spirit would remind them of what they had learned?

I heard someone say not long ago that when the apostle Paul said that he prayed for the people all the time, it meant that he was not only talking to God about them, as we will see in a minute, but he was always tuned in to the voice of God.

I think we can understand it this way. You know that you cannot hear your favorite radio station if you are not tuned to the right frequency. You can't send a fax to someone whose fax machine is not on. This means to me that God wants us to be tuned in deep down inside the recesses of our innermost self. Not only will we be talking to Him when and as we need to, but there is another channel, if you please, that is always open for Him to talk to us.

Now I might warn you here about the word "talk to us." Don't listen for voices. I am not limiting God, but I do believe the line that God uses to speak to us may also be tapped into by the evil power, and so it is possible that the only way we can know who is impressing our minds is to test ourselves by a "thus saith the Lord."

You notice that I keep coming back to the Scripture as our only safe guide in prayer. This is because the Bible says that the Word is a Lamp unto our feet and a Light unto our path. That means that, when push comes to shove, it is not what your head tells you to do but what the Word of God tells us to do that really matters.

When we get to the place that we are always tuned to God's Channel, we will not be in as much trouble as we have been into up to now. I am not saying that we will not go through troubles and trials, but we will not be so much a part of the problem as we are now.

You may have heard it said before, and it bears saying again, that life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we react to what happens to us. God will give us all the grace there is in heaven to bear whatever test may come to us, but it is more complex and even more difficult for God, if we can say such a thing, to give us grace when we are determined to react in the wrong way.

An important purpose of the Scripture is to tell us how God wants us to react to life's trials and hardships. The real purpose of prayer then is to ask God to give us grace to obey His Word.

We waste a lot of time, if I can say such a thing, on our knees asking God to show us what His will is and what we should do in a particular situation, when the fact is that He has already told us what to do in the Bible and we have closed our eyes to it, refused to accept it or haven't discovered it yet.

Can't you see how different our lives will be as we increasingly keep tuned to His channel and so are in effect praying without ceasing? When temptations and trials come to us throughout the day He shouldn't have to get a fire ax to break down the door of our hearts, but like the virus protection program on a computer, immediately the Holy Spirit brings to our mind the danger that we are in and reminds us of what the Word tells us to do in cases like this.

Let's go back to the text again. This text tells us what we ought to be praying about, too.

2 Thesselonians 1:11,12, "Wherefore also we pray always for you, that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfill all the good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power: That the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and ye in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ."

I don't mean to make fun of us, but does this sound like the way that we usually pray? Can't we see that we are more like the Cargo Cult than we would like to admit? Are we praying that Jesus will be glorified in our lives or do we tend to pray about "things?"

We think that we have troubles. Listen to what the apostle Paul went through:

2 Corinthians 11:24-27, "Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep; In journeying often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness."

God knows our suffering. He understands our physical and material needs. Yet Jesus tells us that there is something even more that we ought to be concerned about.

Listen to these words of our Lord in Luke 12:4, 5, "And I say unto you my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him."

My friends, prayer is a dangerous thing. It is dangerous because unless we understand what it is about we can set ourselves up for a great disappointment now and in the future.

The purpose of prayer is to submit ourselves to the will of God, and the will of God is revealed to us for every situation in life in His Word. True prayer is not only talking but listening. Not listening as we sit with our hands folded in a lotus position, but listening with the Word of God in our hands and a heart open to obey His will as it is obvious in the Scripture.

True prayer must begin and end with the Word of God as revealed to us in the Holy Scripture. As we really understand the great realities of the Word of God we will find ourselves praying less and less for the trivial cargo of the things of this life, and we will more and more find our hearts reaching out, hungering and thirsting after righteousness, and as Paul said, the burden of our lives will be that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in our own lives and in the church according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

True prayer will be asking for what we already know to be His will. It is lining up with God.

A person may ask, "If God already knows what I need, then why do I need to ask Him?"

We are to ask because that is the way that it works. He tells us to ask. You may remember the text that says, "Ask and it shall be given you, seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened to you." All over the place in Scripture God tells us to ask Him. Of course, as we have been saying, we are to ask not as adversaries but on His side.

Prayer is a necessity because God has given us a free will. A bird or a rabbit doesn't have to pray because they don't have the power of choice. God has given us the greatest of all gifts in the creation and that is the power of choice, so then to appreciate the grace of God we must ask.

I am sorry that in the 21st century we are trivializing prayer. We are praying about the things that we are into, and when a generation is selfish and into cargo, that is what we will be praying about.

Please don't be upset with what I am saying. I have not arrived in my prayers, but I recognize that there is much to be learned and I want the Lord to teach me to pray.

I mentioned earlier that there are a lot of books these days on prayer. There are a lot of stories out there about answers to prayer, but have you noticed that a large percentage of the stories are about answers to prayer that have to do largely about saving our skin, so to speak. We need to give the same weight--did I say the same weight?--We need to get even more excited when we hear of souls who are being saved as a answer to prayer as we are when we hear that someone received exactly $86.35 the day that they needed it to pay a bill. Can't you see where I am coming from?

I hope that as you are listening to this you are not discouraged. By now someone may be saying, "Well, if I have to pray a certain way, I might as well give up." My friend, don't give up, but we should definitely get smart.

It is like the old story about the person who comes in the house and finds the bathtub running over. As the story goes, they run and get a bucket and a mop and begin desperately to mop up the water. Of course, the punch line is that the first thing to do in cases like that is to turn off the faucet.

This is all the Bible is calling on us to do; this is all that Jesus is begging us to do. He wants us to put first things first. To seek first the Kingdom of Heaven and His righteousness, and if we do, then we can pray about anything else after that.

Let me illustrate with something from close to home, and I apologize for this illustration. It is too close to home.

Have you noticed that when we are together in church or prayer meeting or a small group and the time comes to pray together, the leader will ask if there are any requests for prayer.

I want you to think about what the requests usually are about. Would I be wrong to say that they are usually about someone who is sick?

You might say, "What is wrong with praying for the sick?" You might say, "Give me a break! You are now saying that we shouldn't pray for the sick?" Hang on for a minute; don't bail out of this. Remember we only are trying to learn how to pray.

Other requests will have to do with financial difficulties. I remember a person saying, "I have a son. He is not in the church. He is out of work. Please pray that he will find work."

Now here comes the punch line. A while back I was in a meeting where we were going over these very things that I am talking about now. I had just asked if there were any requests for special prayer. Someone sure enough requested prayer for a loved one who was sick, but then someone raised their hand and added something else. When I heard what the person said, I said, "That is it. There is the answer." The person said, "As we pray for this sick person, we should also pray that the Lord will use this sickness to bring the person closer to Him." There it is! Now that makes sense to me. That is what we might call a win-win situation.

Did you get it? Now let's go back to the case of the lady whose son was not a Christian and was out of work. Shall we pray that he get work? The Lord knows that he needs to provide for his family, but this son has a bigger problem than being out of work. This person is in danger of not being saved when Jesus comes. This person doesn't only need money, he needs salvation.

So wouldn't a better prayer be, "Lord, my son is out of work. You know that he needs to provide for his family, but Lord, he needs you more than he needs to eat. So Father, we want you do put first things first. Whatever it takes, Lord, to bring him to realize his need of you. You promised that you would not allow us to be tested to the point where the test would do us in, but Lord, go ahead and test my boy. Bring him to you through this trial, if it is at all possible."

What do you think of that? Can't you see how this kind of prayer puts us squarely on the side of Jesus who lives ever to make intercession for us? We tend to be more upset about losing our body and the material things of this life than we do to lose our souls. When we do this we are not praying in harmony with the will of God.

Back to the case of praying for the sick. You know sickness can do a lot to heal. You might say, "Now that is a contradiction of terms. How can sickness heal?" I have found that sickness, and even death, can heal family relationships if we put ourselves in the hands of God. Many times bitterness and resentment build up in a family. A time of crisis in sickness, and even in death, can do something to heal the family that may never happen when things are just going along in a normal fashion.

Wouldn't the heart of God be happy, when our loved ones are sick and we are as families walking through the valley of the shadow of death, if He could hear along with our prayers for healing for our loved ones and friends, prayers for reconciliation and prayers for the forgiveness of sin?

I don't care how hard you try--I don't care how healthy a lifestyle you live--the fact is that the end of this life is about getting sick and dying. When a person is aware of that, then it will change the priorities of our prayers completely. Instead of praying for the flesh and its support groups we will be truly, as Jesus asked us to do, buying stock in heaven; laying up our treasures where death and sickness cannot touch them. Ladies and gentlemen, I am talking about the development of our characters.

You have heard about personality groups. You have heard about right brain/left brain, but how much have you heard or thought lately about the development of character? Character is not who we are; it is what we are.

The purpose of prayer is to agree with God that the most important thing in this life is as the apostle Paul prayed there in the text, 2 Thessalonians 1:11,12:

"Wherefore also we pray always for you, that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfill all the good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power: That the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and ye in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ."

I object to what the devil is doing with prayer these days. They are praying before prize fights, they are praying before rock concerts, they are praying before ball games; people are praying as they fool around with someone else's spouse.

The devil wants to corrupt our prayer lives, he wants us to pray for trivial things, he wants us to get into praying for cargo.

But Jesus calls us to pray. He calls us to pray, "Thy will be done." It is the prayer of commitment; it is the prayer that opens up the heart to God so that the Holy Spirit can effectively download the mind of Christ into our hearts. Way down deep. The effect is that we are always praying.